Exegetical and Hermeneutical Commentary of 2 Kings 13:1
In the three and twentieth year of Joash the son of Ahaziah king of Judah Jehoahaz the son of Jehu began to reign over Israel in Samaria, [and reigned] seventeen years.
Ch. 2Ki 13:1-9. Reign of Jehoahaz, son of Jehu, over Israel (Not in Chronicles)
1. In the three-and-twentieth year of Joash king of Judah, Jehoahaz began to reign ] The chronology here seems inconsistent with verse 10. Jehoahaz’s seventeen years, according to the statement before us, would go on to the fortieth year of Joash king of Judah, whereas the successor of Jehoahaz is stated in verse 10 to have begun his reign in the thirty-seventh year of Joash. It is possible that seventeen years, according to Jewish reckoning, may really have been very little more than fifteen. Still that does not bring the dates into accord. Where the mistake may be is not easy to discover. The LXX. represents the same numbers, which it is clear cannot all be correct, though the error is not large. See Chronological Table in the Introduction.
Jehoahaz the son of Jehu ] The first of the four generations for which God promised that the line of Jehu should continue.
Fuente: The Cambridge Bible for Schools and Colleges
In this chapter the history of the kingdom of Israel is traced through the two reigns of Jehoahaz and Jehoash. In 2 Kings 14 the history of Judah is resumed.
In the three and twentieth year – Rather, the one and twentieth year. See 2Ki 13:10.
Fuente: Albert Barnes’ Notes on the Bible
CHAPTER XIII
Jehoahaz reigns in Israel seventeen years; his various acts,
and wars with the Syrians, 1-8.
He dies, and Joash reigns in his stead, and does evil in the
sight of the Lord, 9-13.
Elisha’s last sickness; he foretells a three-fold defeat of
the Syrians, and dies, 14-20.
A dead man raised to life by touching the bones of Elisha, 21.
Hazael dies, having long oppressed Israel; but Jehoash recovers
many cities out of the hands of Ben-hadad, his successor, and
defeats him three times, 22-25.
NOTES ON CHAP. XIII
Verse 1. In the three and twentieth year of Joash] The chronology here is thus accounted for; Jehoahaz began his reign at the commencement of the twenty-third year of Joash, and reigned seventeen years, fourteen alone, and three years with his son Joash; the fourteenth year was but just begun.
Fuente: Adam Clarke’s Commentary and Critical Notes on the Bible
Began to reign, Heb. reigned; which is put for began to reign, 2Ki 3:1; 8:16,25; 12:1.
Fuente: English Annotations on the Holy Bible by Matthew Poole
1-3. Jehoahaz . . . reignedseventeen yearsUnder his government, which pursued the policyof his predecessors regarding the support of the calf-worship,Israel’s apostasy from the true God became greater and more confirmedthan in the time of his father Jehu. The national chastisement, whenit came, was consequently the more severe and the instrumentsemployed by the Lord in scourging the revolted nation were Hazael andhis son and general Ben-hadad, in resisting whose successiveinvasions the Israelitish army was sadly reduced and weakened. In theextremity of his distress, Jehoahaz besought the Lord, and was heard,not on his own account (Psa 66:18;Pro 1:28; Pro 15:8),but that of the ancient covenant with the patriarchs (2Ki13:23).
Fuente: Jamieson, Fausset and Brown’s Commentary Critical and Explanatory on the Whole Bible
In the twenty and third year of Joash the son of Ahaziah king of Judah,…. The same year he was so zealous and busy in repairing the temple, 2Ki 12:6,
Jehoahaz the son of Jehu began to reign over Israel in Samaria; whereas Joash began to reign in the seventh year of Jehu, and Jehu reigned but twenty eight years, 2Ki 10:36, and 2Ki 12:1, this could be but the twenty first of Joash; to reconcile which it must be observed, that it was at the beginning of the seventh year of Jehu that Joash began to reign, and at the beginning of the twenty third of Joash that Jehoahaz began to reign, as the Jewish commentators observe:
and reigned seventeen years; the two last of which were in common with his son, as Junius, see 2Ki 13:10
Fuente: John Gill’s Exposition of the Entire Bible
Reign of Jehoahaz. – Jehu was followed by Jehoahaz his son, “in the twenty-third year of Joash of Judah.” This synchronistic statement is not only at variance with 2Ki 13:10, but cannot be very well reconciled with 2Ki 12:1. If Jehoahaz began to reign in the twenty-third year of Joash king of Judah, and reigned seventeen years, his son cannot have followed him after his death in the thirty-seventh year of Joash of Judah, as is stated in 2Ki 13:10, for there are only fourteen years and possibly a few months between the twenty-third and thirty-seventh years of Joash; and even if he ascended the throne at the commencement of the twenty-third year of the reign of Joash and died at the end of the thirty-seventh, they could only be reckoned as fifteen and not as seventeen years. Moreover, according to 2Ki 12:1, Joash of Judah began to reign in the seventh year of Jehu, and therefore Athaliah, who ascended the throne at the same time as Jehu, reigned fully six years. If, therefore, the first year of Joash of Judah coincides with the seventh year of Jehu, the twenty-eighth year of Jehu must correspond to the twenty-second year of Joash of Judah; and in this year of Joash not only did Jehu die, but his son Jehoahaz ascended the throne. Consequently we must substitute the twenty-second year of Joash, or perhaps, still more correctly, the twenty-first year (Josephus), for the twenty-third.
(Note: On the other hand, Thenius, who follows des Vignoles and Winer, not only defends the correctness of the account “ in the twenty-third year of Joash, ” because it agrees with the twenty-eight years ‘ reign of Jehu (2Ki 10:36), but also holds fast the seventeen years ‘ duration of the reign of Jehoahaz on account of its agreement with 2Ki 14:1; for 6 years (Athaliah) + 40 years (Joash) = 46 years, and 28 years (Jehu) + 17 years (Jehoahaz) = 45 years; so that, as is there affirmed, Amaziah the son of Joash ascended the throne in the second year of Joash the son of Jehoahaz. But to arrive at this result he assumes that there is an error in 2Ki 13:10, namely, that instead of the thirty-seventh year we ought to read the thirty-ninth year there, according to the edit. Aldina of the lxx. But apart from the fact that, as we have shown above in the text, the datum “ in the twenty-third year of Joash ” does not harmonize with the twenty-eight years ‘ reign of Jehu, this solution of the difference is overthrown by the circumstance that, in order to obtain this agreement between 2Ki 13:1 and 2Ki 13:14, Thenius reckons the years of the reigns not only of Athaliah and Joash, but also of Jehu and Jehoahaz, as full years (the former 16 + 40, the latter 28 + 17); whereas, in order to bring the datum in 2Ki 13:1 (in the twenty-third year of Joash) into harmony with the emendation proposed in 2Ki 13:10 (in the thirty-ninth year of Joash), he reckons the length of the reign of Jehoahaz as only sixteen years (instead of seventeen). For example, if Jehoahaz reigned seventeen years, supposing that he ascended the throne in the twenty-third year of Joash of Judah, he died in the fortieth year of Joash (not the thirty-ninth), and his son began to reign the same year. In that case Amaziah would have begun to reign in the first year of Jehoash of Israel, and not in the second, as is stated in 2Ki 14:1. – The reading of the lxx (ed. Ald. v. 10), “ in the thirty-ninth year, ” is therefore nothing but a mistaken emendation resorted to for the purpose of removing a discrepancy, but of no critical value.)
If Jehu died in the earliest months of the twenty-eighth year of his reign, so that he only reigned twenty-seven years and one or two months, his death and his son’s ascent of the throne might fall even in the closing months of the twenty-first year of the reign of Joash of Judah. And from the twenty-first to the thirty-seventh year of Joash, Jehoahaz may have reigned sixteen years and a few months, and his reign be described as lasting seventeen years.
2Ki 13:2-3 As Jehoahaz trod in the footsteps of his forefathers and continued the sin of Jeroboam (the worship of the calves), the Lord punished Israel during his reign even more than in that of his predecessor. The longer and the more obstinately the sin was continued, the more severe did the punishment become. He gave them (the Israelites) into the power of the Syrian king Hazael and his son Benhadad , “the whole time,” sc. of the reign of Jehoahaz (vid., 2Ki 13:22); not of the reigns of Hazael and Benhadad, as Thenius supposes in direct opposition to 2Ki 13:24 and 2Ki 13:25. According to 2Ki 13:7, the Syrians so far destroyed the Israelitish army, that only fifty horsemen, ten war-chariots, and ten thousand foot soldiers were left.
2Ki 13:4-5 In this oppression Jehoahaz prayed to the Lord ( as in 1Ki 13:6); and the Lord heard this prayer, because He saw their oppression at the hands of the Syrians, and gave Israel a saviour, so that they came out from the power of the Syrians and dwelt in their booths again, as before, i.e., were able to live peaceably again in their houses, without being driven off and led away by the foe. The saviour, , was neither an angel, nor the prophet Elisha, nor quidam e ducibus Joasi, as some of the earlier commentators supposed, nor a victory obtained by Jehoahaz over the Syrians, nor merely Jeroboam (Thenius); but the Lord gave them the saviour in the two successors of Jehoahaz, in the kings Jehoash and Jeroboam, the former of whom wrested from the Syrians all the cities that had been conquered by them under his father (2Ki 13:25), while the latter restored the ancient boundaries of Israel (2Ki 14:25). According to 2Ki 13:22-25, the oppression by the Syrians lasted as long as Jehoahaz lived; but after his death the Lord had compassion upon Israel, and after the death of Hazael, when his son Benhadad had become king, Jehoash recovered from Benhadad all the Israelitish cities that had been taken by the Syrians. It is obvious from this, that the oppression which Benhadad the son of Hazael inflicted upon Israel, according to 2Ki 13:3, falls within the period of his father’s reign, so that it was not as king, but as commander-in-chief under his father, that he oppressed Israel, and therefore he is not even called king in 2Ki 13:3.
2Ki 13:6 “Only they departed not,” etc., is inserted as a parenthesis and must be expressed thus: “although they departed not from the sin of Jeroboam.”
2Ki 13:7 “For ( ) he had not left,” etc., furnishes the ground for 2Ki 13:5: God gave them a saviour, … although they did not desist from the sin of Jeroboam, … for Israel had been brought to the last extremity; He (Jehovah) had left to Jehoahaz people ( , people of war), only fifty horsemen, etc. For instead of (2Ki 13:6), see at 1Ki 21:21. The suffix in 2Ki 13:6 refers to , just as that in in 2Ki 13:2 (see at 2Ki 3:3). “And even the Asherah was (still) standing at Samaria,” probably from the time of Ahab downwards (1Ki 16:33), since Jehu is not said to have destroyed it (2Ki 10:26.). “and had made them like dust for trampling upon,” – an expression denoting utter destruction.
2Ki 13:8-9 Close of the reign of Jehoahaz. Jehoahaz had probably shown his might in the war with the Syrians, although he had been overcome.
Fuente: Keil & Delitzsch Commentary on the Old Testament
| The Reign of Jehoahaz. | B. C. 839. |
1 In the three and twentieth year of Joash the son of Ahaziah king of Judah Jehoahaz the son of Jehu began to reign over Israel in Samaria, and reigned seventeen years. 2 And he did that which was evil in the sight of the LORD, and followed the sins of Jeroboam the son of Nebat, which made Israel to sin; he departed not therefrom. 3 And the anger of the LORD was kindled against Israel, and he delivered them into the hand of Hazael king of Syria, and into the hand of Benhadad the son of Hazael, all their days. 4 And Jehoahaz besought the LORD, and the LORD hearkened unto him: for he saw the oppression of Israel, because the king of Syria oppressed them. 5 (And the LORD gave Israel a saviour, so that they went out from under the hand of the Syrians: and the children of Israel dwelt in their tents, as beforetime. 6 Nevertheless they departed not from the sins of the house of Jeroboam, who made Israel sin, but walked therein: and there remained the grove also in Samaria.) 7 Neither did he leave of the people to Jehoahaz but fifty horsemen, and ten chariots, and ten thousand footmen; for the king of Syria had destroyed them, and had made them like the dust by threshing. 8 Now the rest of the acts of Jehoahaz, and all that he did, and his might, are they not written in the book of the chronicles of the kings of Israel? 9 And Jehoahaz slept with his fathers; and they buried him in Samaria: and Joash his son reigned in his stead.
This general account of the reign of Jehoahaz, and of the state of Israel during his seventeen years, though short, is long enough to let us see two things which are very affecting and instructive:–
I. The glory of Israel raked up in the ashes, buried and lost, and turned into shame. How unlike does Israel appear here to what it had been and might have been! How is its crown profaned and its honour laid in the dust! 1. It was the honour of Israel that they worshipped the only living and true God, who is a Spirit, an eternal mind, and had rules by which to worship him of his own appointment; but by changing the glory of their incorruptible God into the similitude of an ox, the truth of God into a lie, they lost this honour, and levelled themselves with the nations that worshipped the work of their own hands. We find here that the king followed the sins of Jeroboam (v. 2), and the people departed not from them, but walked therein, v. 6. There could not be a greater reproach than these two idolized calves were to a people that were instructed in the service of God and entrusted with the lively oracles. In all the history of the ten tribes we never find the least shock given to that idolatry, but, in every reign, still the calf was their god, and they separated themselves to that shame. 2. It was the honour of Israel that they were taken under the special protection of heaven; God himself was their defence, the shield of their help and the sword of their excellency. Happy wast thou, O Israel! upon this account. But here, as often before, we find them stripped of this glory, and exposed to the insults of all their neighbours. They by their sins provoked God to anger, and then he delivered them into the hands of Hazael and Benhadad, v. 3. Hazael oppressed Israel v. 22. Surely never was any nation so often plucked and pillaged by their neighbours as Israel was. This the people brought upon themselves by sin; when they had provoked God to pluck up their hedge, the goodness of their land did but tempt their neighbours to prey upon them. So low was Israel brought in this reign, by the many depredations which the Syrians made upon them, that the militia of the kingdom and all the force they could bring into the field were but fifty horsemen, ten chariots, and 10,000 footmen, a despicable muster, v. 7. Have the thousands of Israel come to this? How has the gold become dim! The debauching of a nation will certainly be the debasing of it.
II. Some sparks of Israel’s ancient honour appearing in these ashes. It is not quite forgotten, notwithstanding all these quarrels, that this people is the Israel of God and he is the God of Israel. For, 1. It was the ancient honour of Israel that they were a praying people: and here we find somewhat of that honour revived; for Jehoahaz their king, in his distress, besought the Lord (v. 4), applied for help, not to the calves (what help could they give him?) but to the Lord. It becomes kings to be beggars at God’s door, and the greatest of men to be humble petitioners at the footstool of his throne. Need will drive them to it. 2. It was the ancient honour of Israel that they had God nigh unto them in all that which they called upon him for (Deut. iv. 7), and so he was here. Though he might justly have rejected the prayer as an abomination to him, yet the Lord hearkened unto Jehoahaz, and to his prayer for himself and for his people (v. 4), and he gave Israel a saviour (v. 5), not Jehoahaz himself, for all his days Hazael oppressed Israel (v. 22), but his son, to whom, in answer to his father’s prayers, God gave success against the Syrians, so that he recovered the cities which they had taken from his father, v. 25. This gracious answer God gave to the prayer of Jehoahaz, not for his sake, or the sake of that unworthy people, but in remembrance of his covenant with Abraham (v. 23), which, in such exigencies as these, he had long since promised to have respect to, Lev. xxvi. 42. See swift God is to show mercy, how ready to hear prayers, how willing to find out a reason to be gracious, else he would not look so far back as that ancient covenant which Israel had so often broken and forfeited all the benefit of. Let this invite and engage us for ever to him, and encourage even those that have forsaken him to return and repent; for there is forgiveness with him, that he may be feared.
Fuente: Matthew Henry’s Whole Bible Commentary
Second Kings – Chapter 13
Jehoahaz’ Reign – Verses 1-7
Old king Jehu died the same year in which Joash finally got the temple repair underway in Jerusalem. While the kingdom of Judah had enjoyed revival and now maintained at least a semblance of worship of the Lord things had got no better in the northern kingdom of Israel. It seems that Jehu would have drawn close to the Lord, but it has been shown that he reverted to the worship of Jeroboam’s calves in Bethel and Da Jehu’s son Jehoahaz succeeded him, and for his seventeen
years of rule he continued to favor the calves of Jeroboam the son of Nebat. Again appears the familiar refrain, “Which made Israel to sin.” This is the eternal epitaph of wicked Jeroboam, and the saddest part of it all is that every single king who succeeded him on Israel’s throne patterned his worship after that evil man. It was a direct violation of God’s commandment (De 12:30), and men still follow in the same paths (Mat 23:2-3).
Old Hazael, the king of Syria, wrought havoc in Israel, as the Lord used him (and later his son, Ben-hadad), to chastise Israel. So easy did Hazael find it to defeat Israel, as seen in the last chapter of the commentary, he pressed on to the Philistine cities and to Jerusalem in his conquests. This is what made Elisha weep in anticipation when he revealed to Hazael that he would become king (2Ki 8:11-13).
However, Jehoahaz did a unique thing among the kings of the northern kingdom. He became so distressed by the depredations of the Syrians that he sought the will of the Lord. The manner in which he sought Him is not revealed, but it is apparent that he did so in an outward sense only. He had no change of heart. Nevertheless the Lord had mercy on Israel and relieved the oppression of Syria, in what way again is not revealed. It is simply recorded that the Lord gave Israel a savior, by whom they went out from under the power of Syria. Who the savior was is not revealed. He brought blessing and restoration to Israel, and they were able to inhabit their cities and houses once more.
It is probable that the “savior” refers to the mighty Assyrian armies, who were pushing out and enlarging the empire of Nineveh, located far north on the Tigris River. But Israel’s savior was a “savior” with a “little s”, whereas they needed the Savior with a “capital S”, the Lord. Even though King Jehoahaz sought the Lord, and was blessed by it, he did not turn from the worship of the calves, nor did the people of Israel turn back to Him. Israel remained a very weak and distraught nation. The Syrians left them with only fifty cavalry, ten war chariots, and 10,000 infantry. The Scripture says they were destroyed as the dust of threshing.
Fuente: Garner-Howes Baptist Commentary
THE DEATH OF ELISHA
CRITICAL AND EXPLANATORY NOTES.
2Ki. 13:1. Jehoahas, the son of Jehu, began to reign over IsraelHere the historian turns from the records of Judah to those of Israel. The datethree and twentieth yeardoes not accord by two years with that given in 2Ki. 13:10, as the corresponding year of the reign of Joash [or Jehoash], king of Judah; but copyists blunders in Hebrew numerals occurred so easily.
2Ki. 13:4. The Lord saw the oppression of IsraelHe allowed the Syrians to become His scourge for Israels guilt in apostatizing from His worship.
2Ki. 13:5. The Lord gave Israel a saviourNot a supernatural saviourangel or prophetbut in both the kings Joash and Jeroboam He gave them a , saviour, from the Syrians, for the former recovered all the lost cities (2Ki. 13:25), and the latter restored all the old boundaries of Israel (2Ki. 14:25).
2Ki. 13:6. But walked thereinWho? Jeroboam or Israel? walked he (Jeroboam), or walked it (Israel). There remained the groveComp. 1Ki. 16:33.
HOMILETICS OF 2Ki. 13:1-13
NATIONAL DECAY
IN this paragraph we have grouped together the history of the two sister kingdoms of Judah and Israel. Their condition is alike. They are both dragged down to the same level. The same evil that has been so fatal to Samaria is now prevalent in Jerusalem. The same dark record is true of botha record of apostasy, intensified corruption, and rapid decay of national prestige. In the case of Judah, one bright ray relieves the gloom; there are indications of repentance and return; but it seems more a desire to be delivered from calamities that have become intolerable, than a genuine effort to reform. Observe
I. That national decay is the inevitable result of religious apostasy (2Ki. 13:2-3). Religion exalts a nation by exalting the individual. It is equally the basis of private virtue and public faith; of the happiness of the individual and the prosperity of the nation. When God is honoured, the nation is blessed; but when He is forsaken and despised, suffering and disaster follow. True religion, says Burke, is the foundation of society. When that is once shaken by contempt, the whole fabric cannot be stable nor lasting. How strikingly is this illustrated in the history of the Jewish kingdom!
II. That national decay is hastened by the devastations of continuous war (2Ki. 13:3-7). War exhausts the sources of a nations strength, and destroys its noblest sons. It is a waste of blood and treasure. If it does not utterly obliterate the nation, it puts back for years its progress and advancement. A strong nation may recover with surprising rapidity the damage inflicted by a single war; but the strongest nation cannot long survive the sufferings of uninterrupted warfare. Nor is it always evident which suffers mostthe victorious or the vanquished. No greater calamity can happen to a nation than to be given up to the horrors and ravages of war.
Oh world!
Oh men! what are ye, and our best designs,
That we must work by crime to punish crime,
And slay, as if death had but this one gate!Byron.
III. That national decay may be arrested for a time by humiliation and prayer (2Ki. 13:4-5). We may here trace the influence of Elisha upon king Jehoahaz. It was a familiar teaching in the lips of the prophet that the nations troubles were brought about by forsaking God, and the only way of deliverance was to be found in returning to Him in penitence and prayer. Jehoahaz besought the Lord, and the Lord hearkened unto him. The grip of the Syrian was relaxed, the terror of war passed away, and once more peace and security were restored. The Lord has no pleasure in sights of suffering, even where suffering is most deserved. His compassion is touched with the cry of the helpless, and He is swift to save.
