Elijah: Fire From Heaven

00:00:00 Speaker 1: Previously on the chosen people. 00:00:04 Speaker 2: Ugh, there is one man, Makaiah, son of Imla, But I hate him, hate him. 00:00:16 Speaker 3: He never prophesies good concerning me, only evil. 00:00:23 Speaker 4: Very well, hear ye, hear ye. I saw all israels scattered on the mountains like sheep with no shepherd, and Lo, Yahweh himself did speak saying, these have no master. Let them return to their homes in peace. 00:00:40 Speaker 5: Ah, What did I tell you, Jehosephat His proclamations are never good, always evil. 00:00:48 Speaker 4: The Lord has put a lying spirit in the mouths of all these prophets of yours. Yahweh has decreed your. 00:00:57 Speaker 3: Ruin insolent wealth. 00:01:00 Speaker 6: Tell me which way did the spirit of Yahweh go when he left me? 00:01:04 Speaker 3: It will speak to you if you return in victory. God has not spoken through me. 00:01:11 Speaker 4: Mark my words, the only one, the Victorias and my story. 00:01:17 Speaker 7: If ye wa not, oh the lime, it won't belong now before the dogs come. 00:01:31 Speaker 8: I suppose I mourn him as one would a lost sandal less, sorrowful, more perturbed that now I have to find a new one. 00:01:46 Speaker 9: When the fire falls. It doesn't wait for permission. Shell, Oh, my friends, from here in the holy land of Israel i'm l extein with the international Fellowship of Christians and Jews, and welcome to the Chosen People. What makes a person run to a god that cannot answer? 00:02:03 Speaker 3: Today? 00:02:03 Speaker 9: In Two Kings, Chapter one, we meet a man unraveling, a son of royalty, a product of fear, and a king who fell not in battle but through a window. His wounds were more than physical. They came from a deeper place, from failure and shame and defiance. Azia is about to ask the wrong question to the wrong God, and what he receives in return is not silence but fire. 00:02:33 Speaker 1: A Hsiah had never been meant to wear the crown, not really. It was supposed to go to one of Ahab's stronger sons, the ones with their father's wits and their mother's teeth. But war had taken them, and disease had claimed others, and so the crown of Israel had passed to him, not by merit, not by strength, but by the old cruel lottery of survival. A Hussaiah was not his father. He had none of Ahab's determination, none of his wit. He certainly had none of Jezebel's ruthless cunning. And worst of all, he knew it. The people whispered it in the markets. His own servants muttered it when they thought he couldn't hear. His enemies Syria Moab Judah saw Israel's new king and sharpened their swords. And now he had fallen through the lattice of his own upper room, like an idiot, like a drunken court jester. The wounds were deep. He lay on his bed, sweat pulling at his collar bone. His ribs are ruined mess beneath the bandages, every breath was a labour. He lay there, whimpering commands at his servants. 00:04:02 Speaker 5: Kill God to ekerin as bielsabub if, if I will recover. 00:04:13 Speaker 10: My lord, should we not inquire of y'all. 00:04:19 Speaker 5: Do not speak that name to. 00:04:22 Speaker 1: Me Yahoe, the god of his ancestors, the god of the prophets, the god who had hounded his father to the grave. He could not bow to that God, even in his pathetic state, because to do so would be to admit what everyone already whispered, that his kingdom was a dying ember, that he ruled only by the lingering fumes of his mother's terror and his father's blood. Go God, Now they left, The door slammed behind them. Ahr's Eya lay back, panting, swallowing the taste of bile and dread. The messengers rode hard for Akron, dust rising in the torchlight. The road stretched ahead, winding through the hills, silent but for the whisper of wind through the trees. Suddenly they saw him, not emerging from the darkness, not stepping onto the road, just there. Her figure rooted to the earth, cloak heavy around his shoulders, the staff in his hand planted like an anchor. There could be no mistake. It was Elijah, the prophet of Fire. Beside him stood his apprentice, Elisha, arms crossed, studying the approaching riders like a gambler sizing up a rigged game. But it was the third figure that made the air crackle. 