Fairy Tale Spotlight: Kings II [Book Review]

"Kings II" is the twelfth book of the "Holy Bible," and it was written by Jeremiah the prophet. And before I begin, I want to just go ahead and criticize him for his reparative, awful writing. It isn't as bad as Moses, but it was getting there.

This book followed mostly in the footsteps of the former, chronicling the good and bad of the Kings of Israel and Judah. It is the most boring part of the whole book. For every step forward, they took three steps back. It was a wreck of a book in this regard. The book only got good when it ignored the kings entirely.

The real rock stars of "Kings II" was Elijah and Elisha. Here we have something just incredibly weird. Elijah was a prophet of God that seemed to doggedly follow God in every respect. This was to the degree that God provided him with the abilities to perform miracles in a similar manner to Jesus himself.

There came this really odd point where Elijah was going to be taken up in a flaming tornado. Elisha askes that, when he is taken away, that Elijah's spirit would be given to him. This is a very odd thing to ask, since human souls don't really work that way. Even Elijah did not seem like he understood the request and merely told him that he would have to wait and see.

In full anime fashion, Elijah was taken up in a flaming tornado formed from a chariot sent from God and never seen again. And indeed, his spirit was handed down to Elisha. Elisha even acts like Elijah from this point on and proceeds to perform miracles, cure the sick, raise the dead, and many more amazing things. God really liked these guys and sent all of his angelic forces to protect them from absolutely everything. To go up against Elisha was to spell your own death by way of an angelic, flaming sword. What the heck happened here?

Soul transfer is unheard of. Spirit transfer is not, but the connotations of that would suggest that Elijah and Elisha were actually demonic beings. Keep in mind that I simply do not know what these beings were. I just don't. But the whole mystery surrounding them is more fascinating than I can properly relay with text alone.

The only other incident of note was the coronation of Jehu. God was extremely angry with the evils of King Ahab. He has Elijah ask to have a meeting with Jehu who was Ahab's commander of chariots. Without really any warning, Elijah anointed him king of Israel, briefly explained the situation, and then promptly ran out of the house. This was, quite possibly, the only example of a "hit and run coronation."

King Jehu was an evil man, but he did what God wanted him to do which was to wipe the world clean of "everything Ahab." He killed anyone and everyone associated with him. He did evil things later in life, but the point of him being anointed king in such a strange fashion came to fruition. This is important to understand because there are a number of points in history where God would use evil people to do his will.

That's really all I have to say on "Kings II." I do recommend the book for the stories of the prophets the most, but that, sadly, is all near the beginning. Most of the book is just the sad, depressing failures of the kings of Judah and Israel. Even the good ones were lukewarm at best. Some were outright murderous and horrible. It was just bad. They should have just let God be their king and let Him kill them whenever He felt like it. It would have gone a lot better if they had.

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