More things are wrought by prayer
Than this world dreams of.
For what are men better than sheep or goats,
That nourish a blind life within the brain,
If, knowing God, they lift not hands of prayer,
Both for themselves and those who call them friend?
For so the whole round world is every way
Bound by gold chains about the feet of God.Tennyson.
IV. That national decay cannot be prevented while temptations to apostasy are allowed to exist. There remained the grove also in Samaria (2Ki. 13:6). The incompleteness of the reforming work of the father became a snare to the son (chap. 2Ki. 10:29).The seductions of idolatry led the people away from the worship of Jehovah, and from the path of virtue and uprightness. No nation can rise to its true purity and strength until every public enticement to evil is abolished. There is no safety with idols, but in their destruction.
Still they plead and still they promise; wilt thou suffer them to stand?
They have pleasures, gifts, and treasures, to enrich thee, at command.
Heed not thou, but boldly strike them; let descend the faithful blow.
From their wreck and from their ruin first will thy true riches flow.Trench.
LESSONS:
1. The blessing of God is the strength and glory of a nation.
2. When that blessing is forfeited by unfaithfulness the nation sinks into ruin.
3. Prayer for Divine help should be followed by reformation of life.
GERM NOTES ON THE VERSES
2Ki. 13:2-3; 2Ki. 13:11. A bad example. I. Transmits its baneful influence to succeeding generations. II. Is all the more potent for evil when found in persons in the highest station. III. Is no excuse for any who do evildoes not absolve from personal responsibility. IV. Rouses the anger of God against all who imitate it. V. Cannot be followed without suffering and chastisement.
2Ki. 13:4. Adversity. I. A sharp spur to devotion. II. Appeals to the Divine compassion. III. Affords an opportunity for the gracious exercise of Divine power.
The house of correction is the fittest hospital for those cripples whose legs are lame through their own laziness.Fuller.
God alone
Instructeth how to mourn. He doth not trust
This higher lesson to a voice or hand
Subordinate. Behold! He cometh forth!
O sweet disciplebow thyself to learn
The alphabet of tears.Sigourney.
PrayerI. An evidence of repentance. II. Should be addressed to the Being whom we have offended. III. Secures the Divine compassion and help. IV. The best method of obtaining victory over our enemies.
Repentance is Gods choicest and deepest gift; repentance for our habitual dreariness and coldness, for that shallowness of heart which overtakes us when we are surrounded with the tokens of His presence, when we are partakers of the ordinances of His grace; which those very privileges seem to produce in us; from which troubles, individual or national, cannot of themselves deliver us. Divines may have infinite refinements about the mode, degrees, and effect of repentance. That one phrase of Scripture, turning to God, contains all that we can say of it. Man, thou art living, moving, having thy being in One whom thou art habitually forgetting. That forgetfulness makes thee forget thy brethren; yea, and in the truest sense forget thyself. Thou dost not know what thou art, whither thou art tending. All the earth is a riddle to thee. Thy fellow-men are hindrances in thy way. Thou art thine own great curse and terror. Recollect from whom come the thoughts and impulses of the mind and will within thee; who can make those thoughts and impulses an order instead of a chaos. Turn round to the light which is ever sending flashes into the midst of thy darkness. Ask that instead of such momentary appearances, from which thou shrinkest as from a guilty thing surprised, it may penetrate thee and possess thee, and become thy constant habitation. When thou yieldest thyself to its transforming energy, thou wilt not bear to see the earth lying crushed under the weight of its sins and oppressions. Thou wilt believe in thy heart and declare with thy lips that in Mount Zion and in Jerusalem, in the church which God has set up, in the people who believe in His love, there is a prophecy of deliverance for the universe.F. D. Maurice.
2Ki. 13:5. The Lord gave Israel a temporal saviour in its hour of physical need; to us He has given a spiritual Saviour, who can and will save us out of the hands of the greatest of all our enemies. Many a one prays, like Jehoahaz, in his time of distress; and when the trouble is past, the good impulses quickly disappear.
2Ki. 13:7. No nation is so great and mighty that God cannot take away its might, and make it so small and slight that it is only like dust which the wind scatters (Psa. 18:42).Lange.
2Ki. 13:12. War-like valour. I. Not the highest kind of valour. II. Called into exercise by the extremities of a nation. III. Is of no avail when opposed to Divine chastisements.
Fuente: The Preacher’s Complete Homiletical Commentary Edited by Joseph S. Exell
III. THE REIGN OF JEHOAHAZ IN THE NORTH 13:19
TRANSLATION
(1) In the twenty-third year of Joash son of Ahaziah king of Judah, Jehoahaz the son of Jehu began to reign over Israel in Samaria; and he reigned seventeen years. (2) And he did that which was evil in the eyes of the LORD, and walked in the sins of Jeroboam the son of Nebat who made Israel to sin; he did not turn from it. (3) And the anger of the LORD was kindled against Israel, and He gave them into the hand of Hazael king of Aram, and into the hand of Benhadad the son of Hazael all those days. (4) And Jehoahaz sought the face of the LORD, and the LORD hearkened unto him; for He saw the oppression of Israel, because the king of Aram oppressed them. (5) And the LORD gave to Israel a deliverer, and they went out from under the hand of Aram, and the children of Israel dwelt in their tents as fan former days. (6) But they did not turn from the sins of the house of Jeroboam who made Israel to sin, but walked therein; and also the Asherah remained In Samaria. (7) Neither did he leave to Jehoahaz any people except fifty horsemen, ten chariots, and ten thousand infantry; for the king of Aram had destroyed them and had made them like the dust by threshing. (8) And the rest of the acts of Jehoahaz and all which he did, and his valor, are they not written In the book of the chronicles of the kings of Israel? (9) And Jehoahaz slept with his fathers, and they burled him In Samaria; and Jehoash his son reigned In his place.
COMMENTS
In chapter 13 the account of the Northern Kingdom is taken up where it left off at the end of chapter 9 with the death of Jehu. Jehoahaz succeeded his father on the throne and ruled for seventeen years (2Ki. 13:1). Like all previous kings of Israel, Jehoahaz sinned by continuing to condone the calf worship at Dan and Bethel. Jehu had been chastised by God for failing to purge the land of this theological corruption (2Ki. 10:32-33), and Jehoahaz, because of his obstinacy in this respect, was punished even more severely (2Ki. 13:2). God delivered Israel into the hand of the ruthless Aramean Kings Hazael and Benhadad II all the days, i.e., all the days that God had appointed for the calamity[571] (2Ki. 13:3).
[571] The phrase all the days might be taken to mean all the days of Jehoahaz were it not for the fact that Hazael outlived Jehoahaz and therefore there would be no opportunity for Benhadad, Hazaels son, to fight against him. Of course it is possible that Benhadad warred against Jehoahaz in the capacity of a general in the army of his father.
In the midst of this Aramean oppression, Jehoahaz repented and cried out to God for deliverance. It is true that Jehoahaz did not abandon the practice of the calf worship, perhaps because he did not suspect that this was the sin which had provoked the anger of the Lord. But he did repent; and God accepted that repentance as imperfect as it was. God delivered His people from the destruction which they otherwise might have experienced at the hands of the Aramean Kings (2Ki. 13:4). But that deliverance did not come during the reign of Jehoahaz. God raised up one who would deliver His people from their oppressors. The deliverer referred to in 2Ki. 13:5 may be Jehoash, the son of Jehoahaz, who began to extricate Israel from the grasp of the Arameans. But more likely the reference is to Jeroboam II who was able to restore all the borders of Israel. Following the deliverance from the Aramean hegemony, the people of God dwelt in their tents as in former days. The word tents is a mere idiomatic way of referring to their homes. The peaceful conditions which prevailed in former days, i.e., prior to the Aramean oppression, were restored (2Ki. 13:5).
Eleventh King of Israel
JEHOAHAZ BEN JEHU
814798 B.C.
(Yabweb seized)
2Ki. 13:1-9
Synchronism
Jehoahaz 1 = Jehoash 23
Contemporary Prophet
Elisha
When the righteous are in authority, the people rejoice; but when the wicked bear rule, the people mourn. Pro. 29:2
After jumping ahead to the repentance of Jehoahaz and the subsequent deliverance which God granted to Israel, the author reverts to the theme of the failings of this king. Again he mentions that Jehoahaz walked in the sinful paths of the house of Jeroboam by which he refers to the calf worship which had persisted in the Northern Kingdom from the days of Jeroboam I. The author now adds that Jehoahaz did not remove the Asherahthe wooden image of the consort of Baalfrom Samaria. This Asherah (KJV, grove [572]) had been set up at Jezebels suggestion (1Ki. 16:33) by Ahab. It is surprising that Jehu did not remove this last vestige of the Ahab-Jezebel era during his long reign; but for some reason or other, it was spared and was still standing in the days of Jehoahaz (2Ki. 13:6). 2Ki. 13:7 amplifies the thought of the Aramean oppression alluded to already in 2Ki. 13:4. Hazael had such control over Israel that he was able to limit the standing army of the nation to fifty horsemen, ten chariots, and ten thousand infantry men. Jehoahaz was, it would appear, a vassal subject of Hazael. This sad state of affairs had come about because the Arameans had inflicted heavy casualties upon the Israelite army. The phrase had made them like the dust by threshing (2Ki. 13:7) may be a figurative way of describing the utter destruction which Hazael had inflicted on the armies of Israel. The phrase may also be an allusion to the execution of prisoners by driving threshing implements over thema barbaric practice known to have been practiced by the Arameans (cf. Amo. 1:3). Though humiliated and reduced to subjection by the Arameans, Jehoahaz had distinguished himself by personal courage in the course of the war (2Ki. 13:8). When he died, Jehoahaz was buried in Samaria where all the kings since the time of Omri were buried (2Ki. 13:9).
[572] The mistranslation grove originated with the Septuagint translators who uniformly rendered the Hebrew word by alsos.
Fuente: College Press Bible Study Textbook Series
CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE
THE KINGDOMS AT HIGH TIDE
2Ki. 13:10 to 2Ki. 15:7
Help came to Israel in the midst of the Aramean oppression from an unexpected quarter. In 802 B.C. the Assyrian king Adadnirari III attacked Damascus and inflicted serious casualties on Benhadad II. From that point on, Israel began to gradually recover her lost territories and emerge from the half century of humiliating submission to Damascus. The text under study in this chapter deals with (1) the period of recovery (2Ki. 13:10 to 2Ki. 14:22); and (2) the heyday period of both Israel and Judah (2Ki. 14:23 to 2Ki. 15:7).
REVIEW OF CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE
I. FACTS TO MASTER
A. How did each of the following figure in the events of this chapter?
1. Jehoash
4. Elisha
7. Azariah
2. Amaziah
5. Hazael
8. Jonah
3. Jeroboam
6. Benhadad
9. Jotham
B. What happened at each of the following locations?
1. Samaria
4. Joktheel
7. Lachish
2. Aphek
5. Edom
8. Elath
3. Selah
6. Beth-shemesh
9. Gath-hepher
C. Of what importance were each of the following?
1. bow and arrows
4. ten thousand men
2. bones
5. four hundred cubits
3. three times
II. QUESTIONS TO PONDER
1.
Why did king Joash refer to Elisha as the chariot of Israel and the horsemen thereof?
2.
Explain what was meant by the two symbolic acts per formed in the death chamber of Elisha.
3.
How did Amaziah manifest obedience to the Lord in the early part of his reign?
4.
What war crime did Amaziah commit in Edom?
5.
How does the career of Amaziah illustrate the folly of pride?
6.
Explain the fable which Jehoash of Israel wrote in reply to a challenge from Amaziah.
7.
Why does the author of Kings devote so little attention to the prosperous reigns of Jeroboam and Azariah (Uzziah)?
8.
How did Azariah come to be a leper?
Drawings by Horace Knowles
Fuente: College Press Bible Study Textbook Series
XIII.
(1-3) THE REIGN OF JEHOAHAZ.
(1) In the three and twentieth year of Joash.Josephus makes it the twenty-first year of Joash, but wrongly. According to 2Ki. 12:1, Joash succeeded in the seventh year of Jehu, and Jehu reigned twentyeight years (2Ki. 10:36).
Seventeen years.This agrees with 2Ki. 14:1.
(2) And he did.See Notes on 2Ki. 3:3.
(3) He delivered them into the hand of Hazael.Comp. 2Ki. 10:32, seq. The meaning is that Jehovah allowed Israel to be defeated in successive encounters with the Syrian forces, and to Suffer loss of territory, but not total subjugation. According to the Assyrian data, Shalmaneser warred with Hazael in 842 B.C. , and again in 839 B.C. (See Notes on 2Ki. 8:15; 2Ki. 9:2.)
All their days.Rather, all the days, i.e., continually (not all the days of Jehoahaz, nor of Hazael and Ben-hadad). The phrase is an indefinite designation of a long period of disaster.
Fuente: Ellicott’s Commentary for English Readers (Old and New Testaments)
REIGN OF JEHOAHAZ, KING OF ISRAEL, 2Ki 13:1-9.
1. Three and twentieth year There is a discrepancy between this verse and 2Ki 13:10. If Jehoahaz began to reign in the twenty-third, and his son Jehoash in the thirty-seventh year of Joash, king of Judah, Jehoahaz must have reigned, not seventeen years, as says this verse, but fourteen, or at most fifteen, years. To meet the difficulty some assume that there is an error in the text, and that we should read one and twentieth, or two and twentieth year. Others suppose that Jehoahaz associated his son with him as co-regent two or three years before his death. There are no sufficient data to decide the question. Wordsworth remarks: “In the latter years of the kingdom of Israel the dates of the accession of the sovereigns are fluctuating. This was a natural consequence of the precarious tenure of their rule. It often happened, by reason of the confusion and dissolution of their polity, that it was a matter of doubt whether a king was really king or no at any given time. No wonder, therefore, that the dates are variously given.”
Fuente: Whedon’s Commentary on the Old and New Testaments
The Reign Of Jehoahaz, King of Israel (814/13-798 BC).
On the death of Jehu, his son Jehoahaz ascended the throne of Israel. It was at a time when Assyria had not troubled the area for many years, and were being kept busy elsewhere with attacks on its north-west and eastern frontiers, having previously put down a great revolt in Nineveh and other important centres (mentioned in the Eponym Chronicle – 827-822 BC). Thus there was no restraint on the now powerful kingdom of Aram, and they took advantage of it to pulverise a now weak Israel (weakened by Jehu’s purges) over a number of years. It was a shortsighted policy, for by diminishing the military power of Israel they were rendering helpless a possible ally who in the time of Ahab had been able to supply two thousand chariots in the alliance against Assyria. Now Israel was to be reduced to ten chariots which were probably mainly for ceremonial occasions. They would be able to provide no assistance if ever Assyria invaded again.
And invade they did, for things had got to such a pass that Jehoahaz turned helplessly to YHWH, and YHWH heard him, with the result that in 804 BC Aram found itself trying and failing in an attempt to keep back the might of Assyria (see note on Hazael above, after 2Ki 10:36). YHWH had raised up an unlikely ‘Saviour’, and the consequence was that Aram was in itself pulverised and Israel were for a while left unmolested, even if almost unable to defend themselves. Assyrian records suggest that Israel were paying ‘heavy tribute’ to Assyria.
Analysis.
a
b And he did what was evil in the sight of YHWH, and followed the sins of Jeroboam the son of Nebat, by which he made Israel to sin. He did not depart from them (2Ki 13:2).
c And the anger of YHWH was kindled against Israel, and he delivered them into the hand of Hazael king of Aram (Syria), and into the hand of Benhadad the son of Hazael, for a long time (or ‘continually’) (2Ki 13:3).
d And Jehoahaz besought YHWH, and YHWH listened to him, for he saw the oppression of Israel, how that the king of Aram oppressed them (2Ki 13:4).
e And YHWH gave Israel a saviour, so that they went out from under the hand of the Aramaeans (Syrians), and the children of Israel dwelt in their tents as previously (2Ki 13:5).
d Nevertheless they did not depart from the sins of the house of Jeroboam, by which he made Israel to sin, but walked in them, and there remained the Asherah also in Samaria (2Ki 13:6).
c For he left not to Jehoahaz of the people except for fifty horsemen, and ten chariots, and ten thousand footmen, for the king of Aram destroyed them, and made them like the dust in threshing (2Ki 13:7).
b Now the rest of the acts of Jehoahaz, and all that he did, and his might, are they not written in the book of the chronicles of the kings of Israel? (2Ki 13:8).
a And Jehoahaz slept with his fathers, and they buried him in Samaria, and Joash his son reigned instead of him (2Ki 13:9).
Note that in ‘a’ Jehoahaz began to reign, and in the parallel he slept with his fathers and his son reigned instead of him. In ‘b’ he did evil in the sight of YHWH and in the parallel his acts can be found in the official annals of the kings of Israel. In ‘c’ Israel were subjected to Aram for a long time, and in the parallel they ended up almost defenceless. In ‘d’ Jehoahaz turned to YHWH in a prayer for help, and in the parallel he nevertheless continued to walk in his sins. Centrally in ‘e’ YHWH raised up a saviour for His people enabling the to live quietly and at peace.
2Ki 13:1
‘In the three and twentieth year of Joash the son of Ahaziah, king of Judah, Jehoahaz the son of Jehu began to reign over Israel in Samaria, and reigned seventeen years.’
Jehoahaz’ reign is described in the usual terms dated on the basis of the corresponding king of Judah, coming to the throne in the twenty third year of Joash of Judah.. The one year discrepancy with 2Ki 12:1 is explicable in terms of the different methods of assessing reigns in Israel and Judah already described. Jehoahaz reigned for seventeen years. In 2Ki 13:10 Jehoahaz’s son began to reign in the thirty seventh year of Joash (Jehoash) king of Judah, but according to the figures here it should have been in the thirty ninth/fortieth year (23+17). This suggests that Joash had two/three years co-regency.
2Ki 13:2
‘And he did what was evil in the sight of YHWH, and followed the sins of Jeroboam the son of Nebat, by which he made Israel to sin. He did not depart from them.’
He also continued in the ways of Jeroboam the son of Nebat, supporting the sanctuaries at Bethel and Dan with their syncretistic Yahwism. The activities of Jehu had not led to a return to pure Yahwism, and unofficial worship was still taking place at high places around the country.
2Ki 13:3
‘And the anger of YHWH was kindled against Israel, and he delivered them into the hand of Hazael king of Aram (Syria), and into the hand of Benhadad the son of Hazael, continually.’
We are reminded here that any invasion is seen by the prophetic author as an indication of YHWH’s anger. Were YHWH not angry He could in one way or another have ensured that it did not happen. The consequence of YHWH’s anger at Israel’s disobedience to His covenant resulted in a number of Aramaean invasions by Hazael and his son Benhadad (acting as Hazael’s commander-in-chief) in which Israel were badly mauled. Indeed we learn later that as well as being unable to recover Transjordan from Hazael (see 2Ki 10:32-33), he also lost a number of cities to him west of Jordan (2Ki 13:25).
2Ki 13:4
‘And Jehoahaz besought YHWH, and YHWH listened to him, for he saw the oppression of Israel, how that the king of Aram oppressed them.’
In the end Jehoahaz turned in his extremity to YHWH in genuine prayer from the heart. And the result was that YHWH, who could see Israel’s suffering at the hands of the king of Aram, listened to him and responded to his prayer.
2Ki 13:5
‘And YHWH gave Israel a saviour, so that they went out from under the hand of the Aramaeans (Syrians), and the children of Israel dwelt in their tents as previously.’
And in consequence of Jehoahaz’s prayer YHWH gave Israel a saviour who removed the burden of the Aramaeans from them so that the children of Israel were able to dwell peaceably. ‘In their tents’ is a technical description signifying in their homes (brought forward from their wilderness experience). They no longer had to continually flee into the mountains or otherwise be driven from their homes by the Aramaean incursions. (Although we learn from Assyrian inscriptions that out of gratitude for this deliverance they paid tribute to Assyria).
‘Gave Israel a saviour.’ This probably refers to the successive invasions of Aram by Adad-nirari III of Assyria whereby the power of Aram was for a time broken. In 804 BC the Assyrians recorded victories over Hazael of Aram (under his Aramaic name of Mari) whereby the cities of Aram were crushed one by one so that in the end Hazael had to surrender in Damascus and pay heavy tribute, although Damascus was never taken. A further invasion by Adad-nirari in the days of Benhadad III added to their miseries, and to a further weakening of their power. Being defeated by the merciless Assyrians not only meant great loss of wealth, but also resulted in huge loss of manpower and arms. This interpretation is confirmed by the wording ‘gave them a saviour’. To some extent this is based on the similar idea in Judges, but there the saviours were ‘raised up’ out of Israel (Jdg 3:9; Jdg 3:15; compare 2Ki 2:16; 2Ki 2:18). Here the saviour was ‘given’ from outside.
Other saviours have been suggested such as Elisha on the basis of 2Ki 13:14-20, Joash on the basis of 2Ki 13:17; 2Ki 13:19; 2Ki 13:25, and even Jeroboam II on the basis of 2Ki 14:27. But none of them really fit the situation unless we see the answer to prayer as very much delayed, which is not the impression we are given.
2Ki 13:6
‘Nevertheless they did not depart from the sins of the house of Jeroboam, by which he made Israel to sin, but walked in them, and there remained the Asherah also in Samaria.’
