Abortion, Roe v. Wade & The Bible

We explore the literary artistry of the Bible, and this essay looks at the literary artistry of the structure of the book of Kings and how child sacrifice is central to its structure.

I want to get the whole book of Kings—it is one book, First and Second Kings—into your head. I am going to do that through an author and his book: The Literary Structure of the Old Testament by David Dorsey. It is one of the best books you can buy, a reference book I come back to frequently, where Dorsey provides literary structures for every book in the Old Testament.

The Architecture of Kings

Here is what the structure of the book of Kings looks like. The book opens with Solomon, which is where you have the section about the building of the temple. Then, right after Solomon lives, you get the splitting of the kingdom, north from south. Next, you get an account of seven kings, followed by the main chunk of the book.

Sometimes you might think that the book of Kings is about kings. It is a lot about kings, of course, but the central section in the book of Kings is not about kings at all: it is about Elijah and Elisha. What is going on is that Israel—and eventually Judah—has become wildly evil. Before God destroys the nation, he sends in two prophets. These prophets are healing the nation and calling them to repentance. The central section of the entire book revolves around these two prophets.

At the end of that first section of seven kings, the narrative descends to Ahab. Something unique happens during the reign of Ahab that we have not seen before. It serves as the catalyst for bringing in the big guns, Elijah and Elisha.

And that catalyst, as you guessed, is the sacrifice of children.

The Curse of Jericho and Ahab’s Reign

This occurs in 1 Kings 16, in the very last verse. We are in the reign of Ahab, who is presented as a consummately evil king, more evil than any king who went before him. If you look at the events that actually happen during his reign, the one unique event that catalyzes everything is this final verse of chapter 16:

In his days Hiel of Bethel built Jericho. He laid its foundation at the cost of Abiram his firstborn, and set up its gates at the cost of his youngest son Segub, according to the word of the Lord, which he spoke by Joshua the son of Nun.

This is the unique thing. Back in the book of Joshua, God pronounced a curse stating that anyone who rebuilt Jericho would face this judgment. Hiel rebuilt this city: he began the work by sacrificing his firstborn son, and when he concluded it, he sacrificed his youngest son.

The overarching theological and ethical structure here is that when you reach this state of consummate evil, people begin sacrificing their own children. That is the exact moment when God must step in.

Two Witnesses Before Destruction

There is a consistent pattern and structure throughout the Bible: God sends two witnesses before he destroys a city or a people. This happened before the Flood; it happened with Jericho, which provides the backdrop here; and there are other references, such as the two witnesses in the book of Revelation, where two witnesses are brought in right before destruction falls. Elijah and Elisha are brought in as those two witnesses before this destruction.

In light of the recent Roe v. Wade decision, the purpose for understanding this structure is to see how the sacrificing of one’s children rates on a moral hierarchy. It serves as a clear indication of where a culture stands—namely, that it is nearing its end. That represents consummate evil, because you are destroying the very life you ought to protect, the life that literally has a physical shield around it in the mother’s body. When a society reaches that point, it is at its lowest moral state.

We should be thankful about the Roe v. Wade decision because it represents some sort of return, some measure of protection for children, and some reversal of this pattern of evil. But this phenomenon is not a new thing in human history. We have seen it before. Whether a society is sacrificing its children outside the womb or inside the womb, it is fundamentally the exact same thing going on.

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