00:06:01 Speaker 3: He stood just. 00:06:02 Speaker 1: Behind Elijah, his form shimmering as if the very air around him bent in reverence. A man, but not a man. When he moved, the dust did not stir beneath his feet. Elijah sighed, rubbing his temple like a man enduring a familiar headache. 00:06:24 Speaker 3: You always show up when things are about will give incresting. 00:06:29 Speaker 6: And yet you still act surprised. 00:06:33 Speaker 3: Not surprised, just exhausted. 00:06:39 Speaker 6: So are we just going to not talk about the glowing. 00:06:43 Speaker 3: Man or show some respect? Boy is not man. He is hello him of the Lord, an ancient one, the one who speaks for Yahweh himself. 00:06:54 Speaker 1: Elishah raised an eyebrow. The angel smirked, he will under stand in time. Elijah exhaled through his nose. There was a weight in those words, a current beneath them that Elijah could not yet feel. 00:07:11 Speaker 6: Well, Master, I can see where you get your affection for the cryptic. 00:07:16 Speaker 1: Elijah ignored him. He turned to the angel with a resigned expression. 00:07:22 Speaker 3: My time is nearlya isn't it. 00:07:26 Speaker 1: The Angel did not answer, He did not need to. 00:07:31 Speaker 3: I assume I don't get a say in the matter. You never did quit. 00:07:36 Speaker 6: It's what are you two talking, Elijah? It is time for one last assignment. Ahaziah has forsaken the covenant. You must put the fear of the Lord in him and in those who serve him. Tell him of the judgment to come. 00:07:54 Speaker 1: Elijah's expression was unreadable, but for the first time, Elijah caught something beneath the iron, something deep, something final. The realization hit like a blade between the ribs. His master was leaving soon. The angel smiled warmly at the prophets, and then light a flash that tore through the air like a blade of pure radiance, And then he was gone. In his place, a mighty wind rushed, rippling towards the king's incoming messengers. Elijah exhaled, blinking against the after image burned into his sight. 00:08:38 Speaker 3: What a dramatic exit seems excessive? Don't you think no subtlety? 00:08:43 Speaker 1: Elijah ignored his apprentice. His jaw was set, his eyes already locked on the messengers, who sat frozen in their saddles, gripping their reins as if they might keep them tethered to reality. 00:08:57 Speaker 3: Elijah shouted at them, Tell me, is it because there is no God in Israel that you fools got to inquire a bel zabab? The leader flinched. We were ordered. God give me that we are just. Are we commands or storm? You know the Lord Moses. If you listen to listen to me, speak from the Lord himself, you will not reach Akron, and your king will not rise from his bed. He will die. The wind rose. 00:09:35 Speaker 1: Elisha watched the messengers shudder, watch the way their hands trembled on the reins. The messengers did not argue. They turned their horses and rode back the way they came. Elishah searched a look at his master. For a long while, it looked as though a weight were slowly falling from his chest. 00:09:57 Speaker 3: You're really going, aren't you? 00:10:00 Speaker 1: Elijah did not answer. The messengers returned pale, hollow eyed, looking as if they had glimpsed something they were never meant to see. A Hussiah forced himself upright pains, screaming through his ribs. 00:10:20 Speaker 10: Well, my lord, we never reached Akron. What a man of prophet intercepted us? 00:10:29 Speaker 3: A prophet? 00:10:31 Speaker 10: Well, three prophets, then two strangely, they said that you will not rise from your bed, that you will die. 00:10:43 Speaker 1: The room went silent. A Jusiah's breath was ragged, fury simmering just beneath the surface. He clenched his jaw. 00:10:53 Speaker 3: Elijah, a name like an old wound, reopened. 00:11:00 Speaker 1: His father's ghost lurked at the edges of the room. Elijah, the storm that Ahab could never outrun, the prophet who defied kings and called down fire, the executioner of his mother's priests, A Hsiah took a breath, then rage. 00:11:22 Speaker 5: Just send men, a battalion, fifty soldiers, bring him to me. Now. 00:11:30 Speaker 1: The messenger bowed, retreating. A Husaiah sat in the thick silence, his ribs aching his pulse, a thud, thud, thud of fury. Elijah had delivered his verdict. A Hussiah would deliver his. 00:11:49 Speaker 3: King. 00:11:49 Speaker 1: A Hussiah's men came like thunder. Elijah stood at the crest of the hill, unmoving, unblinking, his cloak coiling in the wind like a living thing. Below him, Elisha shifted his weight, fingers twitching as he stroked his short beard. 