But in spite of YHWH’s deliverance the people of Israel did not return to YHWH with a true heart. They continued in the ways of Jeroboam, worshipping at syncretistic sanctuaries run by false priests, something symbolised by the Asherah pole/image still remaining in Samaria, something which Jehu had apparently overlooked (compare 1Ki 16:33). His main fury had been against Baal.
2Ki 13:7
‘For he left not to Jehoahaz of the people except for fifty horsemen, and ten chariots, and ten thousand footmen, for the king of Aram destroyed them, and made them like the dust in threshing.’
For YHWH had through the depredations of the king of Aram reduced their armed forces to a pitiful remnant, with only fifty horsemen, ten chariots and ten military units of footmen. If the footmen were not regular soldiers, but conscripts, then Israel’s fortunes had fallen very low indeed. The accumulated sins of Israel had reaped their reward. Compare Amo 4:10; Amo 5:3. According to the Assyrian records, in the days of Ahab Israel had been able to field two thousand chariots and ten thousand footmen, but the latter had probably been trained soldiers rather than the militia. The pride of Israel had thus been reduced to a bunch of farmers.
‘Made them like the dust in threshing.’ In other words the remnants that were left when the good grain was removed.
2Ki 13:8
‘Now the rest of the acts of Jehoahaz, and all that he did, and his might, are they not written in the book of the chronicles of the kings of Israel?’
Once again we are referred to the official annals of the kings of Israel for further information about what happened during his reign. ‘His might’ simply means ‘the level of his strength’ and is part of the stereotyped formula. It is not an indication of great power at any stage. It was of a low level.
2Ki 13:9
‘And Jehoahaz slept with his fathers, and they buried him in Samaria, and Joash his son reigned instead of him’
Jehoahaz appears to have died peacefully. He ‘slept with his fathers’ and was buried in Samaria. And his son Joash (or Jehoash) reigned instead of him (and this while Jehoash was reigning in Judah!).
Fuente: Commentary Series on the Bible by Peter Pett
2Ki 13:1-9 The Reign of Jehoahaz Over Israel (814-798 B.C.) 2Ki 13:1-9 records the account of the reign of Jehoahaz over Israel.
2Ki 13:10-25 The Reign of Jehoash Over Israel (798-782 B.C.) 2Ki 13:10-25 records the story of the reign of Jehoash over Israel.
2Ki 13:19 And the man of God was wroth with him, and said, Thou shouldest have smitten five or six times; then hadst thou smitten Syria till thou hadst consumed it: whereas now thou shalt smite Syria but thrice.
2Ki 13:19
2Ki 13:25, “And Jehoash the son of Jehoahaz took again out of the hand of Benhadad the son of Hazael the cities, which he had taken out of the hand of Jehoahaz his father by war. Three times did Joash beat him, and recovered the cities of Israel.”
2Ki 13:25 And Jehoash the son of Jehoahaz took again out of the hand of Benhadad the son of Hazael the cities, which he had taken out of the hand of Jehoahaz his father by war. Three times did Joash beat him, and recovered the cities of Israel.
2Ki 13:25
Fuente: Everett’s Study Notes on the Holy Scriptures
Jehoahaz King of Israel
v. 1. In the three and twentieth year of Joash, the son of Ahaziah, king of Judah, Jehoahaz, the son of Jehu, began to reign over Israel. v. 2. And he did that which was evil in the sight of the Lord, v. 3. And the anger of the Lord was kindled against Israel, v. 4. And Jehoahaz besought the Lord, v. 5. (And the Lord, v. 6. Nevertheless, v. 7. Neither did he, v. 4. leave of the people to Jehoahaz, v. 8. Now, the rest of the acts of 3ehoahaz, and all that he did, and his might, v. 9. And Jehoahaz slept with his fathers; and they buried him in Samaria. And Joash, his son, reigned in his stead.
Fuente: The Popular Commentary on the Bible by Kretzmann
EXPOSITION
2Ki 13:1-25
REIGNS OF JEHOAHAZ, SON OF JEHU, AND JOASH, SON OF JEHOAHAZ, OVER ISRAEL. NOTICES OF ELISHA. WAR OF ISRAEL WITH SYRIA.
2Ki 13:1-9
THE REIGN OF JEHOAHAZ. The writer returns in this chapter to the history of the Israelite kingdom, taking it up from the death of Jehu, which was recorded in the closing verses of 2Ki 10:1-36. He sketches briefly the reign of Jehu’s son and successor, Jehoahaz, in the present section, after which he passes to that of John’s grandson, Jehoash or Joash. The Syrian oppression was the great event of Jehoahaz’s reign.
2Ki 13:1
In the three and twentieth year of Joash; rather, as in Josephus (‘Ant. Jud.,’ 9.8. 5), in the one and twentieth year. This is a correction required by 2Ki 13:10 and also by 2Ki 12:1. The proof is given at somewhat tedious length by Keil and Bahr. It seems unnecessary to enter into a lengthy discussion of the point, since all the synchronisms of the later kings of Israel and Judah are in confusion, and appear to be the work of a later hand. The son of Ahaziah King of Judah, Jehoahaz the son of Jehu began to reign over Israel; literally, reigned over Israel. The “later hand,” which inserted the synchronism, neglected to bring the two portions of the verse into agreement. Our translators have sought to cover up his omission by translating malak “began to reign,” and then supplying “and reigned” in the next clause. And reigned seventeen years (so also Josephus, l.s.c.).
2Ki 13:2
And he did that which was evil in the sight of the Lord. There is no reason to believe that Jehoahaz re-introduced the Baal-worship, or sinned in any other flagrant way than by maintaining the calf-worship at Dan and Bethel. Jehu had done the same (2Ki 10:29), as had all previous kings of Israel from the time of Jeroboam. The honor of God, however, required that idolatry of whatever kind should be punished, and the Samaritan kingdom could not otherwise be saved from destruction than by, “casting away all the works of darkness” and returning to the pure worship of Jehovah. Hence Jehu himself, notwithstanding the good service that he had done in crushing the Baal-worship, was chastised by God (2Ki 10:32, 2Ki 10:33) on account of his continuance in the “sin of Jeroboam;” and now Jehoahaz was even more signally punished. As Keil remarks, “The longer and the more obstinately the sin was continued, the more severe did the punishment become.” And followed the sins of Jeroboam the son of Nebat which made Israel to sin; he departed not therefrom. This is emphatic. Jehoahaz kept up the worship to the full, and in no way suffered it to decline.
2Ki 13:3
And the anger of the Lord was kindled against Israel. We know so much less of the nature of the calf-worship and of the rites which accompanied it, that we cannot to the same extent justify the Divine severity in connection with it as in connection with the Baal and Astarte cult. Still, we must remember the coarse, lewd dancing which accompanied the first calf-worship (Exo 32:19), for which death was not thought too heavy a penalty (Exo 32:27), and the almost universal combination of unchastity with idolatrous ceremonies, which raises a suspicion that those who frequented the shrines at Dan and Bethel were not wholly innocent of impurity. And he delivered them into the hand of Hazel King of Syria. The national sins of Israel were mostly punished in this way, by the sword of some foreign foe. Hazael had been already made an instrument for the chastisement of Jehu (2Ki 10:32, 2Ki 10:33). Now he was to chastise Jehoahaz still more severely. And into the hand of Benhadad the son of Hazael, all their days; literally, all the days. Not certainly all the days of the two kings Hazael and Benhadad, for Benhadad was entirely worsted in his war with Joash (2Ki 13:24, 2Ki 13:25), but either all the days of Jehoahaz, or all the days that God had appointed for the duration of the calamity. It is perhaps against the former interpretation that Hazael appears to have outlived Jehoahaz (2Ki 13:22-24); but Ben-hadad may have warred against him as his father’s general (2Ki 13:25) during his father’s lifetime.
2Ki 13:4
And Jehoahaz besought the Lord; literally, besought the face of the Lord. Jehoahaz, as Josephus says, “betook him-serf to prayer and supplication of God, entreating that he would deliver him out of the hands of Hazael, and not suffer him to continue subject” (‘Ant. Jud.,’ 2Ki 9:8. 5). He did not turn from his sin of idolatry, perhaps did not suspect that it was this sin which had provoked God’s anger; but in a general way he repented, humbled himself, and besought God’s mercy and assistance. And the Lord hearkened unto him. God accepted his repentance, all imperfect as it was, so far as to save the people from the entire destruction with which it was threatened by the severe measures of Hazael (2Ki 13:7), to continue the national existence (2Ki 13:23), and ultimately to restore the national prosperity (2Ki 13:25 and 2Ki 14:25-27). But he did not remove the oppression, as Josephus imagines, in Jehoahaz’s time. 2Ki 13:22 makes this fact absolutely certain. For he saw the oppression of Israel, because the King of Syria oppressed them. Oppression is always hateful to God, even when he is using it as his instrument for chastising or punishing a guilty people. He “sees” it, notes it, lays it up in his remembrance for future retribution (camp. Exo 3:7; Isa 10:5-12, etc.). (On the nature and extent of the oppression of this period, see 2Ki 13:7, and the comment ad loc.)
2Ki 13:5
And the Lord gave Israel a savior, so that they went out from under the hand of the Syrians. A “savior'” means a deliverer from the hand of the Syrians (comp. Jdg 3:9, Jdg 3:15; Neh 9:27, where in the Hebrew the word used is the same). The special “deliverer” was probably in the mind of the writer, Jeroboam II; by whom he says, in 2Ki 14:27, that God “saved” Israel; but Joash, who began the deliverance (2Ki 14:25), may also be glanced at, And the children of Israel dwelt in their tents. Here, as so often elsewhere (1Ki 8:66; 1Ki 12:16; 2Ki 14:12; Zec 12:7), the word “tents” is a mere archaism for “abodes, houses.” Israel had dwelt in tents until the going down into Egypt, and again from the time of quitting Egypt to the entrance into Canaan; and thus the word ohel had acquired a secondary meaning of “abode,” “dwelling-place.” In the time which followed on the deliverance from the Syrian yoke, the Israelites of the ten tribes were no longer engaged in marches and countermarches, in battles, skirmishes, or sieges, but quietly abode in their several houses. As beforetime; i.e. as in the peaceful time before the attacks of Hazael began.
2Ki 13:6
Nevertheless they departed not from the sins of the house of Jeroboam, who made Israel sin. “The house of Jeroboam” is an unusual expression in this connection, and is scarcely appropriate, since every “house” had acted in the same way, Some manuscripts omit the word, and it is wanting in the Chaldee, Syriac, and Arabic versions. Thenius would cancel it. But walked therein; literally, he walked. But here again a corruption may be suspected. Instead of we should read , which lost its final letter in consequence of the vau that immediately followed it. And there remained the grove also in Samaria. “The grove in Samaria” was that idolatrous emblem which Ahab had set up at Jezebel’s suggestion (1Ki 16:33), the nature of which has been much disputed. Some think that it was “an image of Astarte”; but more probably it was a mere emblem, analogous to the Assyrian “sacred tree.” Its material may sometimes have been wood, but was perhaps more usually metal. The mistranslation “grove” originated with the Septuagint translators, who uniformly rendered by . It is surprising that Jehu did not destroy the asherah together with the other idolatrous erections of Ahab in Samaria (2Ki 10:26-28); but, for some reason or other, it seems to have been spared, and to have been still standing. So long as it stood, even if it did not attract the religious regards of any, it would be a standing dishonor to God, and would so increase the sin of the nation. Hence its mention in this passage.
2Ki 13:7
Neither did he leave of the people to Jehoahaz but fifty horsemen, and ten chariots, and ten thousand footmen. This verse seems to be an exegetical note on 2Ki 13:4, which perhaps it once followed immediately, the parenthetic section (2Ki 13:5 and 2Ki 13:6) having been added later, as an afterthought, either by the original writer, or perhaps by a later hand. The meaning seems to be that Hazael limited the standing army of Jehoahaz to fifty horsemen, ton chariots, and ten thousand footmen, not that he slew the entire military population except this small remnant. The policy of limiting the forces to be maintained by a subject-king was one known to the Romans, and has often been adopted in the East. It is still a part of our own policy in the government of India. The limitation left the country at the mercy of all its neighbors (see verse 20). For the king of Syria had destroyed them, and had made them like the dust by threshing. Possibly this means no more than an utter destructiona trampling in the dust, as we phrase it (see Jer 51:33; Mic 4:12, Mic 4:13; and perhaps Isa 21:10). But it may be an allusion to that destruction of prisoners by means of a threshing instrument, which was certainly sometimes practiced (2Sa 12:31; Pro 20:26), and which is made a special charge against Damascus.
2Ki 13:8
Now the rest of the acts of Jehoahaz, and all that he did, and his might; rather, his prowess, or his valor. Though defeated and reduced to subjection by the Syrians, yet Jehoahaz had distinguished himself, and shown his own personal courage, in the course of the war. Are they not written in the book of the chronicles of the kings of Israel?. The regular use of the phrase is one of the indications that the two Books of the Kings are by one author, and form one book.
2Ki 13:9
And Jehoahaz slept with his fathers; and they buried him in Samaria. The kings of Israel from the time of Omri were buried in the capital, Samaria, as those of Judah were in Jerusalem. It is uncertain whether they had one common mausoleum, like the kings of Judah (2Ch 28:27), but it is most probable that they had. To rest with their fathers in the same royal sepulcher was to be duly honored at their death; to be excluded from it was a disgrace. And Joash his son reigned in his stead.
2Ki 13:10-25
THE REIGN OF JOASH. The writer passes from the reign of Jehoahaz, Jehu’s son, to that of Joash, Jehu’s grandson, which he seems to have intended at first to dispatch in the short space of four verses (2Ki 13:10-13). He afterwards, however, saw reason to add to his narrative, first, an account of an interview between Joash and Elisha, shortly Before the death of the latter (2Ki 13:14-19); secondly, an account of a miracle wrought soon afterwards by means of Elisha’s corpse (2Ki 13:20, 2Ki 13:21); and thirdly, a brief notice of Joash’s Syrian war (2Ki 13:22-25).
2Ki 13:10
In the thirty and seventh year of Joash King of Judah. Three years before his death, since he reigned forty years (2Ki 12:1). The two Joashes were thus contemporary monarchs for the space of three years. Began Jehoash the son of Jehoahaz to reign ever Israel in Samaria, and reigned sixteen years. The construction is the same as that of 2Ki 13:1, and is equally ungrammatical. Our translators again amend the faulty phrase by introducing the words “and reigned” The “sixteen years” of the reign of Joash are confirmed by Josephus (‘Ant. Jud.,’ 9.8. 6), but still present some difficulty (see the comment on 2Ki 14:23).
2Ki 13:11
And he did that which was evil in the sight of the Lord; he departed not from all the sins of Jeroboam the son of Nebat, who made Israel sin; but he walked therein. Josephus says that Joash was a good king, and quite unlike his father in disposition (‘Ant. Jud.,’ l.s.c.); but he is not likely to have had any independent data for judging of his character. Our author seems to include both son and father in the same category. The narrative contained in 2Ki 13:14 is probably the foundation of the historian’s favorable judgment.
2Ki 13:12
And the rest of the acts of Joash, and all that he did, and his might wherewith he fought against Amaziah King of Judah (see 2Ki 14:11-14), are they not written in the book of the chronicles of the kings of Israel? Either this and the next verses have been displaced from their rightful position by some accident, or the author at one time intended to terminate his account of Joash at this point. The formula used is one, which regularly closes the reign of each king. The proper place for it would have been after 2Ki 13:25.
2Ki 13:13
And Joash slept with his fathers; and Jeroboam sat upon his throne. That Joash should call his eldest son Jeroboam, after the founder of the kingdom, indicated a thorough approval of that founder’s policy and conduct, and perhaps a hope that he would be to the apparently decaying kingdom a sort of second founder. The name means, “he whose people is many,” and was thus anticipative of that great enlargement of the Israelite kingdom, which took place under him (see 2Ki 14:25-28). And Joash was buried in Samaria with the kings of Israel (see the comment on 2Ki 13:9).
2Ki 13:14
Now Elisha, was fallen sick of his sickness whereof he died. Elisha, who was grown to manhood before the death of Ahab (l Kings 2Ki 19:19), must have been at least eighty years old at the accession of Joash: His illness was therefore probably the result of mere natural decay. And Joash the King of Israel came down unto him. The visit of a king to a prophet, in the way of sympathy and compliment, would be a very unusual occurrence at any period of the world’s history. In the East, and at the period of which the historian is treating, it was probably unprecedented. Prophets waited upon kings, not kings upon prophets: If a king came to a prophet’s house, it was likely to be on an errand of vengeance (2Ki 6:32), not on one of kindness and sympathy. The act of Joash certainly implies a degree of tenderness and consideration on tits part very uncommon at the time, and is a fact to which much weight should be attached in any estimate that we form of his character. He was, at any rate, a prince of an amiable disposition. And wept over his facei.e; leant over the sick man as he lay on his bed, and shed tears, some of which fell on himand said, O my father, my father, the chariot of Israel, and the horsemen thereof. As Elisha had addressed Elijah, when he was quitting the earth (2Ki 2:12), so Joash now addressed the dying Elisha, using exactly the same words, not (certainly) by a mere coincidence. Joash must have known the circumstances of Elijah’s departure, which had probably been entered before this in the ‘Book of the Kings,’ and intended pointedly to allude to them. “O my father, my father,” he meant to say, “when Elijah was taken from the earth, thou didst exclaim that the defense of Israel was gone” (see the comment on 2Ki 2:12): “how much more must it be true that it is gone now, when thou art on the point of departure! He left thee as his successor; thou leavest no one!”
2Ki 13:15
And Elisha said unto him, Take bow and arrows. The prophet was moved, no doubt, by a sudden inspiration tie was bidden to assure the weeping king of victoryspeedy victory-over Syria. The defense of Israel would not fail because hea mere weak instrument by whom God had been pleased to workwas taken from the earth. God would bless the king’s own efforts. “Take bow and arrows,” he exclaims under the prophetic afflatus. “Take them at once into thine hands, and do my bidding.” Words would not have been enough; greater assurance and conviction was produced when prophecy took the shape of a symbolical action. So the Spirit of the Lord moved the prophet to the performance of a symbolical act, or set of acts, which the historian now proceeds to describe. And he took unto him how and arrows. Joash would take these from the hands of his attendants, who might be carrying his own special weapons after him, as was the practice in Persia, or who would at any rate have arms of their own, since they would wait upon him not merely as attendants, but as guards.
2Ki 13:16
And he said to the King of Israel, Put thine hand upon the bowliterally, let thine hand ride upon the bow; i.e. “Take it into active useplace thine hands as thou dost commonly for shootingand he put his hand upon ithe did as Elisha commandedand Elisha put his hands upon the king’s hands. Elisha, it would seem, rose from his bed, and took the attitude of an archer, covering the king’s two hands with his own hands, and making as if he too was pulling the bow, so that the shooting should be, or at least appear to be, the joint act of himself and the king. The intention was, no doubt, as Keil says, “to show that the power which was to be given to the bow-shot” was not the king’s own power, but “came from the Lord through the mediation of his prophet.”
2Ki 13:17
And he said, Open the window. Though glass was unknown, or at any rate not applied to windows, yet the windows of sitting-rooms, and still more of bedrooms, had latticed shutters, which partially excluded the light and the air, and could be opened and closed at pleasure (see the comment on 2Ki 1:2). The prophet ordered the shutter to be opened, that the king might shoot from the window. He addressed, not the king, whose hands were both engaged, but his own servant, or one of the royal attendants. Eastward. Not so much in the direction of Syria, which was north-east of the Israelite territory, as in the direction of Gilead and Bashan, which had been the scene of Hazael’s victories (2Ki 10:33), and was now to be the scene of his reverses. Aphek lay almost duo east of Shunem, where it is probable that Elisha was. And he opened it; or, and one opened it, or they opened it. The Hebrew idiom allows of this indefinite use of the third person singular. Then Elisha said, Shoot. And he shot. And hei.e. Elishasaid, The arrow of the Lord’s deliverance, and the arrow of deliverance from Syria; rather, an arrow. “This is,” the prophet meant to say, “an arrow symbolical of deliverance about to come from Jehovah, of deliverance from the cruel oppression of the Syrians”and not merely of deliverance, but of victory. For thou shalt smite the Syrians in Aphek. The Aphek intended is probably that which lay east of the Sea of Galilee, at the distance of about three miles, in lat. 32 49′ nearly. This place was on the direct route between Samaria and Damascus, and had already been the scene of one great victory gained by Israel over Syria (1Ki 20:26-30). The site is marked by the modern village of Fik. Till thou have consumed them; literally, till consumingi.e; till the army which thou shalt defeat at that place is destroyed utterly. We have no account of the fulfillment of this prophecy, but may regard the defeat as one of those touched on in 2Ki 13:25.
2Ki 13:18
And he said, Take the arrows. And he took them. Elisha bade the king take into his band the remainder of the arrows which the quiver contained. This the king did, and held them in a bunch, as archers do when they have no quiver. And he said unto the King of Israel, Smite upon the ground. It is disputed what this means The LXX. translate “Strike upon the ground;” and so Ewald, De Wette, and Thenius, who regard the order as one to strike with the arrows against the ground (i.e. the floor) or in the direction of the ground. Keil and Bahr, on the contrary, think that the order was to shoot the arrows down from the window and hit the earth with them. But some contrast seems to be intended between the “shoot” () of 2Ki 13:19 and the “strike” () of the present passage. Ewald’s explanation is thus to be preferred. And he smote thrice, and stayed. Joash struck with the arrows against the floor three times, and then paused, thinking he had done enough. He did not enter into the spirit of the symbolical act, which represented the smiting and slaying of enemies. Perhaps he had not much faith in the virtue of the symbolism, which he may even, with the arrogance of a proud and worldly minded man, have thought childish.
