2 Kings 1:2 - Exposition

Ahaziah fell down through a lattice ; rather, through the lattice . It is implied that the upper chamber had a single window, which was closed by a single lattice , or shutter of interlaced woodwork. The shutter may have been insufficiently secured; or the woodwork may have been too weak to bear his weight, Compare the fall of Eutychus ( Acts 20:9 ), where, however, there is no mention of a "lattice." Was sick ; i.e. "was so injured that he had to take to his bed." Inquire of Baal-zebub the god of Ekron. As a worshipper of Baal, bent on walking in the evil way of his father and of his mother ( 1 Kings 22:52 ), Ahaziah would naturally inquire of some form of the Baal divinity. Why he chose "Baal-zebub the god of Ekron," it is impossible to say. Perhaps Baal-zebub had at the time a special reputation for giving oracular responses. Perhaps the Ekron temple was, of all the ancient sites of the Baal-worship, the one with which he could most readily communicate. Philistia lay nearer to Samaria than Phoenicia did, and of the Philistine towns Ekron (now Akir ) was the most northern, and so the nearest. "Baal-zebub" has been thought by some to be equivalent to "Beel-samen," "the lord of heaven"—a divine title well known to the Phoenicians; but this view is etymologically unsound, since zebub cannot possibly mean "heaven." "Baal-zebub" is "the lord of flies "—either the god who sends them as a plague on any nation that offends him (setup. Exodus 8:21-31 ), or the god who averts them from his votaries and favorites, an equivalent of the Greek ζεὺς ἀπόμυιος , or the Roman "Jupiter Myiagrus," flies being in the East not infrequently a terrible plague. The Septuagint translation, βάαλ μυΐαν , though inaccurate, shows an appreciation of the true etymology. Of this disease ; rather, of this illness ( ἐκ τῆς ἀρρωστίας μου ταύτης , LXX .).