00:12:09 Speaker 3: That's a lot of men. Yes, they're armed, most soldiers are. 00:12:17 Speaker 1: Then they saw them, fifty men steel, catching the last light of the day, faces set like stone, A captain at the front, his stance wide, his hand never straying far from the hilt of his sword. The wind was rising, an unnatural thing, pulling at cloaks and banners, hissing through the dried grass, like the whisper of something vast and unseen. The captain stepped forward, chin. 00:12:47 Speaker 3: Raised, Men of God, by order of King Asiah, you are to come down at once. 00:12:55 Speaker 1: Elijah turned his head slightly, just enough for Elishah to say, see his face. Elijhah felt a shudder pass through his bones. There was rage in Elijah's eyes, not mere annoyance, not the dry exasperation he so often showed. This was real holy fury, because this was not just about the king. This was about Ahab's legacy. This was about Israel bleeding out under the weight of its own rebellion, about Jezebel's corruption still festering in the heart of the kingdom, about a people who had seen fire fall from heaven and the Red Sea split in two, and still chose to bow to lesser God's. 00:13:44 Speaker 3: Elijah's jaw tightened. So the son of Ahab sins MENTU seize me as if the Lord were some good magician he could summon. 00:13:57 Speaker 6: Master, maybe we should go with them. 00:14:00 Speaker 3: Oh, no, Elisha, where's your faith? If the Lord could handle the entire Egyptian army at the Red Sea, surely fifty men is no large task. Have you not read the writings of Moses? Yes, Master, of course, But I just think. 00:14:17 Speaker 1: Before the apprentice could finish his thought, Elijah stepped forward. The wind caught the edge of his cloak, scent, it billowing like smoke. The sky, already dimming, darkened further, clouds thickening like ink spilling across parchment. Elisha could feel it now, the weight in the air, the hum beneath his feet, like the very ground was waiting. The captain's hand tightened around his sword. 00:14:47 Speaker 3: Tom down, man of God. 00:14:51 Speaker 1: Elijah's voice cracked through the air like a Thunderclap. 00:14:56 Speaker 3: Your fools, if I am a man of God, let iron fall from heaven and consume you and your fifty men. 00:15:05 Speaker 1: Elijah's words echoed, rolling down the hill like a shock wave, carving silence into the world. For a moment, there was nothing. The captain's sneer faltered for half a breath. He glanced up, just for a moment, just to check the sky was still. One soldier let out a chuckle, then another, Then a ripple of laughter spread through the ranks. 00:15:33 Speaker 3: The captain exhaled through his nose, shaking his head. That's what I thought. His grip tightened on his sword. 00:15:43 Speaker 4: If you won't come down on your own, we will dread. 00:15:48 Speaker 1: The men moved, boots scraping against dirt, armor, clanking swords, lifting Elijha inhaled sharply, bracing for the worst. Then it happened, all at once. 00:16:02 Speaker 3: The sky toll over. 00:16:04 Speaker 1: Not like a storm, not like rain breaking through heavy clouds. This was violence. Lightning split the heavens, a wound of searing white that burned the shape of its fury into the retinas of all who dared look upon it. And from that wound the fire came, not drifting down, not falling like an earthly flame. It plunged a spear of raw, undiluted judgment, a river. 00:16:36 Speaker 3: Of white hot wrath. 00:16:39 Speaker 1: It did not flicker, did not waver, did not spread like mortal flames seeking something to devour. 00:16:47 Speaker 3: It simply erased. 00:16:49 Speaker 1: One moment there were men standing on the hill below, the next nothing. The smell of ozone and burning flesh filled delightious nos, But the flesh was already gone. No screams, no bodies, just ash whipping through the wind, like the remnants of a dead civilization. Elisha had seen fire fall before, but this was different. It was not a sign to prove a point. This was judgment. 