2Ki 13:19
And the man of God was wroth with him. Elisha was angered at the lukewarmness of Joash, and his lack of faith and zeal. He himself, from his higher standpoint, saw the greatness of the opportunity, the abundance of favor which God was ready to grant, and the way in which God’s favor was stinted and narrowed by Joash’s want of receptiveness. Had the king been equal to the occasion, a full end might at once have been made of Syria, and Israel might have been enabled to brace herself for the still more perilous struggle with Assyria, in which she ultimately succumbed. And said, Thou shouldest have smitten five or six times; then hadst thou smitten Syria till thou hadst consumed it. It has been suggested that Joash associated the number throe with the notion of completeness, and “thought that what was done thrice was done perfectly” (Bahr); but in this case the prophet would scarcely have been angered. It is far more consonant with the entire narrative to suppose that he stopped from mere weariness, and want of strong faith and zeal. If he had been earnestly desirous of victory, and had had faith in the symbolical action as divinely directed, he would have kept on smiting till the prophet told him it was enough, or at any rate would have smitten the ground five or six times instead of three. The idea that he abstained from modesty or from prudence, “lest too extravagant demands might deprive him of all” (Von Gerlach), finds no support in the text of the narrative. He abstained (as Keil says) because “he was wanting in the proper zeal for obtaining the full promises of God.” Had it been otherwise, the complete success obtained by Jeroboam II. (2Ki 4:25-28) might have been anticipated by the space of fifteen or twenty years. Whereas now thou shalt smite Syria but thrice.
2Ki 13:20
And Elisha died, and they buried him. There had been no burial of Elijah, who” went up by a whirlwind into heaven” (2Ki 2:11). All the more anxious, therefore, would the Israelites be to bury their second great prophet with due honor. They prepared him, no doubt, one of those excavated sepulchers which were usual at the time and in the countrya squared or vaulted chamber cut in the native rock. St. Jerome says that the place of his sepulture was near Samaria (‘Epitaph. Paulae’), and this is sufficiently probable; but in the Middle Ages his grave was shown at Ruma, in Galilee. According to Josephus (‘Ant. Jud.,’ 2Ki 9:8. 6), his funeral was magnificent. And the bands of the Moabites invaded the land at the coming in of the year. It seems to be implied that this was a usual occurrence. Just as the Syrians in the days of Naaman made marauding raids into the land from time to time (2Ki 5:2), so now the Moabites each spring made an incursion. The weakness of Israel is strongly marked by this fact, and still more by the penetration of the Moabites so deep into their country. Amo 2:1 perhaps glances at these incursions of Moab.
2Ki 13:21
And it came to pass, as they were burying a man, that. “They” is used indefinitely of some unnamed Israelites, like the French on. Certain persons, it does not matter who, were burying a man, i.e. about to bury him, and were carrying the corpse to the grave, when an interruption occurred. Behold, they spied a band of menrather, the band, i.e. the band of that yearand they cast the man into the sepulcher of Elisha. There was no time for ceremony. Hastily, and somewhat roughly, it may be, the bearers of the body thrust it into Elisha’s tomb, which happened to be at hand, and from the mouth of which they were able to remove the closing stone. They did not “throw” the body in, but pushed it in. And when the man was let down. The man was not “let down.” Our translators seem to have been unacquainted with the Jewish mode of burial. They imagine that Elisha’s tomb is a pit dug in the ground from the surface downwards, like a modern grave, and the man has therefore to be “let down,” or to “go down“ (marginal translation) into it. The Revised Version avoids the mistranslation, but weakens the force of the original. Translate, and when the man came, etc. And touched the bones of Elisha, he revived. The violent push given to the corpse imparted to it a movement which brought it in contact with the bones, i.e. the body (1Ki 13:31) of Elisha, as it lay, wound in its grave-clothes, but uncoffined, on the floor of the sepulchral chamber. At the moment of contact the dead man came to life”revived.” And stood up on his feet. In many Jewish tombs the sepulchral chamber would allow of this.
2Ki 13:22
But Hazael King of Syria oppressed Israel all the days of Jehoahaz; rather, now Hazael King of Syria had oppressed Israel, etc. The author, having parenthetically related the extraordinary miracle wrought by the instrumentality of Elisha’s corpse, returns to the subject of the Syrian oppression. He had, in 2Ki 13:14-19, dwelt upon the promises of victory given by the prophet to Joash. He is now bent on relating their fulfillment. But before doing so he recapitulates. 2Ki 13:22 refers back to 2Ki 13:3, and 2Ki 13:23 to 2Ki 13:4 and 2Ki 13:5.
2Ki 13:23
And the Lord was gracious unto them, and had compassion on them. Even in his wrath God, thinketh upon mercy.” While he was still punishing Israel by the sword of Hazael, he was yet careful not to make a full end, not to allow the affliction to proceed too far. He still preserved the nation, and kept it in being. And had respect unto themi.e. “considered themkept them in his minddid not permit them to slip out of his recollection”because of his covenant with Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob. God’s covenant with Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob was a covenant of mercy. By it he had pledged himself to multiply their seed, to be their God, and the God of their seed after them, and to give to their seed the whole land of Canaan for an everlasting possession (Gen 17:4-8, etc.). This covenant bound him to extend his protection over the people of Israel so long as they had not utterly and entirely cast off their allegiance. And would not destroy them. They were “persecuted, but not forsaken; cast down, but not destroyed” (2Co 4:9). The national life might seem to hang by a thread, but the thread had not snapped. Neither east he them from his presence as yet. The writer has it in his mind that ultimately they were cast away, rejected, removed out of God’s sight (2Ki 17:18, 2Ki 17:20, 2Ki 17:23); but it was not “as yet”there was still an interval of a century, or a little more, before the blow fell, and the nation of the ten tribes ceased to exist.
2Ki 13:24
So Hazael King of Syria died; rather, and Hazael died. His death is a new fact, not involved in anything that has been previously stated. It appears by 2Ki 13:22 that he outlived Jehoahaz. And Benhadad his son reigned in his stead. Hazael, the usurper, gave his eldest son the name of the monarch whom he had murdered. It was an old royal name in Syria (1Ki 15:18), having been borne by at least two of Hazael’s predecessors. The meaning which has been assigned to it (“Son of the sun”) is doubtful.
2Ki 13:25
And Jehoash the son of Jehoahaz took again out of the hand of Benhadad the son of Hazael the cities, which he had taken out of the hand of Jehoahaz his father by war. The capture of these cities by Ben-hadad had not been previously mentioned. It appears by the present passage, compared with 2Ki 13:22, that, during the lifetime of his father, Benhadad had led expeditions into the land of Israel, acting as his father’s representative and general, and had made himself master of several Israelite towns. These were now recovered by Jehoash. They lay probably in the Cis-Jordanic territory. Three times did Joash beat him; and recovered the cities of Israel. Thrice defeated, Hazael was forced to abandon his conquests in Western Samaria. He retained, however, the trans-Jordanic territory, which was not recovered by the Israelites till the reign of Jeroboam II. (see 2Ki 14:25).
HOMILETICS
2Ki 13:1-7
God’s severity and God’s goodness alike shown in the history of Israel under Jehoahaz.
I. GOD‘S SEVERITY. Two sins only are noted as existing among the people at this timethe calf-worship, and the maintenance of the “grove” or asherah (2Ki 13:6). One of these, the worship of the calves, was ancestral. It had been an established usage for a hundred and twenty years, and had been upheld by every king from the date of its institution. Even the prophets, with one exception (1Ki 13:2, 1Ki 13:3), had not denounced it. The people at this time accepted it without question, and were probably quite unconscious that it was a sin at all, The other sin, the maintenance of the asherah, was negative rather than positive-the emblem still stood erect; it had not been removedbut it is not said that it was worshipped. Yet God, in his severity, visited the people for these two sins heavily, terribly (2Ki 13:4 and 2Ki 13:7). He did not accept thoughtlessness, unconsciousness, absence of any evil intention, as an excuse. His honor was impugned by both practices, and he is very jealous of his honor. To leave the asherah standing, not to break it down, was to show a want of zeal for the purity of religion, for the honor of God, for the true faith, for virtue, for decency. To be indifferent to the calf-worship, to tolerate it, to continue it, was to live in constant violation of the second commandment. God could not, would not, tolerate this. If the conscience of the nation had gone to sleep, he must rouse it. By sharp pains, by severe afflictions, by actual agonies, if necessary, he must stir them from their self-satisfaction, awake them to self-examination and keen searchings of heart, and so bring them to a sense of their sinfulness, if not to a distinct recognition of their special sins.
II. GOD‘S GOODNESS. As soon as any relenting is shown, as soon as the king acknowledges God’s hand in his punishment, and turns to him and entreats his aid, even although he does not put a stop to the practices by which God’s anger has been provoked (2Ki 13:6), yet the Divine compassion is stirred. “The Lord hearkened unto him” (2Ki 13:4). A savior is given, in the Divine counsels, if not at once in fact. The nation’s fall is arrested, its life prolonged. “O faithful Christian, if God heard Jehoahaz, how much more will he hear thee, if thou callest upon him! The Lord gave Israel a deliverer, but Jehoahaz did not live to see him. God hears the cry of those who earnestly call upon him, and helps them; but the time, and place, and manner of his aid are retained in his own discretion. Do not despair if thy prayer does not seem to be heard, and the Lord delays his assistance. He knows that fitting season as well as he knows what is useful to us” (Starke).
2Ki 13:6
The persistency of evil.
“There remained the grove.” One would have thought that, in such a reformation as that of Jehu (2Ki 10:15-28), there would have been a clean sweep, or, at any rate, that Ahab’s pot idolatries (1Ki 16:33) would have gone. But no! evil is terribly persistent. “The evil that men do lives after them,” and not in men’s recollections only, but in fact. No reformation ever sweeps away at once all that it was intended to sweep away. “The grove remains.” How many heathen superstitious survived the supersession of heathenism by Christianity! How many iniquitous laws continue in all countries after every attempt that is made to reform the laws! How many abuses remain after each removal of abuses I The result is partly through the fault of the reformers, who are careless about doing their work thoroughly, and cease their efforts while much still remains to be done; but it is also caused in part by the tenacity of life which the things that need to be swept away possess in themselves. And, as evil is thus persistent in communities, so is it also in the character of individuals. Naturam expellas furca, tamen usque recurret. A man makes a great effort at self-reformation, changes his rules of conduct, his habits, the whole method of his life, as he thinks; but in some corner there still lurks a remnant of the old leaven, which shortly reasserts itself, and too often leavens the whole mass with its corrupting influence. The lesson to be learnt is watchfulness and perseverance. By care, by consideration, and by constant effort, the persistency of evil may be met and counteracted. God’s Holy Spirit is always ready to assist our endeavors; and, whether in a community or in an individual, continued effort, divinely aided, will prevail at last.
2Ki 13:14-19
The closing scene of Elisha’s life.
The time had come to Elisha which comes to all the sons of men, however great, however holy, at the last. He had exceeded man’s ordinary term of three score years and tennay, he had exceeded the extended term of those who are exceptionally “strong” men, four score years (Psa 90:10)but now at length he was overtaken by sickness, he was manifestly drawing near to death. What lessons does his departure teach us? It may teach us
I. A LESSON OF CONSOLATION. It is a good thing so to have lived that our departure is felt as a loss, not merely to our family or to our own narrow circle of friends, but to our king and country. Not many persons can do the sort of service which Elisha did for Israel; but all may do some service. All may seek their country’s good, labor for it, strive for it, pray for it. All may use the powers and talents committed to them by God in such a way that not themselves alone, but their country also, may derive advantage from them. Honest endeavors of this kind will at any rate bring to us “the answer of a good conscience” at the lastthey may bring to us something more, viz. praise and acknowledgment on the part of those who represent the nation an d have a right to speak on its behalf. Due acknowledgment is seldom grudged, when the end has come or approaches; and, though man’s judgment is a “small thing” compared with God’s, it is not altogether to be despisedwe may feel in such acknowledgment a legitimate satisfaction.
II. A LESSON OF FORTITUDE. Elisha makes no moan, expresses no complaint. It is extraordinary how many men, even men who profess to believe in a future life of infinitely greater happiness than the present one, are discontented, and murmur, or even passionately cry out, when a mortal disease attacks them. And this although they have lived the full term of average human life in this world. Very few quit the scene gracefully, placidly, bravely. Almost all seem to regard the summons to set their house in order as untimely, and themselves as hardly used by the call being made upon them. There is always something for which they think they might as well have been allowed to wait
“Half the cows to calve, and Barnaby Holmes to plough.”
III. A LESSON OF PERSEVERANCE AND EFFORT TO THE VERY END. Elisha, though stricken with a mortal disease, does not give himself up to inaction, or cease to take an interest in the affairs of this life. On the contrary, he has his country’s welfare most deeply at heart, and initiates and carries through a scene, in which his physical powers must have been severely tasked, for encouraging king and people in their death-struggle with Syria, and assuring them of final victory. The confidence inspired may have been a serious factor in the result. Elisha, at his age, might have been excused, had he remained wholly passive, and received the king’s visit as the compliment which it was intended to be; but he could not be content without utilizing the visit to the utmost. He rouses the king from his despair (2Ki 13:14); inspires in him hope, courage, energy; promises him success, actively participates in the symbolic drama, which at once indicates and helps forward the result aimed at. We may learn from this that, while we live, we have active duties to perform; we are not exauctorati till the last summons comes; on our sick-bed, on our death-bed, we may still be agents for goodwe may advise, exhort, incite, rebuke evil (2Ki 13:19), and be active ministers of good, impressing men more than we ever did before, when we speak from the verge of the grave, and having our “strength made perfect in weakness.”
2Ki 13:20, 2Ki 13:21
Life in death.
The miracle wrought by the instrumentality of Elisha’s bones would seem to have been designed for three main ends or purposes.
I. FOR THE HONOR OF THE PROPHET; that so he might have in his death (as Elijah had had in the method of his departure) a testimony from God that he was approved by him, and that he would have him respected and honored by his countrymen. Worship of relics was not a Jewish superstition; and thus there was no danger of those ill results which followed on the alleged miracles wrought by the bodies of Christian martyrs. Those who witnessed or heard of the miracle in Elisha’s tomb were led to venerate the memory of the prophet, to whom so great a testimony had been given; and might thence be moved to pay greater attention and stricter obedience to what they knew of his teaching.
II. FOR THE ENCOURAGEMENT OF THE NATION. The death of Elisha was no doubt felt as a national calamity. Many, besides the king, must have seen in it the loss to the nation of one who was more to it than “chariots and horsemen” (2Ki 13:14). Despondency, we may be sure, weighed down the spirits of numbers who might think that God, in withdrawing his prophet, had forsaken his people. It was a great thing to such persons that they should have a clear manifestation that, though the prophet was gone, God still continued present with his people, was still among them, ready to help, potent to save. The more spiritually minded might view the miracle as symbolical, and interpret it to mean that, as the dead man had sprung to life again on contact with Elisha’s bones, so the dead nation should, as it were, rise out of his tomb and recover itself, once more standing on its feet, in full possession of all its energies.
III. FOR THE HONOR OF GOD, AND THE SHOWING FORTH OF HIS TRANSCENDENT POWER. To give life is among the highest of the Divine attributes. It is God’s special privilege, one that he cannot communicate to a creature. Even modern scientists bow their heads before the mysterious, inconceivable act, and confess that they find it impossible to present it distinctly to their consciousness. But to give life to that which is held by death, in which decay is begun, which is under the law of dissolution and corruption, is a still more incomprehensible thing, stranger, more astonishing. And to crown all by bringing the new life out of death, making a dead corpse the source out of which vitality shall leap forth to fresh energy, is to surpass all that the most lively fancy could imagine of wonderful, and almost to reconcile contradictions. God willed at this time to show that he could effect even this marvelous thingmake death give life to that which was recently deadeduce from one dead in him the vital power that should resuscitate and reanimate another also dead, and make a tombthe place of deaththe scene of the transformation! “O Lord, thou art my God; I will exalt thee, I will praise thy Name; for thou hast done wonderful things” (Isa 25:1); truly “wonderful art thou in thy doing towards the children of men” (Psa 66:4). The miracle of Elisha’s bones is no argument for relic-worship. Relic-worship implies a belief that a virtue exists in the remnants of a deceased saint’s body, which enables them of themselves to exercise a miraculous power. Elisha’s bones were never thought to possess any such property. They were not exhumed, placed in cases, or exhibited to the faithful to be touched with the hand or kissed by the lips. It was understood that God had been pleased to work one miracle by them; it was never supposed that they might be expected to work any more. They were therefore suffered to remain in the tomb wherein they had been from the first deposited. It was not till the time of Julian that any importance was attached to them; though then we must conclude that they had become objects of reverential regard, since the Apostate took the trouble to burn them.
HOMILIES BY C.H. IRWIN
2Ki 13:1-13, with 22-25
The reigns of Jehoahaz and Joash, kings of Israel. Observe here
I. THE PERPETUITY OF EVIL. How sad it is to read of one king after another, “He did that which was evil in the sight of the Lord”! And then the statement is usually made, “He departed not from the sins of Jeroboam the son of Nebat, who made Israel to sin.” A bad man does harm to others besides himself. “None of us liveth to himself.” Not merely while we live, but after we are gone, our lives and words and deeds will influence others. We may think ourselves very obscure and insignificant, so insignificant that we may argue it does not matter to others how we live. But who can measure the circle of his influence? In ways that we know not, influence may reach other hearts and other lives. Oh! how dangerous is one evil influence in a community! It takes a long time to do away with its effects.
“The evil that men do lives after them;
The good is oft interred with their bones.”
Let us be careful how we are influencing others. For good or for evil we are exercising some influence, however unconsciously, on those around us. If we would influence men for good, we ourselves must live near to God.
II. THE MERCY OF GOD. God punished Jehoahaz and his people for their sins. “He delivered them into the hand of Hazael King of Syria, and into the hand of Ben-hadad the son of Hazael, all their days.” When suffering or troubles come, let us see whether the cause of them is not within our own hearts and lives. But he mingled mercy with judgment. God is ever on the watch for signs of the prodigal’s return. His ear is ever open for the cry of penitence, for the faintest’ prayer for forgiveness and help. Jehoahaz besought the Lord, and the Lord hearkened unto him; for he saw the oppression of Israel, because the King of Syria oppressed them” (2Ki 13:4; see also 2Ki 13:23).
Come, let us to the Lord our God
With contrite hearts return;
Our God is gracious, nor will leave
The desolate to mourn.
“His voice commands the tempest forth,
And stills the stormy wave;
And, though his arm be strong to smite,
‘Tis also strong to save.”
III. HUMAN INGRATITUDE. Though God delivered them from their difficulty and distress, and gave them peace from their enemies, yet, when the difficulty was over, they forgot all about God’s mercy. They went back to their old sins. “Nevertheless they departed not from the sins of the house of Jeroboam the son of Nebat but walked therein” (2Ki 13:6). How prone the human heart is to forsake God! The Books of Judges and Kings are full of illustrations of this painful fact. By forsaking God the Israelites brought themselves into misery and bondage. Time after time God raised up judges and kings and prophets to be the means of their deliverance. But when these were dead, or when the immediate danger had passed away, once again the people forsook God. It is the same in the history of the individual. How ungrateful we are for God’s unceasing and unfailing goodness! How forgetful of his commandments and his promises! “The way of man is not in himself; and it is not in man that walketh to direct his steps.” We need all the influence of Divine grace to keep us in the way that is right.
IV. A HUMBLED NATION. To what a low level sin reduces a nation! How shamefully Israel was humiliated before Syria! The King of Syria only left to Jehoahaz fifty horsemen, ten chariots, and ten thousand footmen; “for the King of Syria had destroyed them, and had made them like the dust by threshing.” The fate of Israel, the fate of other mighty nations of the past, are a great national lesson to be remembered so long as the world shall last. Ought we not earnestly to pray that this great British empire, which has been built up by God-fearing men, and which God has blessed and honored so highly, may not forsake God for secularism or gross corruption, and thus fall into the fate of the fallen nations of the past? Knowing how great are the forces of evil, it becomes every true Christian to be more valiant for the truth, to be more active in everything that will extend the kingdom of Christ in this and other lands.C.H.I.
2Ki 13:14-19
A royal visit to a dying prophet.
What a peaceful deathbed Elisha’s was! He had long since made his choice. He had lived not for time, but for eternity; not under the fear of man, but under the fear of God; not for the favor of kings or their rewards, but so as to win the approval of his conscience and his Creator. And now, when death came, it brought him no terrors. Not only so, but he was able to give encouragement to others. When King Joash sees the prophet on his deathbed, he feels how great is the loss which Israel is about to sustain. Good men are a nation’s strength. And so Joash, bending in tears over the dying prophet’s couch, exclaims, “O my father, my father, the chariot of Israel, and the horsemen thereof!” But Elisha wants to keep up his heart. He wants to teach him that, though the prophet dies, the prophet’s God remains. The workmen pass away, but the work of God goes on.- So the true Christian will ever look beyond his own death to the glory that awaits him, beyond the present hour of darkness or difficulty or delay to the ultimate triumph of the Church of Christ. It was in this spirit that the martyrs died. What a vision of the future lit up their suffering faces! What a prophetic instinct in such words as those which’ Bishop Latimer spoke to his fellow-reformer Ridley, as they stood side by side, waiting for the faggots to be kindled: “Be of good cheer, brother Ridley, and play the man; we shall this day light such a candle in England, as by God’s grace shall never be put out.” And here Elisha on his deathbed gives utterance to prophetic words. He told Joash that the arrow, which, in obedience to his directions, he had shot forth from the open window, signified the arrow of the Lord’s deliverance. But Joash was slow to learn the double lesson of God’s unlimited power and the necessity-for human effort which this simple illustration taught. Elisha had already told him that he should smite the Syrians till they were consumed, and then, to teach him furthermore the necessity for perseverance and patience, he commands him to smite upon the ground. Joash, seeing that the prophet had already revealed to him so much and encouraged him so greatly, might have continued until he was requested to cease. But instead of that, he only smote three times, and then gave up. Thus he illustrated his own want of faith in God’s almighty power, his own want of patience and perseverance, and therefore how little he deserved God’s interference on his behalf. The old proverb truly says, “God helps those that help themselves.” The chief lesson of this incident isWant of faith a hindrance to success in Christian work.
