The Bible contains a lot of questions, and it doesn’t always provide satisfactory answers. So I’ve been answering some of the Bible’s questions myself. This time, I’m looking at questions from Old Testament stories after the kingdom split in two.
The people of Israel ask: What share do we have in David? Answer: Ten shares.
A widow asks Elijah: Did you come to remind me of my sin and kill my son? Answer: No.
Ahab’s palace administrator asks Elijah: Haven’t you heard that while Jezebel was killing God’s prophets, I hid a hundred of them in two caves and supplied them with food and water? Answer: Apparently he didn’t even hear you just now. He still thinks he’s the only prophet of God left.
God asks Elijah, twice: What are you doing here? Answer: Going on the journey your angel sent him on.
God asks: Who will entice Ahab into attacking Ramoth Gilead and going to his death there? Answer: Nobody has to. It was his idea in the first place.
When a Shunammite woman says she’s going to see Elisha, who has performed miracles to help her in the past, her husband asks: Why go to him today? Answer: Your son just died, in case you didn’t notice.
Elisha’s servant asks the Shunammite woman: Are you all right? Is your husband all right? Is your child all right? Her answer: Everything is all right. Real answer: No.
When Elisha predicts that grain will sell for normal prices tomorrow, an officer asks: Even if the Lord opened the floodgates of the heavens, could this happen? Answer: It’s not magic.
An officer asks the commander that God has chosen as the next king of Israel: Why did this maniac (prophet) come to you? Answer: To tell him to murder a bunch of slaves.
A priest’s son asks the people of Judah: Why do you disobey the Lord’s commands? Answer: Because it’s impossible not to?
Mordecai asks Esther: Who knows but that you have come to your royal position for such a time as this? Answer: I would think it would have been pretty well known that she was put in that position to replace Vashti.
Haman asks himself: Who is there that the king would rather honor than me? Answer: Esther? Oh, and that guy that saved his life. Him too.
Nehemiah’s enemies ask him: What is this you are doing? Answer: Planning.
They ask them: Are you rebelling against the king? Answer: No.
Later, one of those enemies asks: What are those feeble Jews doing? Answer: Restoring their wall.
He asks: Will they restore their wall? Answer: Yes.
He also asks: Will they offer sacrifices? Answer: Yes.
Then he asks: Will they finish in a day? Answer: No.
And he asks: Can they bring the stones back to life from those heaps of rubble? Answer: You can’t bring something back to life if it was never alive.
Nehemiah asks the nobles and officials among his people: Shouldn’t you walk in the fear of our God to avoid the reproach of our Gentile enemies? Answer: Doesn’t sound like the best plan to me. Why would your Gentile enemies care about that?
Nehemiah asks his enemies: Why should the work stop while I leave it and go down to you? Answer: They think you should stop because they think the Jews are plotting a rebellion.
Nehemiah asks: Should a man like me run away? Or should someone like me go into the temple to save his life? Answer: I don’t see why not. There’s not a law against that, is there?
Nehemiah asks: Why is the house of God neglected? Answer: Because there’s no God living in it.
Nehemiah asks the nobles of Judah: What is this wicked thing you are doing—desecrating the Sabbath day? Answer: Providing people with food.
He asks them: Didn’t your ancestors do the same things, so that our God brought all this calamity on us and on this city? Answer: No, I don’t remember Sabbath violations being one of the reasons given for the fall of Jerusalem.
Continue reading The Bible’s questions, answered—part 6: Answers to questions after the split →