Thursday, December 16, 2010

2 Kings 6

I think I'm going to just turn this one over to Pastor Chris. He's the one who gave Brenna the Bible in the first place.

Well, actually he was third. WEAG gave her one when she was dedicated and Michael and I gave her one when she learned to read.

But it was the Pastor Chris Bible she received when she finished the Worship class that is at the center of this. So I think he should be the one to explain.

Earlier this evening, Brenna nonchalantly walked into the kitchen and asked, "Mom? Did that lady really eat her baby in the Bible?" Confused, I turned and said, "huh?" So she repeated herself. And then I'm pretty sure I laughed and said no I'd never heard that story. I should have known better, but I followed it up with "I don't think that's in the Bible honey. Where did you find it?" She claimed it was somewhere near John 3:16, which gave me more confidence to declare it definitely "not in there."

So Brenna left the kitchen and I continued doing whatever it was I was doing before.

About ten minutes later, she came back. "Mom? I found it." I asked her where and she said, "It's in Two Kings six..." Uh oh. Old Testament. Entirely possible. Here we go. So as she talked, we walked over to the laptop so I could Biblegateway it or BlueLetterBible it. Here's the text:


(Bible Gateway - NIV)
24 Some time later, Ben-Hadad king of Aram mobilized his entire army and marched up and laid siege to Samaria. 25 There was a great famine in the city; the siege lasted so long that a donkey’s head sold for eighty shekelsa]" of silver, and a quarter of a cabb]" of seed podsc]" for five shekels.

26 As the king of Israel was passing by on the wall, a woman cried to him, “Help me, my lord the king!”

27 The king replied, “If the LORD does not help you, where can I get help for you? From the threshing floor? From the winepress?” 28 Then he asked her, “What’s the matter?”

She answered, “This woman said to me, ‘Give up your son so we may eat him today, and tomorrow we’ll eat my son.’ 29 So we cooked my son and ate him. The next day I said to her, ‘Give up your son so we may eat him,’ but she had hidden him.”

30 When the king heard the woman’s words, he tore his robes. As he went along the wall, the people looked, and they saw that, under his robes, he had sackcloth on his body. 31 He said, “May God deal with me, be it ever so severely, if the head of Elisha son of Shaphat remains on his shoulders today!”


Wow. That is seriously disturbing. Not only does it say she ate the baby, but she cooked him too. And it doesn't matter which version you read either. In the KJV, she boiled him and ate him. In the Message, she had him for supper.

Wondering what to say about this particular passage that I somehow managed to never, ever have read before, I asked Brenna how she found it. It's clearly no where near John 3:16.

"Well," she said, "I was just looking at John 3:16 and I flipped a bunch of pages and started reading. And that's how I found it."

Which does explain why she thought they were near each other, but didn't buy me enough time to find an explanation. I read one commentary that mentioned the physical need of the body (hunger) overpowering the rational mind and decided there was no explanation and that it was time to change the subject.

So all I said was "You're right. That's what it says. Daddy wants me to make Oreo Truffles tonight. Do you want to help?"

End of theology lesson. And if she brings it up again - or finds another ... uh, challenging passage (of which I can think of about five off the top of my head - and those are just the ones I know of)... I think I'll just send her to Pastor Chris. That's what he's there for, right?




2 comments:

Ginger said...

Brenna reminds me so much of Anessa! That is TOTALLY something she would do. I probably would have pulled your exact same approach too..."hey, look it's snowing outside! Wanna make hot cocoa?" I have no brilliant words. Just an affirmation that sometimes there are no words. Tell her she can ask God why when she gets to heaven...if she continues to dwell on it. Sometimes though, they're off to the next thing and we're the ones left disturbed and wondering. Hang in there Momma!

Heather said...

oh. my. word. Seriously? I've read through the whole Bible and somehow missed that one too!! I believe every word of the Bible is inspired so there must be a reason for the Lord to include it. I'm just not sure what it is.