I. CHRISTIANS SHOW WANT OF FAITH, ALTHOUGH THEY HAVE DIVINE PROMISES. It was so here in the case of Joash. He had stood beside the bedside of Elisha in a state of utter dismay. It had seemed to him as if he already saw the downfall of his kingdom, as if all other resources were useless if the man of God, who had so often guided kings and people to victory, was taken away. But look at the encouragement which Elisha had given him. He had taken his thoughts away from human wisdom and human strength, and turned them upward to the almighty, unlimited power of God. “The arrow of the Lord‘s deliverance.” What suggestions of power, of help, of victory, were in those simple words! The Lord‘s deliverance! That almighty power which delivered Israel out of the hand of Pharaoh; that almighty power which turned back the waves of the Red Sea, and brought the people over safely on dry land; that almighty power which, only a few years since, filled the dry valley with water and thus gave victory to Israel, and which, by smiting the Syrians with blindness, delivered Israel out of the hands of their enemies;that almighty power, O Joash, will be with you, will deliver you. Oh, what a thrill of determination, of resolute, energetic purpose, should have been awakened in his mind! Might he not reasonably have felt, “Yes, the Lord is on my side. Victory is sure. I shall redouble my efforts against the enemies of Israel, against the workers of evil. Out of gratitude to God I shall serve the Lord only”? But Joash failed when put to the test. When Elisha gave him an opportunity of showing his faith by his own efforts, he only showed how little faith he had in the promises of God. If we believe that God’s Word is true, that his promises are true, it is but reasonable that he should expect us to act on them. To every unsaved soul God says, “Believe on the Lord Jesus Christ, and thou shalt be saved.” The promise is salvation. But there is a duty, a condition, a necessity, coupled with it. That duty is faith in Christtaking him as our Savior, serving him as our King. How many act like Joash! They would like to get to heaven, but they are not willing to tread the narrow path. They would like to obtain salvation, but they are not willing to take God’s way of obtaining it. They say, “If I’m to be saved, I shall be saved.” To any one who has been thinking about eternity and the judgment to come, whose heart has been softened by sickness or bereavement, who has been impressed by any message from God’s Word, but has not yet accepted Christ, we would say, “Stay not thine hand. Let not the good impressions pass away.” “Then shall we know, if we follow on to know the Lord.” Arise today, and in the strength of God smite your unbelief, smite the tempter to the ground. Strive to enter in at the narrow door. Then shall that good impression, then shall that warning voice, prove to be to you the arrow of the Lord‘s deliverance. Take the step, fulfill the condition, if you would obtain the blessing. The same applies to Christian work. How many call themselves God’s servants, how many expect the reward of the faithful servant, who are doing absolutely nothing for the Lord. Jesus has given one very precious promise to his people: “Lo, I am with you always, even unto the end of the world;” but it is to those who in some way are seeking to fulfill that command, Go ye therefore, and preach the gospel to every creature.” The truth is, the promise depends upon the work, and the work depends upon the promise. We cannot expect God’s blessings if we are not doing his work. And we cannot do his work if we do not meditate much on his promises.
II. CHRISTIANS SHOW WANT OF FAITH, ALTHOUGH THEY HAVE PROOFS OF DIVINE POWER. In the history of his nation, even in the history of Elisha’s life alone, Joash had many proofs of Divine power, yet still he showed a want of faith in God. In the whole history of God’s kingdom in the world, in the whole history of the Christian Church, we have proofs of God’s power, yet where is our faith at all proportionate to the strength of evidence on which it rests? There is no stronger testimony to the power of the gospel than the history of modern missions. It is just seventy years since the first missionaries landed in Madagascar; it is not thirty years since the terrible persecutions ceased there, by which the missionaries were driven out of the island, and the little companies of Christians who survived the-massacre met for worship in secret, in dens and caves of the mountains, and were in constant danger of their lives. Yet in that large island today there is a Christian population of nearly three hundred thousand, the idols have been publicly burned, and the Christian religion is publicly recognized by the state. What hath God wrought! Think of the work which Dr. Moffat accomplished among the degraded tribes of South Africa, not so many years ago. The conversion of Africaner, the Hottentot chief, under his ministry, is well known. Every one warned Moffat against him as a man who was a terror to the whole neighborhood. But Moffat thought he was just the man to go to with the gospel He went, and was the means of leading the savage chief to Christ, and “Africaner’s changed life convinced many, who had never believed in them before, of the efficacy of Christian missions.” Think of the progress of Christianity in Japan, in India, in China. The following testimony was recently borne to mission work in China in his report to the Foreign Office by the late British Consul at Newchwang. He says, “The labors of the missionaries indirectly benefit our merchants, manufacturers, and artisans. I further believe that, partly owing to the Christian principles disseminated by the missionaries, the tone of morality among the Chinese people has during the last twenty years perceptibly attained a higher platform.” The Rev. William Swanson, a veteran missionary, and lately moderator of the English Presbyterian Church, states that when he went to China twenty-six years ago there were only five small churches at the treaty ports. Now, in going from Canton to Shanghai, and traveling twenty or twenty-five miles a day, he could sleep every night, with one or two exceptions, in a village having a Christian church. The first time Charles Darwin visited the island of Tierra del Fuego, he said that the people there were irreclaimable. He saw four Christian Fuegians at a meeting in England, and was so impressed by what he heard of the work of the missionaries that he became an annual subscriber to the funds of the Missionary Society, and said he should feel proud if the committee would think fit to elect him one of its honorary members. When we think of these things, of the wonderful work done in the South Sea Islands, and of the many nations where heathenism has yielded to the preaching of the cross, surely we may well say, “What hath God wrought!” Today, just as in St. Paul’s day, the gospel is “the power of God unto salvation to every one that believeth.” If we doubt the power of the gospel, our doubts are in the face of overwhelming and irresistible facts.
III. THE EVIL RESULTS OF THIS WANT OF FAITH. This want of faith has ill results on life and practice and Christian work. Many who went part of the way with Christ turned back and walked no more with him because of their want of faith. It is so still. Want of faith leads to low expectations and feeble efforts. True faith in God’s presence and power, instead of making us inactive and careless, is the greatest stimulus to activity. It rouses us to put forth all our energies. It makes us patient under difficulties. It causes us to persevere even when we see no immediate result. How many a good work has been begun, but given up, because of want of faith! This was nearly being the case at one time with what has since proved one of the most successful missions to the heathen. After twelve years’ labor in the island of Tahiti, in the Pacific, the mission seemed to be an utter failure. All but one of the missionaries left the South Sea Islands. At home the directors of the London Missionary Society seriously discussed the abandoning of the mission. But two members of the committee, men of strong faith in God and the gospel, strenuously opposed this, and proposed a season of special prayer for a blessing on its work. This was agreed to; letters of encouragement were written to the missionaries; and while the ship that bore these letters was on her way to Tahiti, another ship was bearing to England the rejected idols of the people. How had this happened? Some of the missionaries who had left the island were led in some way to return. One morning one of them went out into the fields for meditation, when he heard, with a thrill of joy, the voice of a native raised in prayer to Godthe first token that their teaching had been blessed in Tahiti. Soon they heard of others. A Christian Church was formed. The priests publicly burned their idols; and thus, after a night of toil of sixteen years, the dawn at last broke (see ‘Outlines of Protestant Missions,’ by Rev. John Robson, D.D.). What a rebuke to the weak faith of the directors who had proposed to abandon the mission! What a lesson to every minister and missionary, to every Sunday-school teacher, to every Christian worker, not to stay their hand, even where they see no results of their labor! “He that goeth forth and weepeth, bearing precious seed, shall doubtless come again with rejoicing, bringing his sheaves with him.” Work done for God never dies. Stay not your hand in the matter of your own spiritual life. Persevere in the conflict with your besetting sins. Persevere in the cultivation of Christian graces. Use the arrow of the Lord’s deliverance. Put on the whole armor of God. Persevere also in prayer for others, Never give up as hopeless a single soul. Stay not thine hand. You can’t do much for them, perhaps, but God can. Lay the case of erring child or godless friend before God in prayer. Ask him to open their eyes. Ask the Lord Jesus to lay his hand upon themto speak the word only, and they shall be made whole. Persevere also in Christian work. “Be not weary in well-doing” Leave no work unfinished for which God gives you the strength and the means. Perhaps we have been shooting too few arrows, making too little effort in God’s cause. Seek the guidance of God’s hand and the power which God’s presence gives, and then go forth to win victories for him.C.H.I.
2Ki 13:20, 2Ki 13:21
A resurrection and its lessons.
This miracle was wrought, in a time of prevailing unbelief, to teach a lesson to a faithless age. Strange sight indeedfor those who were engrossed with the sensual pleasures of the present world, thus unexpectedly to be brought face to face with the power of the Unseen!
I. GOD‘S POWER TO RAISE THE DEAD. Here was something which their heathen gods could never do. Heathenism, agnosticism,these systems bring no comfort to the bereaved and sorrowing spirit. Christ alone has brought life and immortality to light through the gospel. None but he has ever dared to say, “I am the Resurrection and the Life.”
II. THE UNDYING INFLUENCE OF GOOD MEN. “Non omnis moriar” was the saying of the old heathen poet. But the humblest Christian who is faithful to God may have confidence that his influence for good will continue long after he has passed away from earth.
1. Elisha‘s words were to continue. The prophet was dead, but his words still lived. His words were the words of God. “Heaven and earth shall pass away, but my words shall not pass away.” We see in the twenty-fifth verse how Elisha’s prediction to Joash was literally fulfilled. Three times Joash defeated the Syrians and recovered the cities of Israel. Elisha’s words still remain, to be our consolation and comfort.
2. Elisha‘s work remained. The memory of his faithfulness to God, of the wonders he was able to do by God’s presence with him, remained to be a help and stimulus to many faithful servants of God when Israel was growing worse and worse. A good man’s influencewho can tell how long it may last, or what unexpected places and persons it may reach?C.H.I.
HOMILIES BY D. THOMAS
2Ki 13:1-21
The death of Elisha.
“In the three and twentieth,” etc. The Book of Kings is, to a large extent, a record of crime, and of crime of the most heinous and aggravated character. The terrible monstrosities recorded are, for the most part, ascribable, directly or indirectly, to kings. In this very chapter we have a sketch of two of those monarchs who have been among the greatest curses of their race. Jehoahaz, son and successor of Jehu King of Israel, whose reign was disastrous to the kingdom to such a degree that his army was all but utterly destroyed, and had become like the dust on the “threshing-floor;” and Jehoash, who for three years was associated with his father in the government, and who, when his father was swept away, was a curse to the world for sixteen years. The only portion of this chapter which requires notice is from 2Ki 13:14 to 2Ki 13:21. These verses present to us four subjects of thoughta great man dying; a good man leaving the world interested in posterity; a wicked man regretting the event; and a dead man exerting a wonderful influence.
I. A GREAT MAN DYING. “Now Elisha was fallen sick of his sickness whereof he died.” The whole history of Elisha is not only the history of the marvelous, but the history of loyalty to Heaven and of devotion to the interests of the Israelite race. But here we find this great and good man dying. Elijah, his master, had escaped death and had been borne to heaven in a chariot of fire, but Elisha had to die in the ordinary way of mankind, through sickness. It is true he was an old man; threescore years had passed since he commenced his prophetic ministry. For a great many years we are told nothing about him, but no doubt he had been actively and usefully engaged. Even the most useful public men, and the most popular too, cease to attract great public attention as they pass into years. Often they become as “dead men out of sight,” albeit they are useful. Though all men have to die, death is not the same to all men. It has a widely different significance to different men. To the good man it is life breaking through exuviae and taking wing to revel in a sunny universe. It is the “mortal putting on immortality.”
II. A WICKED MAN REGRETTING THE EVENT. “And Joash the King of Israel came down unto him, and wept over his face, and said, O my father, my father!” Why did he weep? Not because he had any sympathy with the character of the departing man. His moral sympathies were in antagonism to those of the prophet. Not because he felt that the prophet himself would suffer loss. He was not thinking of the prophet’s gaining or losing by death. Not because he knew that the event would be a loss to the living in general. He cared nothing for his race, not he; but because he knew that the prophet was the “chariot of Israel, and the horsemen thereof.” His chariots and horsemen were gone, and Elisha was his only hope.
III. A GOOD MAN LEAVING THE WORLD INTERESTED IN POSTERITY. Elisha, though dying, stilt took an interest in the future of his country. “Elisha said unto him, Take bow and arrows. And he took unto him bow and arrows,” etc. (2Ki 13:15-19). Elisha seems to have been touched by the king’s tears; and he held out the hope that he would yet become victorious over the Syrians. The symbolic action which the prophet recommended, putting his hand upon the bow, opening the window, shooting the arrow, smiting the ground, does not, I think, necessarily mean that the prophet approved of the future wars of the king, but merely indicated the fact. He foretold his success; for, in three campaigns against the Syrians, he recovered the cities which they had taken from his father. He was also successful in the war with Amaziah King of Judah. But the point worth notice is the interest felt in the future by the prophet in his dying hours. Had he not done with life? Would he not soon be in his grave? What would the world be to him in the future? An interest in posterity seems to be an instinct in humanity. There is a nerve in humanity that runs through all races and all generations, linking men together. No man liveth to himself;” all men are in one. The more moral goodness a man has in him the more sensitive this nerve becomes. Hence the best men in all ages have been the men who made provision for posterity.
IV. A DEAD MAN EXERTING A WONDERFUL INFLUENCE. “It came to pass, as they were burying a man, that, behold, they spied a band of men; and they cast the man into the sepulcher of Elisha: and when the man was let down, and touched the bones of Elisha, he revived, and stood up on his feet.” The incident which takes place in his grave is as strange as it is significant and suggestive. The bearers of a dead man, struck with terror at the approach of enemies, instead of carrying the remains to their appointed resting-place, pushed them into the sepulcher where slept the bones of the illustrious Elisha. No sooner did the corpse touch the sacred relics of the great seer than it quivered with life, and the dead man, to the astonishment of all, revived, and stood on his feet. This miraculous incident was desired and calculated to make a wholesome moral impression on the mind of the age. It had a tendency to demonstrate to all the Divinity of the prophet’s mission, to show the honor with which the Eternal treats the holy dead, to prove the existence of a Power superior to death, and to foreshadow a future state. Whilst I would at all times studiously endeavor to avoid the mistake of what is called spiritualizing God’s Word, I feel that it is lawful to use an incident like this as an illustration of spiritual realities. The incident which occurred in the grave of Elisha on this occasion, viz. the deriving of life by contact with the holy dead, is, in the material department of things to which it belongs, sublimely singular. Such an event as this, perhaps, will never occur again; but a thing analogous to this in the spiritual domain is, thank God, of frequent occurrence. The dead minds of earth are constantly deriving life from contact with the spiritual remains of the dead.D.T.
HOMILIES BY J. ORR
2Ki 13:1-7
Israel’s humiliation under Jehoahaz.
The story of the reign of Jehoahaz, Jehu’s son, is a story of unmitigated misfortune. We note
I. JEHOAHAZ‘S EVIL REIGN.
1. The downward movement in Israel. With the extinction of Ahab’s house, the rooting out of Baal, and the establishment of Jehu’s dynasty, Israel obtained a new chance of doing well. But Jehu’s reforming zeal soon died out, and he fell back into godless ways. His son followed the worse, and not the better, traditions of his father’s reign. Thus the downward movement again began, Of Jehoahaz also the old monotonous refrain has to be spoken, “He did that which was evil in the sight of the Lord.” This is the burden of the song regarding every king of Israel. In the whole line, from first to last, there is not one of whom a different report can be given.
2. The cardinal sin. The foremost sin of all these monarchs-that which fatally entangled them in other sinswas the perpetuation of the worship of the calves. Religion affects the springs of morality, and this idolatrous cultus sent poisonous streams through the whole life of the nation. It was the grand transgression which, amidst all temporary reforms, was never abandoned.
II. THE SYRIAN OPPRESSION.
1. Divine anger. “The anger of the Lord was kindled against Israel” God had done so much for the people, had granted them so favor-able an opportunity for repentance, had counseled and warned them so long by great prophets like Elijah and Elisha, that he was justly wroth with them for their continued transgressions. God is jealous of his honor, and presumptuous transgressors must expect to find his hand laid heavily upon them. When God’s anger is kindled against a people, things cannot go well. Troubles break out on every side, and calamities fall thick and fast.
2. Weighty chastisements. God delivered the people of Israel into the hands of the kings of SyriaHazael and Benhadad. This time it was no passing invasion. The completeness of the conquest, and the severity of the oppression, recall the days of the judges, or the Philistine oppression of the reign of Saul (Jdg 5:6, Jdg 5:7; 1Sa 13:19-22). Out of the hosts of Israel there was left to Jehoahaz but fifty horsemen, and ten chariots, and ten thousand footmen. Elisha’s foresight of the evils which Hazael would inflict on the nation was thus terribly verified. Again is the reflection forced on usHow bitter is the fruit of sin! The Bible is little else than a repeated enforcement of the truth, “Say ye to the righteous, that it shall be well with him . Woe unto the wicked! it shall be ill with him: for the reward of his hands shall be given him” (Isa 3:10, Isa 3:11).
III. JEHOAHAZ‘S PRAYER, AND ITS ANSWER.
1. The king‘s prayer. The very existence of the kingdom seemed threatened. Happily, the desperate straits to which he was reduced led Jehoahaz to humble himself before God. He felt himself in the hands of a living God, and, rightly tracing the calamities which had befallen him to Jehovah’s anger, he turned to Jehovah for his help. The chastisements with which God visits men for their sins are designed to break their pride and stubbornness, and lead them to repentance. They often have the effect of producing a temporary submission, though they cannot of themselves change the heart. We have examples in Pharaoh (Exo 8:28) and in Ahab (1Ki 21:27).
2. God‘s answer to the prayer. A prayer wrung from the king, not by the sense of his sin, but by the intolerable pressure of affliction, might have been thought undeserving of an answer. But the Lord is very pitiful, and welcomes the faintest approach of the sinner unto him. He does not thrust the suppliant away, but seeks, by giving him tokens of his grace, to ripen his imperfect desires into real repentance. Accordingly, the approaches of Jehoahaz to the throne of grace met with a gracious response. God promised a savior to the land, and ultimately raised one up in the person of Joash, who, but for his want of perseverance, would have completely delivered the nation from the Syrians. The work which he left undone was finished by his son, Jeroboam II. Thus God shows himself ready to hear the cries even of the worst of men. None need despair in calling on Heaven when Jehoahaz was listened to in such dire straits. Happy they who are led to call, though it be from the depths, to God (Psa 130:1-8. l). He will not turn any away. His promise is, “Call upon me in the day of trouble: I will deliver thee” (Psa 50:15).
3. Imperfect repentance. The imperfection of Jehoahaz’s repentance is seen in the fact that the worship of the calves was still maintained; also there remained the symbol of Astarte in Samaria. God’s promise having been given, was not revoked, and there were other reasons why he was willing to help the people (2Ki 13:23). But these sins in high places wrought ruin afterwards.J.O.
2Ki 13:8-19
Joash and Elisha.
Jehoahaz reigned for seventeen years, and was succeeded by his son Jehoash, or Joash. In this reign, after a long interval, Elisha again appears.
I. ACCESSION OF JOASH. The change of rulers was in some respects a gain for Israel. Joash was a man of better disposition than his father, and under his reign the kingdom, which has been so sorely broken down, was again partially built up. But he still adhered to the cardinal sin of the nationthe calf-worship-so that of him also the formula has to be employed, “He did that which was evil in the sight of the Lord.” That is, notwithstanding military successes, and some signs of respect for and attention to Elisha’s monitions, things still remained on a fundamentally false basis in the kingdom. So Herod feared John the Baptist, and observed him, and, when he heard him, did many things, and heard him gladly, yet remained a bad man (Mar 6:20). God’s judgment on men is not according to superficial characteristics, but according to the fundamental bent of their minds.
II. ELISHA ON HIS DEATHBED.
1. Elisha‘s sickness. Elisha by this time was a very old man. He was Elijah’s attendant in the reign of Ahab; he was a prominent figure in the reigns of Ahaziah and Jehoram; he gave the commission to Jehu to overthrow the incurably corrupt dynasty of Ahab, and lived through the twenty-eight years of that king’s reign; he witnessed the troubles of the reign of Jehoahaz, and was perhaps the means of that monarch being led to humble himself before God; now, in Joash’s reign, he is still alive. From the time of Jehu’s accession he seems to have taken little part in the political life of the nation; at least, no accounts of his activity remain to us. When the curtain again lifts he is lying on his deathbed. It was not to be with him as with Elijah. He must pay the common debt to nature, experience the infirmities of age, be smitten with sickness, and succumb to death. The longest and most useful life thus comes to its close. It is well when, on a deathbed, one can look back on a life which has been spent in the service of God.