00:17:22 Speaker 6: I saw what you did on Carmel, But this. 00:17:26 Speaker 1: Elijah turned to him, and for the first time, Elisha saw something beyond the fury, the weight of it, the massive burden of this calling. Elijah took no joy in watching men perish in his eyes, burned twin fires of righteousness and sorrow. 00:17:46 Speaker 3: Look, son, Being a prophet is not about spectacle. It is not about miracles. It is about carrying the weight of God's justice. 00:18:02 Speaker 1: Elishah exhaled, sharply, grounding himself, trying to shake the trembling from his hands. The captain emerged, face half melted and armor, singed. 00:18:15 Speaker 5: Please, please, Man of God, have mercy. 00:18:20 Speaker 3: Go back to your king. Tell him what you've seen. Tell him Yahweh has spoken. The captain did not hesitate. He stumbled to his feet, barely able to stand, and fled. Elisha watched him go, the fire still burning in his vision, long after it had vanished from the sky. Elijah entered King a Husaiah's halls like a storm. His bones were older, but the fire in his belly still burned hot. Elishah followed, keeping silent. Behind him. 00:19:03 Speaker 1: A Hussaiah lay sprawled in his bed, propped up by pillows that did nothing to disguise the sweat pooling at his collar bone. The waxy pallor creeping across his skin. He was failing, his ribs ached with every breath, His lips were dry, but the cup of wine beside him sat untouched. And yet his voice still carried its old petulance, its old arrogance, like a boy refusing to acknowledge the coming night. 00:19:37 Speaker 5: Elisa, finally you've come to face me. 00:19:44 Speaker 1: Elijah stopped at the foot of the bed. He did not bow, He did not greet the king. A Husiah's fingers twitched against the sheets, but he lifted his chin, desperate to hold on to the illusion that he was still the ruler of the this place. 00:20:03 Speaker 5: Tell me, prophet, who will I live? 00:20:09 Speaker 3: Shut up? 00:20:11 Speaker 1: A hiss Eya blinked, His mouth twitched as if he wanted to argue, But Elijah was already shaking his head, already moving, already cutting him down before he could rise. 00:20:24 Speaker 3: You, dear some with your breath as swords, as your time to ask if you will live. You son of Ahab, son of Jezebel, who saw the fire fall, a god now who flung your father's robes as the one true God turned your mother's priests to ash. 00:20:46 Speaker 1: There was no satisfaction in Elijah's voice, no playful teasing as he had with Ahab. No righteous glee, just disgust. Elijah took a step closer to a hush. I remember you, boy, I remember the way you trembled in the shadow of your father. 00:21:09 Speaker 3: I remember the way you saw the truth that day and still turned your back on it. 00:21:15 Speaker 1: The king opened his mouth, some feeble attempt at defense. 00:21:20 Speaker 3: Elijah didn't let him. You could have bowed, you could have repented. Instead, you ran with the shrines of Baar, like your witch mother. Instead you built altars to silence. Instead, you threw in your lot with a corpse god that cannot even keep you from bawling through the floor of your home. 00:21:47 Speaker 1: Elijah leaned in closer, voice dropping to something almost gentle. 00:21:53 Speaker 3: They still singing songs about the greatness of the king, when the nation had a real king, a real leger, a man, not a shriveling and entitled blight. You will shame the ancestors who came before you and bled for the throne you wrought upon a hass. 00:22:20 Speaker 1: I was breathing hard now. He wanted to speak, to rise, to throw back some semblance of control, but Elijah stopped him. 00:22:30 Speaker 3: Would not speak, only listen. You will not know those book who will not rise again, You will die. 00:22:44 Speaker 1: The silence pressed down, thick and suffocating. A us Eyah's lips parted a whisper of something, fear, maybe a plea, But Elijah was already turning, already gone. Elijah and Elisha had left the king's presence, widening the distance between them and the palace walls. The sun was setting, painting crimson hues over the dry hills of summer. They sat on a stone, resting upon a hill. Elisha sat beside his master, looking out over the city. 00:23:26 Speaker 3: What fuels your rage? At first, it was the blatant corruptions, the taxes, the way the kings paid little regard for the people, injustice. Elijah pursed his lips, searching his heart