2. The visit of Joash. To the bedside of the dying Elisha came the King of Israel, apparently drawn thereto by sincere reverence and respect for the aged prophet. He came to him, it is said, and wept, saying, “O my father, my father, the chariot of Israel, and the horsemen thereof!” This language speaks to former relations of intimacy and friendship between the king and prophet. Probably Elisha had been the counselor of his youth, and had guided and encouraged him in his duties as king. It is to be remembered also that the promised deliverance from the Syrians was not yet begun. The kingdom was still in humiliation and distress, and Joash may have felt as if, with the death of Elisha, the last spark of hope for the nation would be extinguished. We see how, in the hour of extremity, good men are felt, even by the ungodly, to be a tower of strength to the state. Their presence and prayers are its truest bulwark. The full extent of the loss sustained by their removal is only realized when they are taken away. We see also how possible it is to have great respect for God’s servants, to appreciate their worth to the community, and to weep over and deeply regret their loss, and yet not do the things that they say. Joash shows fairly well in this narrative, but his conduct as a whole is stamped as “evil in the sight of the Lord.”
III. THE ARROW OF DELIVERANCE. Once and again had mighty deliverances for Israel been announced through Elisha. The last was to be the greatest of all.
1. The pledge of deliverance. Raising himself up on his bed, prophetic fire gleaming in his eye, Elisha bade the young and stalwart king take his bow and arrows. Joash did as the prophet required, not yet understanding his meaning, but no doubt forecasting some encouraging message. Elisha then bade him put his hand upon his bow, and placing his own hands on the king’s, told him further to open the window eastward, and shoot. This was done. Then the symbolic action was explained. That arrow he had shot into the air was the arrow of the Lord’s deliverance, an arrow pledging deliverance from the yoke of Syria. It was shot eastwards, because the Syrian ravages were com-inertly from that quarter (2Ki 10:32, 2Ki 10:33). The action declares:
(1) That deliverance in trouble is from God only. As he alone can give it, so he is the true Source from which to seek it.
(2) God employs human agency in his deliverances. The bow and arrows were the symbols of the human instrumentality. Joash had to put his hands upon the bow. It was he who shot the arrow. It was he who was to smite the Syrians. Man has his part given him in all God’s works of deliverance on earth.
(3) The human agent could only succeed as God strengthened him. Elisha put his hands upon Joash’s, signifying that the power to gain the predicted victories came from God. His hands were to be “made strong by the hands of the mighty God of Jacob” (Gen 49:24). It is on God’s power we must always rely for victory. “Not unto us, O Lord, not unto us,” etc (Psa 115:1).
2. The victories in detail. The symbol was not yet complete. Joash’s quiver was yet full, minus that one arrow, and the prophet bade him shoot other arrows, this time to the ground, as if smiting something down to it. Joash took his arrows and began to smite. He shot once, and twice, and thrice, then stayed. The prophet was wroth at this, and told him he should have gone on smiting, then would the Syrians have been wholly consumed, whereas now he would only gain three victories over them. These successive smitings, therefore, represented the victories in detail which Joash would gain over the Syrians. One is at a loss at first to see why the prophet should have dealt so severely, with the king for what may have been a perfectly natural mistake. But the stopping with the third arrow no doubt brought to light a certain weak line in Joash’s charactera want of perseverance, a tendency to be satisfied with partial results, to stop short of the ultimate goal of effort. And one can see how that may have hindered his complete success over the Syrians. We learn:
(1) Very trivial actions often reveal a great deal of character.
(2) We often have not from God because we ask not. These shootings of the arrows were at once prayers for victories from God, and pledges of victories. Joash, as it were, asked for only three victories, and he only got three. Had he asked for more, he would have got more. Had Abraham not ceased pleading for Sodom when he did, he might have got a yet further extension of grace for that doomed city (Gen 18:32, Gen 18:33). It is never in God we are straitened in our prayers; it is only in ourselves.
(3) It displeases God that we do not ask more from him. His controversy with us is not that we ask too much, but that we do not ask enough. Joash missed the full blessing by stopping in his asking.J.O.
2Ki 13:20, 2Ki 13:21
Power in dead bones.
These verses contain a circumstantial notice of a singular miracle that was wrought at Elisha’s sepulcher by contact with his bones. Bands of Moabites were ravaging the country, and one of these bands came upon the scene during a funeral. The mourners were terrified, and hastily thrust the corpse into Elisha’s sepulcher, which was hard by; whereupon the dead man, having touched the bones of Elisha, revived and stood upon his feet. We notice
I. THE GOOD MAN LAID IN HIS GRAVE. Elisha’s sickness had proved to be indeed unto death, and his mortal remains had been reverently conveyed to a sepulcher. He who had been the means of restoring life to others, whose very bones were made the instrument of reviving the dead, was not able to protect himself from the universal law. He left the world by the same gate as ordinary mortals. It is pathetic to reflect that, however long and useful a life may be, this is always the end of it. The certainty of removal by death from the scene of their labors should animate those who are still in the vigor of their powers to work while it is today (Joh 9:4), and should lead those who enjoy the presence and services of good men to prize and honor these servants of God while they are here. From the side of the saint himself death is not a calamity, but a gain. “He rests from his labors, and his works follow him” (Rev 14:13).
II. POWER ISSUING FROM THE GOOD MAN‘S GRAVE. Though Elisha was not taken to heaven as Elijah was without tasting of death, he had yet great honor put upon him in his death. God set the seal on his prophetic work by making life-giving power to issue even from his grave. The miracle suggests to us the fact that from every good man’s grave there issues in an important sense a life-giving power. The influence of men does not die with them. On the contrary, it is often greater after their deaths than during their lives.
1. Sometimes in a literal sense the grave is a source of new life to men. In the act of committing dust to dust, and ashes to ashes, holy impressions steal over men, new resolves take possession of their hearts. Many a man, e.g; has been brought to his senses at the graveside of a father or mother, whose counsels, perhaps, he disregarded in life.
2. Sometimes in a figurative sense souls are quickened by the bones of the dead. A man’s actions, for instance, are things of the past when he is dead. But they may be written in a book, and become a source of life to countless generations who read them afterwards. It is but a few facts of any man’s life which can Be thus rescued from oblivionthe mere bones of his history; but what a power is in them! So of a man’s words. The fragments of a man’s speech that can be preserved in any collection of his sayings are comparatively few. They are the mere bones of his speech. But they quicken souls through the ages. The words of David, of St. Paul, of the prophets, touch and work on souls to the present hour. The world is the living thing it is because of the influence of these dead men in it. They are
“The dead but sceptered sov’tans,
Who rule our spirits from their urns.”
3. The highest life has come out of death. Jesus said, “Except a corn of wheat fall into the ground and die, it abideth alone,” etc. (Joh 12:24). Elisha communicated resurrection-power without himself rising from the dead; Christ has himself risen, and is now the Principle of resurrection-life to others.J.O.
2Ki 13:22-25
Joash’s victories.
We have in the closing verses a record of the fulfillment of the promise given through Elisha. Notice
I. THE GROUND OF THESE VICTORIES. While God had respect to the prayer of Jehoahaz, there was a deeper ground for his interposition to save Israel. He was gracious to them, and had compassion on them, and had respect to them, we are told, because of his covenant with Abraham and Isaac and Jacob. More specifically, we have as grounds:
1. Love to the fathers. God remembered Abraham and Isaac and Jacob, and would not hastily cast off their posterity (cf. Deu 4:37; Rom 11:28). Many of the blessings which sinners enjoy, the forbearance God shows them, etc; are due to the prayers of godly ancestors.
2. Regard for his own promise. God had made a covenant with the patriarchs, and had promised to be a God to them, and to their seed after them. That covenant was the main fact in the history of Israel. It underlies and governs all God’s dealings with them, past, present, and prospective. It was the remembrance of this covenant which led to the deliverance from Egypt (Exo 2:24, Exo 2:25); to the settlement in Canaan (Deu 9:3); and to God’s patient dealings with the nation amidst their various rebellious, and under their constant provocations. God saved them, not for their righteousness’ sake, but for his own Name’s sake. He is the God of unchanging faithfulness.
3. Unwillingness to destroy the people. God casts off none hastily, for he has “no pleasure in the death of him that dieth” (Eze 18:32). He bears long with men, if haply they will repent. Wherefore it is said, “He would not destroy them, neither cast he them from his presence as yet.” There is a limit, however, to Divine forbearance. The time came when, still remaining impenitent, they were cast away, though even then not forever.
II. THE EXTENT OF THESE VICTORIES. They amounted, as Elisha had predicted, only to three. Three times Joash beat the King of Syria, and recovered the cities of Israel from his hand. This was a great gain, but it might so easily have been greater, had Joash only fulfilled aright the conditions of success. How much blessing we often deprive ourselves of by our own unfaithfulness and shortcoming! It is reason for rejoicing that God does so much for us; but the joy must eternally be shaded by regret when we reflect that it is by our own doings that far more is not done.J.O.
Fuente: The Complete Pulpit Commentary
SECOND SECTION
The Monarchy Under Jehoahaz And Joash And Jeroboam II. In Israel, And Under Amaziah In Judah
2 Kings 13-14
A.The Reigns of Jehoahaz and Joash
2Ki 13:1-25
1In the three and twentieth year of Joash the son of Ahaziah king of Judah, Jehoahaz the son of Jehu began to reign over [became king of] Israel in Samaria, and reigned seventeen years. 2And he did that which was evil in the sight of the Lord, and followed the sins of Jeroboam the son of Nebat, which made Israel to sin; he departed not therefrom. 3And the anger of the Lord was kindled against Israel, and he delivered them into the hand of Hazael king of Syria, and into the hand of Ben-hadad the son of Hazael, all their [the] days [of Jehoahaz]. 4And Jehoahaz besought1 the Lord, [.] [(] And the Lord hearkened unto him: for he saw the oppression of Israel, because [that] the king of Syria oppressed 5them. ([omit(] And the Lord gave Israel a saviour, so that they went out from under the hand of the Syrians: and the children of Israel dwelt in their tents, as beforetime. 2 6Nevertheless they departed not from the sins of the house of Jeroboam who made Israel sin, 3 but walked therein: and there remained 7[stood] the grove [statue of Astarte] also in Samaria.) Neither did [For] he leave [had left] of the people to Jehoahaz but fifty horsemen, and ten chariots, and ten thousand footmen; for the king of Syria had destroyed them, and had made them like the dust by threshing [beneath ones feet]. 4 8Now the rest of the acts of Jehoahaz, and all that he did, and his might, are they not written in the book of the Chronicles of the kings of Israel? 9And Jehoahaz slept with his fathers; and they5 buried him in Samaria; and Joash his son reigned in his stead.
10In the thirty and seventh year of Joash king of Judah began Jehoash the son of Jehoahaz to reign over Israel in Samaria, and reigned sixteen years. 11And he did that which was evil in the sight of the Lord; he departed not from all the sins of Jeroboam the son of Nebat, who made Israel sin: but he walked therein. 12And the rest of the acts of Joash, and all that he did, and his might [,] wherewith [how] he fought against Amaziah king of Judah, are they not writen in the book of the Chronicles of the kings of Israel? 13And Joash slept with his fathers; and Jeroboam sat upon his throne: and Joash was buried in Samaria with the kings of Israel.
14Now Elisha was fallen sick of his sickness whereof he died [was to die].6 And Joash the king of Israel came down unto him, and wept over his face, and said, O my father, my father! the Chariot of Israel, and the Horsemen thereof! 15And Elisha said unto him, Take bow and arrows. And he took unto him bow and arrows. 16And he said to the king of Israel, Put thine hand upon the bow. And he put his hand upon it: and Elisha put his hands upon the kings hands. 17And he said, Open the window eastward. And he opened it. Then Elisha said, Shoot. And he shot. And he said, The [an] arrow of the Lords [omit the Lords] deliverance [for Jehovah], and the [an] arrow of deliverance from [against] Syria: for thou shalt smite the Syrians in Aphek, till thou have consumed them.7
18And he said, Take the arrows. And he took them. And he said unto the king of Israel, Smite upon the ground. And he smote thrice, and stayed. 19And the man of God was wroth with him, and said, Thou shouldest have smitten8 five or six times; then hadst thou smitten Syria till thou hadst consumed it: whereas now thou shalt smite Syria but thrice. 20And Elisha died, and they buried him. And the [marauding] bands of the Moabites invaded the land at the coming in [commencement] of the year. 21And it came to pass, as they were burying a man, that, behold, they spied a band of men [marauders]; and they cast the man into the sepulchre of Elisha: and when the man was let down [came], and touched the bones of Elisha, he revived, and stood up on his feet.
22But [Now] Hazael king of, Syria [had] oppressed Israel all the days of Jehoahaz. 23[,] And [but] the Lord was gracious unto them, and had compassion on them, and had respect unto [turned towards] them, because of his covenant with Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, and would not destroy them, neither cast he them from his presence as yet. 24So Hazael king of Syria died; and Ben-hadad his son reigned in his stead. 25And Jehoash the son of Jehoahaz took again out of the hand of Ben-hadad the son of Hazael the cities, which he had taken out of the hand of Jehoahaz his father by [in the] war. Three times did Joash beat him, and recovered the cities of Israel.
EXEGETICAL AND CRITICAL
2Ki 13:1. In the three and twentieth year of Joash. This chronological statement is not consistent with the one in ver 2 Kings 10 : In the thirty-seventh year of Joash. For, if Jehoahaz began to reign in the twenty-third year of Joash, and reigned for seventeen years, his son Jehoash cannot have followed in the thirty-seventh, but in the thirty-ninth, year of Joash of Judah. Again, if Jehoash of Israel became king in the thirty-seventh year of Joash of Judah, then his father Jehoahaz must have come to the throne in the twenty-first, and not in the twenty-third year of Joash of Judah. The old expositors sought to do away with this difficulty by assuming that Jehoash of Israel shared the throne for two years with his father Jehoahaz. This assumption, however, is untenable, both for the general reasons assigned above (Pt. II., p. 88, e) and because it is clearly shown in 2Ki 13:9-10 that Jehoash did not ascend the throne until after the death of Jehoahaz, and that he had not shared his authority before that. Only one of the two numbers, 23 and 37, can be correct, as is now generally admitted; but the question, which is correct? receives various answers. We start again, as we did above (Pt. II., p. 86), from the established chronological starting-point,9 884 b. c., when Jehu became king of Israel, and Athaliah became queen of Judah. Jehu reigned 28 years (2Ki 10:36), that is, from 884 to 856; his son Jehoahaz 17 years (2Ki 13:1), from 856839; Jehoash, 16 years (2Ki 13:10), 839823. Athaliah ruled 6 years, and Joash became king in the seventh year (2Ki 11:3-4), that is, 884877; Joash, 40 years (2Ki 12:2), 877837; Amaziah, 29 years, 837808. It follows that the twenty-third year of Joash of Judah, in which Jehoahaz became king of Israel, according to 2Ki 13:1, was the year 854, but this cannot be correct because his father Jehu ruled 28 years, and so died in 856. This would bring Jehoahaz accession into the twenty-first, not the twenty-third, of Joash. This is the statement of Josephus: . The thirty-seventh year of Joash of Judah, in which, according to 2Ki 13:10, Jehoash of Israel became king, is the year 840; in the second year of Jehoash of Israel, that is, in the year 838, Amaziah became king of Judah (2Ki 14:1). According to this reckoning, the death of Joash, the father of Amaziah, does indeed fall in 837, but, in view of the Jewish mode of reckoning which is explained Pt. II., p. 86 sq., a discrepancy of a single year has no significance. Josephus says, in agreement with 2Ki 13:10 : . If, on the other hand, we hold fast the twenty-third year in 2Ki 13:1, and, in 2Ki 13:10, read thirty-ninth for thirty-seventh, as Ewald, Thenius, and others desire, this thirty-ninth year will be 838, Jehu will only have 26 years, not 28 (2Ki 10:36), and his son Jehoahaz reign, extending from 854 to 838, will amount to 16, not 17 years (2Ki 13:1); moreover, if Jehoash of Israel did not ascend the throne until 838, and Amaziah became king in Judah in his second year (2Ki 14:1), then the latter did not become king until 836, though his father did not live, at the utmost, beyond 837. If thirty-seventh is changed into thirty-ninth, then all the other numbers must be changed, and this is inadmissible. If then we let these numbers stand, we must suppose that the words: in the twenty-third year, in 2Ki 13:1, are either a copyists error ( for ), or, that it is a mistake growing out of the confusion to which the Jewish mode of reckoning gave occasion (see above, Pt. II., p. 86 sq.). All the versions and all the editions have thirty-seventh except the Editio Aldina of the Sept. (1518), which has thirty-ninth. Keil justly observes that this variant is nothing but an unfortunate emendation, adopted in order to bring about a reconciliation, but without any critical value.
2Ki 13:3. And the anger of the Lord was kindled. The sense and the connection of 2Ki 13:3-7, are as follows: In the time of Jehu, who, contrary to all just expectations, clung to the calf-worship which Jeroboam had introduced, Jehovah had already commenced to cut off from Israel, and had given the land east of the Jordan into the hands of the Syrians (2Ki 10:32 sq.). Since, however, Jehoahaz, Jehus successor, did not take warning, but, on the contrary, during his reign the worship of the image of Astarte was once more introduced (1Ki 14:15), so that the abolition of idolatry which had been accomplished was rendered ineffectual, Gods anger (i. e., His justice, and His avenging, punishing, rigor) was kindled, so that one defeat followed upon another, until the might of Israel was reduced to a minimum. In his great distress, when he was on the brink of ruin, Jehoahaz at length turned to Jehovah, and besought Him, and the Lord, seeing the distress of His people, answered his prayer and sent a deliverer.[That is the sense of the passage, but it does not account for the grammatical form and succession of the sentences. The best modern expositors agree with the English translators in making a parenthesis of 2Ki 13:5-6. The only question is as to where it is to begin, and it seems best, with Thenius and Bunsen, to enclose all after the first clause of 2Ki 13:4. The explanation then is as follows: Israel was defeated by the Syrians again and again during the reign of Jehoahaz. He turned in his distress to the Lord and sought him. There was no apparent response to this prayer during his lifetime, but the writer inserts a parenthesis to the effect that the prayer was nevertheless heard and answered, that God saw the distress of Israel and sent a champion for them, and yet that they persisted in their sins. The at the commencement of 2Ki 13:7 then presents no further difficulty. It refers back to the first clause of 2Ki 13:4. Jehoahaz besought the Lord, because He had left but, &c.W. G. S.]
2Ki 13:3. All the days, i.e., of Jehoahaz, not of Hazael and Benhadad, as is clear from 2Ki 13:22 [also 2Ki 13:25 shows that, as a matter of fact, the success of the Syrians did not continue through the days of Benhadad.W. G. S.].
2Ki 13:5. A savior, cf. Jdg 3:9; Jdg 3:15; Neh 9:27. This was Jeroboam II., the grandson of Jehoahaz, as we see clearly from , 2Ki 14:27, which has an evident reference to in this verse. He completed what had already been begun by Jehoash, the son of Jehoahaz (2Ki 13:25). Reference is here made to him in order to show that he was sent in answer to Jehoahaz prayer, although he came so long afterwards. The words: they dwelt in their tents, describe the peaceful state of things which was brought about by the deliverer; in war they did not dwell in tents, but in strongholds and fortified places.
2Ki 13:6 contains a restriction of what has just been said in 2Ki 13:5. The peaceful state of things, which was brought about, was not a perfectly happy and satisfactory one, for the worship of Jeroboams calves still continued, and even the worship of Asherah (the statue of Astarte) did not cease entirely. Thenius understands to mean that the worship of Asherah very soon obtained a firm foothold (i.e., under Jeroboam II.). Ewald also thinks that it was reintroduced at about his time. But the history of Jeroboam II., 2Ki 14:23-27, contains no mention of it, and also the in 2Ki 13:7 fixes the attention upon the time of Jehoahaz, when the incidents took place which are referred to in 2Ki 13:7. [This does not refer to 2Ki 13:6 at all. No connection can be established which will make good sense. It refers back to the first clause of 2Ki 13:4, as shown above. Bhrs interpretation, however, is correct, although it is difficult to understand, as Thenius says, how the Astarte-image survived Jehus reformation. is better translated stood, than gained firm foot-hold. has the article, and the form of statement of the first part of the verse is that the old apostasy of Jeroboam was still continued. If it had been intended to say that this old sin was continued, and that even the one which had been rooted up was reintroduced, it seems that some other word must have been used for which would have expressed this latter idea distinctly.W. G. S.] 2Ki 13:7 is a continuation of [the first clause of] 2Ki 13:4. It shows how far the oppression of the Syrians had gone. Dathe and Houbigant are in favor of placing it between 2Ki 13:4-5, but the close connection between these verses forbids this. [For he had left. The English translation: Neither did he leave, cannot be defended. It is necessitated by the supposed connection between this clause and the last clause of 2Ki 13:4. It also seems to understand the king of Syria as the subject of , which does not make good sense. The subject of that verb is Jehovah, and the last half of 2Ki 13:7 repeats the same statement substituting the king of Syria (who was the instrument by which it was accomplished), in the place of the ultimate agent. The passage may now be made clear, if we get rid of the parenthesis by putting 2Ki 13:7 between the first and second clauses of 2Ki 13:4, as follows: Jehoahaz besought the Lord, for He (the Lord) had left but, for the king of Syria had destroyed them and the Lord hearkened unto him, seeing the distress, and gave a deliverer, who delivered them, yet they persisted in their sins.W. G. S.] The expression does not mean chaff, as Luther understands it, for is not dust which floats in the air, but dust which lies upon the ground and is trodden under foot. The fundamental meaning of is, to tread under foot (Hab 3:12; Mic 4:13). There is no reference to the barbarous usage of war referred to in Amo 1:3; 2Sa 12:31. [Literally the English for the words would be: dust for treading, i. e., dust which lies beneath ones feet (see Grammatical note on the verse). It is an expression for utter defeat and destruction. They were reduced to utter helplessness and powerlessness. Thenius thinks that it refers to a definite defeat, and Hitzig, on Amo 4:10, suggests that the reference there may be to the same decisive defeat here alluded to.W. G. S.]On 2Ki 13:10 see notes on 2Ki 13:1. Jehoashs war with Amaziah, mentioned in 2Ki 13:12, is narrated at length in 2Ki 14:8 sq. The concluding formula, 2Ki 13:12-13, belongs properly after 2Ki 13:25. It is given in this place only because it followed, in one of the authorities used by the author, directly upon 2Ki 13:10-11, and he did not consider it necessary to dissever it from this connection.
2Ki 13:14. Now Elisha was fallen sick, &c. The narrative in 2Ki 13:14-21 is, without doubt, taken from a different original document from that to which the verses belong which immediately precede and follow. It is not inserted here merely because it belongs to the time of king Jehoash. The end of the great prophet of Israel, who had wrought so influentially upon its history, and whose acts had been so circumstantially narrated, could not be passed over in silence, especially since the accompanying incidents stood in such close connection with what had gone before, and with what was to follow. Jehoahaz had, according to 2Ki 13:3-7, left the kingdom very much weakened. When Jehoash heard of Elishas illness, he went to him, and, weeping, called to him, as Elisha had once called to Elijah as he passed away (see Pt. II., p. 15, and cf. p. 69): O my father, my father! the Chariot of Israel and the Horsemen thereof! as much as to say: If now thou also, who hast so often shown thyself the strength and the protector of Israel, and hast helped by counsel and by act, if now thou also, in this time of distress, art about to depart, whence shall come help, and counsel, and deliverance from the hand of the powerful enemy? This humble and chastened spirit on his part leads the prophet to give him the declaration that the prayer of his father (2Ki 13:4) had been heard, and that the deliverance should commence in his time. The fulfilment of this promise is then narrated in the following verses, 2225.
2Ki 13:15. And Elisha said unto him, &c. Elisha does not simply make known this promise to the king by words, but also, as a prophet, in that form which belongs to the essential character of the prophetical office, and is peculiar to prophetical announcements, that is, by means of a symbolic action (see note on chap. 11, 30 sq.). The declaration thereby receives the impress of a solemn and purely prophetical announcement. Here, as in all similar cases, the symbolic action precedes the words which explain it; thereby it represents the future event as a fact, as something which will come without fail. Inasmuch as it was the king himself who performed this symbolic action, and not the prophet, it became all the more a pledge to him of the fulfilment of the prophets words. The whole transaction consists of two acts; 2Ki 13:15-17 give the first one; 2Ki 13:18-19 the second, which is a continuation of the first. Each is followed by words of. the prophet, interpreting it. 2Ki 13:15. Take bow and arrows. The prophet made use of these for his symbolic action, because the matter in hand was a warlike contest with enemies, and the king, or at least his attendants, were provided with these arms. The command: Take bow and arrows, signifies: Arm thyself for war against the Syrians I There is not the least reference to a method of soothsaying by means of arrows (Belomancy, cf. Eze 21:21), which was practised by many ancient heathen nations.
2Ki 13:16. Put thine hand upon the bow; literally: Let thine hand ride upon the bow. In drawing the bow, it is held in a horizontal position in such a way that the left hand rests upon it. The prophet placed his hands upon those of the king in token that the impulse which was to be given came, through the prophets hands, from the Lord (Keil). The kings act thereby becomes to a certain extent the act of the prophet, and so an act which is performed in the name and by the authority of Jehovah. Only in so far can the laying on of hands here be regarded as at once a consecration and a blessing, for that is not its primary significance here, as it is in other places where the hand is laid upon the head.
2Ki 13:17. Open the window, that is, order the grating, which is in front of the window-opening, to be removed. The king could not open it himself, for he had both hands upon the bow. Eastward, i. e., toward the country east of the Jordan, which the Syrians had taken (2Ki 10:33), and from whence they continually threatened the country this side the Jordan. The older expositors refer, by way of explanation of the words: And he shot, to the custom in ancient times of declaring war by shooting an arrow into the enemys territory (Virgil, neid, ix. 57), but that was not the significance of the arrow shot by the king in this case. The words which explain the symbolic act follow the discharge of the arrow: An arrow of deliverance for Jehovah, , i. e., auctore Jehova. [The expression seems intended to interpret the arrow, thus discharged, on two sides, towards Jehovah, and towards the Syrians. It was an arrow of deliverance for, or in its relation to Jehovah, inasmuch as it represented the deliverance which He was determined to give; it was an arrow of deliverance against or upon the Syrians, as it signified the coming overthrow of their oppression.W. G. S.] Let this arrow be a pledge to thee that Jehovah will help thee, and that thou wilt overcome the Syriansat Aphek. Locus erat boni ominis (Menochius), for Jehovah had already once given Israel a great victory there (1Ki 20:26-29). The words refer, in this verse, only to the Syrian army at Aphek; in 2Ki 13:19, on the contrary, they refer to the entire Syrian military power.
2Ki 13:18. Take the arrows. The second part of the symbolical action which here begins not only continues the preceding, but consists of an enhancement of it. The article in , which is wanting in 2Ki 13:15, designates particular arrows, namely all, besides the one which had already been shot away, which remained in the quiver. does not mean: Smite the earth (Luther); nor: Smite upon the earth (De Wette); still less: Strike with the bundle of arrows in the direction of the earth [i.e., as if smiting an enemy to earth with it] (Thenius). The last interpretation has no support in the text; and arrows are not used for smiting enemies to the earth, or for striking upon the ground. stands in contrast with (2Ki 13:17); it does not mean jacere (sagittas), to shoot arrows, but, ferire, to hit (1Ki 22:34; 2Ki 9:24; 1Sa 17:49). The arrow in 2Ki 13:17 was only to be shot away through the window towards the east; the arrows in 2Ki 13:18 were to hit down to the earth, i.e., in such a way that what was hit by them should be stretched upon the ground. As the king only shot to the earth thus three times and then stopped, did not, therefore, use up all the arrows which remained, the prophet was displeased (Sept. ) and said (2Ki 13:19): Thou shouldest have smitten, &c. He meant: Thou hadst more than three arrows, and mightest have continued to hit; the fact, however, that thou hast ceased so soon, shows that thou lackest the zeal which is tireless, and which perseveres, trusting in the Lord; thou shalt indeed defeat the Syrians, but the complete destruction of their power will not come about through thee. The reason why the king shot three times and then stopped was that, according to the prevalent notion, that what was done thrice was done perfectly (Num 22:28; Num 22:32-33; Num 24:10; Exo 23:17), he supposed that this sufficed. It was not because he was afraid that, if he shot any more, the prophecies of Elisha would not come to pass (Starke), or because he did not dare to shoot more, lest too extravagant demands might deprive him of all (Von Gerlach). In the first part of the transaction (2Ki 13:16-17), it is promised him that Jehovah will give him victory over the Syrians; in the second (2Ki 13:18-19), he is exhorted to go on, trusting in Jehovahs assistance, without hesitation; and putting forth all his energies, and so to make war upon the Syrians until he utterly destroys them.
2Ki 13:20. And Elisha died, &c., evidently refers back to in 2Ki 13:14. Vulg.: Mortuus est ergo Elisaeus et sepelierunt eum. This sentence closes the narrative which began with 2Ki 13:14. It ought not, therefore, to be treated as a subordinate clause to what follows, as Luther understood it: When Elisha was dead and they had buried him, the Moabites made an incursion. Elisha must have reached a great age, for Jehoash did not come to the throne till 84039, and Ahab, in whose reign Elisha was already a grown man (1Ki 19:19), reigned from 919897 (see above, Pt. II., p. 45). According to Jeromes statement (Epitaph. Paulae), Elishas grave was in the neighborhood of Samaria, where he had a residence (2Ki 5:9; 2Ki 6:32). Krummacher locates it, without any definite reason, in the neighborhood of Jericho, and certainly raiding bands of the Moabites might much more naturally appear in the neighborhood of Jericho than near Samaria. means literally: a year came. According to the Targum and the Rabbis this means: at the beginning of the year. They came at this season because then the country furnished pasture. It can hardly mean that they came every year (Ewald). Still less correct is the rendering of the Vulg. which Luther follows: in ipso anno, in the same year., 2Ki 13:21, is not to be understood of a rude and violent throwing in, but it is meant to describe the haste with which they opened the grave and deposited the corpse in it. It is not necessary to change , as Hitzig and Thenius do, into , i. e., they went away, for is used not only of the motion of lifeless objects, but also of the gradual progress of an action (Keil). [It has great dramatic force, describing the gradual approach of the corpse to that contact which involved such momentous consequences.W. G. S.] The Hebrews brought their dead to the grave, not in closed coffins, but on an open bier (Winer, R.-W.-B., ii. s. 16), so that the corpse which was being brought to the sepulchre, on being hastily deposited there, might easily come in contact with the remains of Elisha (Keil).
2Ki 13:22. But Hazael, king of Syria, &c. The narrative here returns to 2Ki 13:3-7. Seb. Schmidt: reassumitur hoc de Chasaele ad exponendum complementum prophetiae Elisae. In sense, is to be taken as a pluperfect. 2Ki 13:23 contains a remark of the author: Israel had been brought by Hazael to the brink of ruin, but, for the sake of His covenant, Jehovah took pity upon His people once more: He did not as yet permit it to be destroyed, as He did later (2Ki 17:6). Hazael died (2Ki 13:24), and Jehoash defeated his son and successor three times, as the prophet had foretold. The cities of Israel (2Ki 13:25) which Jehoash took away from Benhadad must have been those which lay upon this side the Jordan, for Hazael had conquered the territory beyond Jordan during the reign of Jehu (2Ki 10:32 sq.), and it is expressly stated that the cities which he now recovered were those which had been taken from his father Jehoahaz (Thenius). Jeroboam II. was the first who restored the ancient boundaries (2Ki 14:25).
HISTORICAL AND ETHICAL
1. In regard to the reign of King Jehoahaz, we have but scanty records; the Chronicle does not mention him at all. The kingdom had declined very much during the last years of Jehu (2Ki 10:31-33), but, under this king, it sank still lower in every respect. The worship of the calves, which his father had retained, still continued; also the licentious worship of Astarte was once more practised. The entire revolution mentioned in chaps. 9 and 10, the overthrow of the House of Ahab, the foundation of a new dynasty, the abolition of idolatry, thus proved fruitless and vain. The divine judgments and chastisements which had begun under Jehu therefore increased, so that the kingdom came nigh to ruin. Jehoahaz, therefore, turned and prayed to God in anxiety and despair, and He once more had pity on His people. Schlier justly says of Jehoahaz: His prayer was the best thing that he bequeathed to his successor. The state of things during his reign is a proof that worship of images always leads to worship of false gods, and that there is only one step from the one to the other (see 1Ki 12:25-33, Hist. 2). It shows how, universally, the weeds of religious error, when they have taken root amongst a people, although they may be pulled up again and again, nevertheless strike root again and spread, and endure more storm and hard usage than good and useful plants. Is it not true that even Christian nations cling more stubbornly to the errors which have fastened upon Christian doctrine, than to Christian truth itself? On the other hand, God, who guides the destinies of Israel, appears here as one whose wrath is indeed kindled at the sin and apostasy of His people, but who does not remain angry forever. He never ceases to be pitiful and gracious, kind and faithful (Exo 34:6; Psa 103:8-9). When His people, call upon Him, He hears the cry, and in due time sends a deliverer.
2. There is no mention made of the prophet Elisha from the anointing of Jehu in 884 to the reign of Jehoash (839), that is, for a period of at least forty-five years, whereas we should have expected that his influence would be especially wide and great under a dynasty which he put upon the throne. The fact that Jehoash called him Father and the Chariot of Israel and the Horsemen thereof shows that he enjoyed high honor and esteem, and it would be very astonishing, if Elisha had not even given a sign of his existence for forty-five years. We are therefore compelled to infer either that the original documents used by our author were silent in regard to his activity, or that some of the incidents mentioned in chap. 4 sq. belong to this period (see Pt. II., p. 45). It cannot be proved, as Ewald asserts, that all the incidents, in which he appears as standing in high estimation with the king of the northern kingdom, belong to the times of the house of Jehu, that is to say, especially chaps. 5 and 6 It is far more probable that it was he who warned and threatened king Jehu (2Ki 10:30), and also induced king Jehoahaz to humble himself and turn to God in prayer (2Ki 13:4). He shows himself once more on his death-bed in his full and distinctive prophetical character. He appears here in his last hours in the character which was peculiar to him as compared with Elijah, i. e., as the one who built up, rescued from distress, and preserved (see Pt. II., p. 24). He departs from the world with a great promise of deliverance to his people, with the announcement of coming release from the oppression of the arch-enemy. Salvation and Victory from Jehovah! is his last prophetic oracle. While the young and vigorous king, despairing of deliverance, stands crushed and tearful before him, the prophet, oppressed by disease, and age, and approaching death, raises himself up from his death-bed, spiritually full of life and strength, and gives orders to the king to do this and that, in the tone of one who has set up and deposed kings, and whose calling it has been to break in pieces and to destroy, to build and to plant (Jer 1:10). He commands the king to execute the significant operation, not because he himself was too weak to talk much (Thenius), but because the king was to be the actor, was to be filled with courageous faith, and was to be assured of the victory he should win. It must have made a deep and solemn impression upon him and upon all who stood about, that he himself executed this symbolic action with the hands of the prophet laid upon him. When the prophets wrath was kindled against the king for desisting from shooting, it was not a sinful ebullition, but a wrath which sprang from love, because the king did not secure still more of the promise for himself and his people.
3. The story of the restoration to life of a man who was laid in Elishas grave stands in close connection with what precedes, not only historically, but also as respects its significance, and its moral. This is sufficient to show that it cannot have, as Ephraim Syrus and some other church fathers suppose, the general moral, that Elisha, even in the grave, surpassed Elijah in miraculous power, nor, as Theodoret says: [that he had a double portion of his masters spirit]. This notion rests upon the erroneous interpretation of 2Ki 2:9 (see notes thereon). Elisha is nowhere placed superior to Elijah. According to the opinion which is now generally received, and which was proposed by Seb. Smith, the object of this miracle of resuscitation was to impress the seal of the Divine confirmation upon the prediction of the dying prophet in regard to Jehoashs victory over the Syrians (Keil), or, to give a pledge of the fulfilment of the promise which had been given (Thenius). But the resuscitation of a dead man has no essential connection with the contents of this prediction, and the miracle would then be a mere display of supernatural power, having no special significance, and presenting no reason why this rather than any other form of supernatural work should have been chosen. The incident is connected, not with the victory over the Syrians, but with the death and burial of the prophet, which are mentioned just before. Its significance is this: Elisha died and was buried as all men are, but even in the grave testimony was borne to his character as a prophet and servant of God. The spirit () of Jehovah, which made him, as well as his master, prophets (2Ki 2:9; 2Ki 2:15), and which is the principle of all prophetical life and work, made itself manifest in him even in the grave. It manifested itself, moreover, in a manner which corresponds exactly to the form of activity of this prophet, who was a preserver, savior, and life-giver (see Pt. II., p. 24). Salvation and life proceed from him, by the spirit of God, which makes alive, and is the fountain of life (Eze 37:1-14; Hos 6:2; Deu 32:39), even after he is in the grave. This interpretation is confirmed by the passage Sir 48:1-15. The praises of the great prophets Elijah and Elisha are there pronounced, and especial reference is made to the end of each. The translation of Elijah is mentioned in 2Ki 13:9, and then, in 2Ki 13:13, with which the panegyric of Elisha begins, the author refers back to it again: Elijah was enveloped in a storm-cloud, and Elisha was filled with his spirit. During his life he feared before no ruler, and no one ever imposed restraint upon him. He yielded to no compulsion, . During his life he performed wonders, . Whereas, in 2Ki 13:18, Elijahs separate deeds are particularly described, Elishas activity is only delineated in general outline; on the contrary his end, like that of Elijah, is noticed especially. This shows that, in the time of Sirach, this incident was considered important and significant. Taken in connection with the context the sense is: as the greatest of all prophets, Elijah, the second Moses, was marvelously glorified at the close of his career; so was his successor, Elisha, also. Though his end was not like that of his master, yet it was not without divine testimony to his prophetical calling, for the spirit of Jehovah made itself manifest in him even in the grave. It was not the dead bones which brought the dead to life, but the living God. The resuscitation of the dead man was only brought about by contact with the bones of the dead prophet, because God desired thereby to show to His people that the divine energy, which had been active in Elisha, had not, by his death, disappeared from Israel (Keil Commentar, Ed. of 1845). This shows that it is as great an error to charge the writer with ascribing to the bones of Elisha a magical, miraculous power, as to refer to this narrative as a proof of the miraculous efficacy of relics. This instance, says Starke, proves nothing in behalf of the relics of saints and their misuse in the Romish Church, for it was not the bones of Elisha, but the power of God, which made this dead man live. The Church did not then, and has never since, dug up the bones of Elisha, much less encased them in gold and silver, and given them to the people to kiss and reverence, as is done under the papacy, in order to gain favor with God, for which there is neither precept nor example in the Scriptures. Neither is it necessary to have recourse to the typical and allegorical method of interpretation. J. Lange says: The chief object (of this miracle) was to affirm the doctrine of the future, universal resurrection of the dead. Elisha was, therefore, in this point, a type of Christ. In like manner, Krummacher says, basing his view on Sir 48:13, that the corpse of Elisha prophesied of the flowing, new-creating, life-giving, miraculous power, which was to be poured out in the world through the death of his great anti-type, Jesus Christ. This latter notion is inapt, because life and resurrection proceed, not from the crucified and dead, but from the risen, Christ. Cassel (Der Prophet Elisa, s. 162 sq.) even finds the prophetical spirit represented in the (dead) Elisha, and the people of Israel in the dead man restored to life. He says: When the spirit of the prophets breathed over Israel like an evening wind, then the nation rose again, became living, and made all live whom its word touched. All the dead who fall upon prophecy rise again to life. Elisha is the prophetic law, whosoever in Israel believes on it experiences the resurrection of the dead in Jesus Christ. The miracle at Elishas grave is a typebut since all, Jews and heathen, alike become living at the grave of Christ through repentance and faith, no dead mans bone any longer restores to life. It is not necessary to show that such interpretations have no foundation in the text. [Scarcely a better means of exposing their frivolity could be found than to translate them. They are inflated, rhetorical inventions. When they are translated literally, they appear to be scarcely more than ridiculous and incoherent jargon. The principal utility of quoting them is to keep before us a warning of the pitfalls which environ the science of interpretation.W. G. S.] Finally, the naturalistic interpretation of this incident, according to which an apparently dead man, when he was thrown into the grave of Elisha, was restored to life by the violent shock of the fall (Exeget. Handbuch on the passage; Baur, Hebr. Mythologie, ii. s. 197; Jahn, Einleitung ins A. T. ii. 1. s. 261) may be regarded as antiquated and abandoned. Thenius says: The incident may have occurred very naturally, but does not tell how. Knobels remark: There is something analogous in the legend that the ground, where Amphiaraus lay buried, prophesied (Cicero, De Divin. i. 40), rests upon an entire misconception of the aim and significance of the miracle.