for the right words to answer his apprentice. Aheb Jezebel a Hasiah are not the true enemy. They were never the disease, Elisha. They there were only symptoms. What do you mean? The true enemy is older than Israel, older than these kingdom, older than the altars of Baal. Ancient evil. It slithered into the garden. It whispered to our first mother and coiled around our first father. Elisha swallowed hard. 00:24:30 Speaker 1: The words stirred something in him, something deep, something older than his own lifetime memories. Sitting at his father's feet as a boy, his father's voice slow and steady, reading from the words of Moses. The serpent was more cunning than any beast of the field. Did God really say you will not surely die? They seemed like stories, but Elijah knew they weren't fairy tales. Elijah exhaled, his gaze fixed on the darkened horizon. 00:25:08 Speaker 3: The people refused to see it. They refused to listen. The Lord brought us out of Egypt, he split the sea, He fed us in the wilderness, and led a covenant with us in fire and blood. He has shone himself again and again and again, and still still they run to the gods of the nations, to the empty idols, to their tombs, same lies, different skins. 00:25:43 Speaker 1: Elijah's hands tightened into fists. 00:25:47 Speaker 3: They cannot see it, Elisha. They cannot see that the Lord is doing something with our people. He led us to this penvery reason. The story is much bigger. What is front of our eyes? You're like our forefathers in the wilderness. There they are blind. 00:26:08 Speaker 1: The wind pressed against them cold and restless. Then Elijah turned and for the first time in all their years together, Elisha saw something in his master's eyes he had never seen before. Not rage, not even sorrow. 00:26:27 Speaker 3: Hope, but you you will sauve Maya printers. 00:26:36 Speaker 1: Elisha's chest tightened. Elijah exhaled, looking up towards the sky. The clouds were parting, silver light breaking through, illuminating the tired, weathered lines of his face. Your time is soon, Elisha looked. 00:26:56 Speaker 3: Up at him. 00:26:57 Speaker 1: The wind howled, and then night held its breath. 00:27:12 Speaker 9: This is where we are now. Elijah walks with the weight of judgment. Alisha begins to sense the burden of legacy, and a nation still does not see. Today's story is shocking, isn't it? The kind of tale that leaves the hairs on your arms standing straight, the kind that reminds you this is the Chosen People's history, raw, heavy, unsanitized. And what strikes me most is this, No one repents a Hasiad doesn't tear his garments, he doesn't fall on his face. He hears the sentence, and he sends soldiers again and again, as if the word of God is a threat that can be arrested. There's a horror in it, a blindness that turns judgment into fuel for pride. And still God warns, still he sends his prophet first, not a plague. There's a mercy hidden beneath the fire, because judgment delayed is mercy offered. In today's story, we find a broken, sickly king, and we find a people who have seen miracles yet still build golden calves. A Haziah, who's Ahab's son, is just as wicked as his parents were. He suffers an accident the beginning of the punishment that Elijah had prophesied, and he's ill. A Haziah wants to know if he will live or die, and so he sends messengers to Balzebub, the God of Ekron, to ask him for a prophecy. Elijah, guided by God's Angel, rebukes a Hazia, and he says, this is what the Lord says. It is because there is no God in Israel that you are sending messages to consult bal Zebub, the God of Ekron. Jewish tradition teaches that when the prophet says, is it because there is no God in Israel that he's referring to the mission of the Chosen People to proclaim God's name to all of the nations. The Sages castigate a Hazia as if to say, Israel's mission is to proclaim the True God to the whole world, and you are sending messengers to consult in idol. So it's not only that a Haziah, like his parents were idol worshipers. On top of that, he was ignoring the central mission of his people. You know, this mission is something that's still very much alive today. And I rejoice every day that the ministry that I oversee, the international fellowship of Christians and Jews, that we celebrate that mission of the Chosen People in friendship and solidarity with each other, with Christians and Jews who are carrying out God's word to feed the hungry and clothe the naked. I know this makes God happy. There's a question that this story makes me ask, why doesn't Ahazia turn around. He knows Elijah, he knows what happened to Mount Carmel, knows how his mother's prophets fell like dried leaves under the weight of truth. He knows his father's fate. He knows that the name he refuses to utter one spurned across the sky in an answer to prayer. But still Azia chooses Ekron, a dead god, a shrine far from the land of Covenant. In Hebrew, the name Balazibub literally means lord of the flies. It's a mockery of the so called deity whose temple a Hazia leans on. But the deeper sickness isn't in the name, it's in the act. The king of Israel seeks life from a God outside of Israel, which is worse than foolishness. It's betrayal. And when Elijah calls him out saying is there no God in Israel? It echoes another line from the Torah that we saw earlier in our Bible study, in numbers fourteen eleven. Do you remember, God asks, how long will these people treat me with contempt? How long will they refuse to believe in me? In spite of all the size that I have performed for them. Elijah walks into this moment not as a performer of power, but as a bearer of holy grief. The people of Israel, like so many times before, are standing at a crossroad, and the fire, while terrifying, is not reckless it's precise, it's measured. It's devastating, yes, but never without purpose. In the Bible, fire is never just destruction. It's revelation. Think of the burning bush that burned but wasn't consumed. Think of the fire on Sinai, the pillar that led us in the desert. God doesn't send fire to show off. He sends it to remind us who we are. And you know what a Hazia forgot, or maybe like so many leaders in our history, he remembered, but he still refused. So what do we do with this story like this? Maybe we look at our own windows, the ones that we fall through. The place is where our pride breaks, our ribs, where we can't breathe, where everything hurts, and we have to decide who we're going to call for help. It's easy to look at a haze and shake our heads, But how many times have we run to someone or something else when we should have gone to God in prayer? How often do we place our hope in advice columns, political leaders, or inspirational quotes, anything but the. 00:32:50 Speaker 3: Word of God. 00:32:52 Speaker 9: You know, my abba, my father abby Riel Exstein of Blessed Memory once wrote something that sticks with me this is what he wrote. Our trials in life, be they large or small, through fire or water, they have a purpose. God does see our pain, and our suffering is not in vain. God wants to give us a cup that overflows, and he will do so when we pass through the process of purification and emerge cleansed, righteous and pure. I think it's beautiful, and I think my father was speaking to us. So today, my friends, let's listen. Let's ask where we have sought answers from empty shrines, and let's turn back with hearts full of tashuva of repentance. And remember, even God's judgment is an invitation to return to him. 00:33:49 Speaker 1: You can listen to The Chosen People with the Isle e Stein add free by downloading and subscribing to the pray dot Com app today. This prey dont com production is only made possible by our dedicated team of creative talents. Steve Gattina, Max Bard, Zach Shellabarger and Ben Gammon are the executive producers of the Chosen People with Yaiel Eckstein, edited by Alberto Avilla, narrated by Paul Coltofianu. Characters are voiced by Jonathan Cotten, Aaron Salvado, Sarah Seltz, Mike Reagan, Stephen Ringwold, Sylvia Zaradoc, Thomas Copeland Junior, Rosanna Pilcher, and Mitch Leshinsky. And the opening prayer is voiced by John Moore, music by Andrew Morgan Smith, written by Aaron Salvato, bre Rosalie and Chris Baig. Special thanks to Bishop Paulinier, Robin van Ettin, kayleb Burrows, Jocelyn Fuller, Rabbi Edward Abramson, and the team at International Fellowship of Christians and Jews. You can hear more Prey dot com productions on the Prey dot com app, available on the Apple App Store and Google Play Store. If you enjoyed The Chosen People with Yia Egstein, please rate and leave a review.