[This might be regarded as a test case among the Old Testament miracles. It is very doubtful if many readers will find themselves satisfied with the above discussion of it. The notion that Elisha was a constructive prophet, in contrast with Elijah, who was destructive, is a mere whim. The fondness for historical parallels and contrasts seduces many into finding coincidences, correspondences, and contrasts where none exist out of the imagination of the writer. Elijah and Elisha differed somewhat in character, it is true, but they must be taken together as two men who worked with the same general method, under very similar circumstances, and towards the same ends. There is no ground for any such contrast as is here affirmed. Yet this contrast is made to be, in Bhrs explanation of the miracle, after all verbiage is stripped from it, the motive of this wonderful event. God bore testimony to Elishas calling even after his death, and this testimony took the form of the restoration of a dead man to life by physical contact with the bones of the dead prophet, because Elisha had been a constructing, life-giving prophet. Of course, an affirmed miracle would not be disproved, if we did not see the necessity for it, but no miracle recorded in Scripture would seem more superfluous than one which was intended to ratify the calling of Elisha as a prophet of Jehovah, after his death. As for the authority of Sirach, it is not worth while to go into it. His panegyric is poetical and rhetorical in form, and when he says, for instance, that the body (of Elisha) prophesied in the tomb, although there is a reference to this passage, and although it is a perfectly justifiable thing for him to refer to it in this poetical strain in the course of such a composition as that he was making, yet it is difficult to see how these words could be reduced to any statement which would be available for critical and exegetical purposes. The attempts to lend significance to this incident, on one side and on the other, are all failures. The simple statement of the text is that an incursion of Moabites interrupted a funeral. The corpse was hastily thrown into the sepulchre of Elisha, and when it touched the bones of the prophet, the man returned to life. The remarkable dramatic minuteness of the description in 2Ki 13:21 : when the dead man came and touched the bones of the prophet, he revived, shows that the resuscitation was dependent on, and, we may say, caused by the physical contact, according to the conviction of the writer of the narrative. Different persons will receive this story in different ways, according to their theological and philosophical prepossessions. Some will see in it a popular legend or myth which insisted on glorifying the prophet by ascribing miraculous efficacy to his bones after his death, a mere legend which grew up in the course of time, but had no historical foundation. Others will simply take the story as it is given as an indisputable fact, and will go no farther than the record goes. It is not stated that the bones of the prophet were ever tested again to see if they would repeat the miracle, or that any other persons than this one were ever restored, and it is not stated why the miracle was performed at all. Those who adopt this second course must decline to speculate on these questions. They must assume that, for some reasons unknown, God, on a single occasion, attached to the bones of the prophet this efficacy. They must decline to deduce general inferences from this incident. Others again will go still farther, and infer that the sanctity of the man was due to the indwelling of the Holy Spirit, that this became physically inherent in the remains of his body, that his bones, therefore, had miraculous efficacy, and that the bones of other individuals of equal sanctity will have equal efficacy. It is a development and extension of the second view, and it elevates the isolated instance into a law. In this way the story is made to lend support to the use of relics. It is remarked above, in reference to this, that it was not the prophets bone, but the power of God, which wrought the miracle. No one would assert anything else of the use of any relic. It is clearly stated that the resuscitation depended upon the physical contact with the physical object, and the latter had mysterious and supernatural efficacy inherent in it, which it could only have acquired as part of the body of a man who had been marked by extraordinary spiritual superiority. That, however, is the principle which lies at the root of the use and veneration of relics.W. G. S.]
4. King Jehoash did not indeed renounce the worship of Jeroboams calves, but he was one of the best among the kings of the northern kingdom. This much is clear from the story of his interview with Elisha, if from nothing more. We do not hear that any other one of the four kings, under whom the prophet lived, stood in similar relations to him. Even though the tears which he shed at the prophets death-bed were not tears of penitence, and of a lively regret for his past behavior towards the prophet (Krummacher), yet they certainly show how deeply he was touched by the distress of Israel, and how helpless he felt at the departure of the prophet. By his exclamation: My Father! &c., he proclaimed to all who stood by that the prophet was more to him than all the military force which still remained. He then goes on to do what the prophet commands him, as a servant obeys his master. He desisted after shooting three times, not, as Krummacher thinks, from fear of condescending below his royal dignity, but from shame and fear of demanding too much [or rather, because what was done three times was thought to be completely done. See Exeg. note on 2Ki 13:19] He took courage, and soon showed himself a bold and victorious soldier, both in his war with Syria, and in that with Amaziah (see chap. 14).
HOMILETICAL AND PRACTICAL
2Ki 13:1-13. See Histor. and Eth. The history of the kingdom of Israel under Jehoahaz shows us (a) Gods severity, and (b) Gods goodness. Rom 11:22; cf. Sir 5:6 sq.; 2Ki 16:12.Starke: Men who have a personal interest in deeply rooted customs or traditions, are very loath to see them overthrown and abandoned, although they often thereby draw down Gods judgments by their own hands.
2Ki 13:3-4. How hard it often is to bring a man, who has turned away from the living God and from His word, to seek the Lords face. Jehoahaz had to be pushed to the last extremity by the enemy, and to be most deeply humiliated, before he called upon the Lord and saw where help is to be found in all distress (Isa 26:16).
2Ki 13:4-5. Berleb. Bibel: The Lord heard him and thereby showed distinctly how easily He may be moved to show mercy, if we will only bring ourselves to ask Him in humility and sincere penitence.Starke: Faithful Christian! If God heard Jehoahaz, how much more will He hear thee, if thou callest upon Him.The Lord gave Israel a deliverer, but Jehoahaz did not live to see him. God hears the cries of those who earnestly call upon Him, and helps them, but the time and place and manner of His aid are retained in His own discretion. Do not despair if thy prayer does not seem to be heard, and the Lord delays His assistance. He knows the fitting seasons and knows what is useful for us.
2Ki 13:5-6. The Lord gave Israel a temporal saviour in its hour of physical need; to us He has given a spiritual Saviour, who can and will save us out of the hands of the greatest of all enemies: sin, death, Satan, and Hell (Luk 1:69-71). What can we expect, if it must be said of us also: Yet they did not renounce their sins.Richter: Many a one prays, like Jehoahaz, in his time of distress, and when the trouble is past, the good impulses quickly disappear again. 2Ki 13:7. Wrt. Summ.: No nation is so great and mighty that God cannot take away its might and make it so small and slight that it is only like dust which the wind scatters (Psa 18:42). Therefore, ye godless! plume yourselves not so much upon your strength (Psa 75:5). Look at the chaff, how quickly it is scattered; so shall it be with your strength. 2Ki 13:14-21. Elishas End. (a) His death-bed, 2Ki 13:14-19. (b) His grave, 2Ki 13:20-21. 2Ki 13:14-17. Krummacher: The sick-bed. (a) Elisha in illness; (b) bewailed by the king; (c) but a prophet until his latest breath.
2Ki 13:14-19. King Jehoash at the death-bed of Elisha. (a) He weeps and laments; (b) He is consoled and strengthened.How did Elisha pass away from earth? Sick and weakened by age(his lot was the ordinary one of mortals; he also had to pass away into darkness and death, however much he had wrought and fought and labored, Psa 90:10; Psa 90:12. God has ordained sickness before death, that we may set our house in order, may seek refuge in the mercy of God, and may ponder what is our sole consolation, in life and in death)yet, as a man of God. (In spite of weakness and physical decay, he is strong and firm; he asks no help from men, but he, the dying one, consoles and strengthens the living. His last word is a promise of victory. The words of Isaiah [Isa 40:2931] are verified in him.)
2Ki 13:14. It is rarely recognized how great and irreparable is the loss of a true man of God, a great benefactor, and a faithful servant, until he is gone.King Jehoash was not ashamed to come to the dying prophet, and to confess with tears his own helplessness; but how many shun such holy men, and are glad if they never need have anything to do with them.
2Ki 13:15 sq. From the example of Elisha, we see how one who can say: The Lord is my strength and song, and is become my salvation (Psa 118:14). stands before the gates of eternity; proclaiming salvation, extending blessings, sure of victory. There is no greater thing than a man who, in the face of death, can cry: O death! where is thy sting, &c. (1Co 15:55; 1Co 15:57).Krummacher: Here we see Elishas patriotism. If we would know what true love of ones fatherland is, let us ask the prophet. In his case it received a divine consecration. It is truly touching to see with what tenderness the prophets enfold in their hearts their country and people, even when they see in them little but spiritual death, decay, and corruption, and experience from their fellow-countrymen little but bitterness, hate, and persecution.
2Ki 13:18-19. Berleb. Bibel: Cease not to shoot arrows of love into the heart of God, so shall one arrow of deliverance after another come back to thee from the Lord, and be given to thee in the word of truth. So shalt thou smite thy spiritual foes and tread them under foot even more completely than Jehoash did the Syrians.Roos: The cowardly unbelief of men causes that God cannot reveal His glory in some places as he gladly would (Mar 6:5), and that their way is not made so easy for them as God would be willing to make it (Pro 4:12). The measure of the victory depends upon the measure of the faith. The Lord said to the centurion of Capernaum: As thou hast believed, so be it done unto thee (Mat 8:13). He who is called to execute a work for God may not stop and desist according to his own good judgment, but must go on in it tirelessly and faithfully, till the Lord commands him to cease.Calw. Bibel: Many enemies are to be conquered, many tests to be endured. Faith must hold firm until the end. When one battle is won, the conflict is not over. How much is it to be regretted when one only half believes, half obeys, or when one, after a good beginning, desists.
2Ki 13:20-21. The Miracle at the Grave of Elisha; its Object and its Significance, (a) for the prophet himself; (b) for us all (see Hist. 3). Von Gerlach: The Lord showed thereby that He was not a God of the dead, but of the living; that the dead in Him live for Him (Mat 22:32); that the spirit of life which proceeds from Him spreads life and blessing everywhere where it comes, and that it is superior to death and decay.The dead cannot make the dead to live; the spirit of the Lord alone penetrates even into the place of corruption, and changes it into a place of life (Eze 37:1 sq.). We, therefore, rest our confidence and hope, not upon dead mens bones, but upon the God who makes all things to live, and who raised up from the dead the great Shepherd of the sheep. If we are buried with Him, we have this consolation: the God who raised Him will also raise us to life through His might (1Co 6:14; 2Co 4:14; Col 2:12; Rom 6:4).Berleb. Bibel: The precept and example of men of God can have power, even after their death, to the resuscitation of those who are spiritually dead, if the latter will only study and follow them (Heb 13:7). This is the way in which the bones of the dead are truly efficacious. If thou art dead in sin, cast thyself into the tomb of the Saviour in humility and self-renunciation, so shalt thou revive and rise to life again as He did, for he who truly grasps the virtue of the death of Christ (comes into contact with that Dead One) is thus revived to the true life of his soul.
2Ki 13:23 sq. Calw. Bibel: When God turns Himself from us, then we are given over to wretchedness; when He turns back to us again, then we find salvation. Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob had been dead for a thousand years, and yet their blessing was efficacious.Wrt. Summ.: God does not take pleasure in our ruin, but remembers, even in the midst of His anger, His promised grace and the covenant which He has made with us (Luk 1:72 sq.).Cramer: Tyrants are rods by means of which God chastises His people; but finally the tyrants themselves are chastised by God and cast into the fire.
2Ki 13:25. Starke: It was unjustly obtained and quickly lost. Unrighteous wealth rarely comes to the third generation (Jes. 33:1).Richter: Israel is to-day, as it was then (2Ki 13:23), a covenant people of God, and is not rejected entirely and forever (Romans 11).
Footnotes:
[1]2Ki 13:4.[ . See 1Ki 13:6.]
[2][ , as yesterday and day before, i.e., as before. Cf. Gen 31:2; Gen 31:5; Exo 5:7; Exo 5:14; 1Sa 21:6.]
[3]2Ki 13:6.[The is omitted in the chetib on account of the which immediately follows. Cf. 2Sa 5:2; 1Ki 21:21. Bttcher, 414, and 1080, 1.
[4]2Ki 13:7.[ , literally like dust to tread upon.]
[5]2Ki 13:9.[,the plural, as in English, for the passive, equivalent to the active singular with indefinite subject. (Germ. man, Fr. on). Cf. 2Ki 7:13; 1Ki 1:1; 1Ki 9:9; 1Ki 18:10.]
[6]2Ki 13:14.[The imperfect tense in has its proper force of the future, and is equivalent to the perfect of the Latin periphrastic conj. in rus. Ewald, 136, d.]
[7]2Ki 13:17.[, lit. until consuming, gerund form, = until thou consume, finish destroying, them.
[8]2Ki 13:19.[; the infinitive is used like the Latin participle in dus: It was to be smitten, i.e., thou shouldest have smitten. Ewald, 237, c. In the conclusion we have a perfect in the sense of the pluperfect conjunctive. Cf. Gen 18:12; 1Sa 13:18. Bttcher, 947, d.W. G. S.]
[9]See the Appendix on the Chronology. For the purpose of the calculation here made, it is immaterial whether this date is correct or not, but it is certainly wrong to call it an established chronological starting-point.W. G. S.
Fuente: A Commentary on the Holy Scriptures, Critical, Doctrinal, and Homiletical by Lange
CONTENTS
The most interesting part of this chapter is that which contains the death of the prophet Elisha. We have heard nothing of this man of God for some time. Here we are introduced to his history afresh, and the relation of his death. Here is also an account of the wicked reign of Jehoahaz, king of Israel. A remarkable circumstance is related of the revival of a dead man by being cast into the sepulcre of Elisha.
Fuente: Hawker’s Poor Man’s Commentary (Old and New Testaments)
Reader! what a melancholy relation, for the most part, is the history of Israel under their kings. The outline of it is little more than that such an one began to reign at such a period, that he reigned so long, and that he did evil in the sight of the Lord, as his father had done before him. And is this the general history of man? How precious ought Christ to be, who came to do away sin by the sacrifice of himself!
Fuente: Hawker’s Poor Man’s Commentary (Old and New Testaments)
Age and Youth
2Ki 13:14-19
This is the last hour in a prophet’s life. The brave, simple-hearted Elisha, now past eighty years, has lain down to die. He had been not prophet merely, but patriot; and the nation’s grief was the more bitter that at this juncture he could ill be spared. Repeatedly in the past he had stepped between Israel and the vengeance of her foes; even now, as he lay waiting for the end, his parting thoughts were given to his country. They must have been sad enough. Israel was in a gravely disturbed condition. Oppressed by the powerful Syrian state, she was also cruelly harassed by the marauding bands of Moab. How the dying man must have gone back in fancy to that day, nearly fifty years since, when he had summoned Jehu to the throne, and, with the animating dreams and hopes of a new start, sped him forth upon his vigorous career! But all had been in vain. Jehu’s sons were weak and pusillanimous; and while they reigned the Syrians had trodden Israel’s honour in the dust.
Then came what seemed a turning of the tide. Joash, the grandson of Jehu, became king, and the change from the degraded imbecility of his father was very welcome. There was promise in the youth’s unwasted energies. And the old prophet, as he looked a long farewell that day to the streets and valleys of Samaria, found himself questioning of what stuff this new leader was made and whether he had it in him to retrieve the national fortunes. Had he the brave purpose, the iron faith, the unselfish and untiring keenness of spirit, which would lift the kingdom out of the slough of impotence and starvation where it lay? Had he the vision of God that makes a man strong?
Joash, as far as we know, appears to have turned out in nature somewhat colourless. He was by no means the worst of the kings of Israel; but if there was no great harm in him, neither was there any great good. The main accusation urged against him is that he failed to stop the public idolatry his ancestors had set up. Well, purely negative persons do not greatly help the world. Possibly they may now and then act as a drag when downhill speed in morals or religion is on the increase; yet since they hinder upward progress still more, the world’s gain is less than nothing.
I. Consider first the prophet on his deathbed. It is an exceptional feature in Elisha’s end that he was a prophet, and yet died at peace in his bed. Death usually comes to such as he in other ways. Too often the man who spoke fearlessly for God has paid for his courage with his life. Nevertheless, at times we find a bright exception, where a faithful God, keeping watch above His own, has sent light at eventide. Here and there, like Elisha in Samaria, Luther in his cottage at Eisleben, Knox in his quiet house at Edinburgh, a great man of God breathes his last in peace. After life’s fever the close arrives calm and tranquil, and the weary sun makes a golden set.
As I look again at this old-world scene, I find yet another point worth our noting. Here is a poor apartment in Samaria the London of the country in which lies a dying man, without money, without fame, without striking powers of mind, his sole weapon ‘the word of the Lord’. Yet the king stands beside him mournfully, filled with honest sorrow, and knowing in his heart that, with his passing, Israel’s best hope would have departed. ‘O my father, my father, the chariot of Israel, and the horsemen thereof.’ His tears might well fall. The true benefactors of a nation who are they? Not the men who paint the map red, or invent a new big gun; but those who stir its sleeping conscience, and quicken its desire for the living God, and offer it those abiding and infinite satisfactions that will quench its nobler thirst And in Elisha this has been the true nobility, the simple grandeur of the man, that for two generations he stood among his people as an incorruptibly brave witness to eternal things, with a life that did not sink beneath his message.
II. The younger man. I should question whether a trait of character can be named which more infallibly indicates strength and excellence of mind than affectionate deference to the aged. I should question whether a sort of action is discoverable which is better calculated to gain the onlooker’s confidence and regard than an act of courtesy to the old. There are those whose minds appear to be obsessed by the strange delusion that flippant or disrespectful behaviour to the aged has in it something fascinating and attractive; yet if they only marked their own instinctive feeling at the sight of the same demeanour in others they would speedily clear their minds of that hallucination. To all right-minded people any lack of consideration for the old is an extremely grave offence; and that it is so to more than man is indicated by that noble commandment of ancient Israel: ‘Thou shalt rise up before the hoary head, and honour the face of the old man; I am the Lord’.
So far, I say, Joash’s conduct augured well; but before the scene was over his besetting weakness of character had appeared. It was a fatal lack of energetic faith the same radical defect which has proved the bane of many a life of promise. After the fine piece of symbolism I have described, the king is again bidden take a sheaf of arrows, and smite upon the ground. A strange command, we say; but that is merely because the Hebrew mind is different from ours. In the Old Testament we find prophets, often, performing symbolic acts which are not merely predictive, but, if I may say so, actually productive of the future. So the shooting of the arrows on the ground was an emblematic act, the significance of which must have been understood by Joash perfectly well. His halting after the third time, consequently, was a trifle, but to the watcher’s keen eye it betrayed a weakness that would bring disaster some day.
H. R. Mackintosh, Life on God’s Plan, p. 198.
The Arrow of the Lord’s Deliverance
2Ki 13:17
We have a picture of the old generation in contact with the new. In it we see the old testing the new, and the old teaching the new.
I. The scene is the test. There are two things which the old prophets knew well were absolutely essential as characteristics and qualifications, if Joash was to fulfil the high destiny which was before him. There mingles in all great men’s characters who are capable of achieving high things two elements the one prosaic, the other poetic. It lies upon the surface of things that a man cannot achieve practical work unless he has the prosaic instinct that does not shrink from the drudgery of it. This Joash has not. Is there thoroughness in this man who draws the bow feebly thrice, and looks round for instruction? But he lacks more; he lacks the glorious power of imagination; he does not see what his work means, he does not realize all that the old prophet has put before him. A man who can only look at his life and see only its dry details from day to day, and see no glory, no sanctity, no divinity in it will never do work with that high spirit which carries him by the very rapture of its intensity through the world.
II. The prophet is not merely one to test, but also one to teach. He teaches him, and what is the lesson he teaches? It is this simple one, to realize himself and to realize God. There are only three important things, and the way in which you bring these into contact will be the way in which your life will be marked and measured one is yourself, another is the world with its duties, the third is God overhead. The world has to be faced. Face it as a man, and as a man conscious of your responsibility. Take up arrows, and shoot against the foe that lies before you; but as man, show that man’s strength is only perfected in consciousness of your God. What says the Master Himself? If ye abide in Me, if your hearts are open to the heavenly vision, and My words abide in you, you realize the active duties of life, and a life which is full of obedience and faith is also a life of power. Ye shall ask what ye will, and it shall be done.
III. What then is the lesson to be drawn? I think it is this, that we often live in sore straits because we will forget God.
Bishop Boyd Carpenter, British Weekly Pulpit, vol. III. 1890, p. 145.
A Sacramental Moment
2Ki 13:18
‘Why,’ one asks, ‘is the prophet wroth? Why should Joash know that three arrows were not enough, that five or six was the number necessary?’ Something wants explaining here.
I. If you ever asked that question in your childhood, you were most likely answered, ‘It showed Joash had not faith’. The answer only needs to be more precise. For, as I understand it, Elisha was calling Joash to what we should call a sacramental act. He appoints him in this archery an outward sign, and indicates that with it there will go a Divine gift, the grace of victory over enemies.
The young man Arises not to the old man’s faith: the flame kindles not in him. He should have snatched the quiver with hands of fire, and sprung arrow after arrow from the string till the quiver lay empty at his side. Instead he makes languid, perfunctory response to the impassioned appeal; shoots thrice (so much respect demanded), and holds his hand. The charm is countercharmed by coldness, the holy spell breaks, the inspiration exhales upon the air, the cup of that wine of strength is spilt on earth, a sacrament has been made null.
II. What does all this mean for us? Perhaps this will do for a meaning.
Moralists often insist on the value of life’s daily insignificant things, its common indistinguishable moments. They are not wrong; but let us not forget that there are great moments, outvaluing in their effect on the drift of a man’s character the influence of a million lesser ones. I mean the moments when a faith or a decision passes before you, claiming your choice: there is Divine enchantment in the air, an inspiration ready to fall, a mystic force hovers beside you waiting to mix with your own, and some word spoken, or look cast, or act done will set free the force to impel you. These are sacramental moments, moments of the sacrament of Divine impulse. You must give yourself to the sacrament, let it have its way with you, and fear not; or it is null, and your hour has passed you.
III. Do not answer, ‘Yes, but if the timid lose a chance, so, too, the rash may blunder’. Do not quote old maxims that say, ‘Be wary and mistrustful, the sinews of the soul are these’. That is what I deny. Not the soul’s sinews. In these days of ours when a wider but often less vital knowledge is cooling down adventure and disenchanting the fairy horizons of boyhood, what men are wanting is not more knowledge, criticism, caution: it is the power of will. We lack not direction more, but impulsion; not the finger which shall point out the paths which are false, but the hand which shall push us forward in the true one. Whence is this to come? A Christian will answer, in fewest words, “I believe in the Holy Ghost”. There is a Spirit whose Name is not only of Counsel, but also of Strength; and though His might is like the wind, and bloweth where it listeth, and you cannot trace its coming or its going, yet I believe that in such moments of an unprepared-for sacrament as I have described these ardours of the heart are the sway of that trackless wind of God upon the heart of a man.’
J. H. Skrine, The Heart’s Counsel, p. 146.
References. XIII. 18, 19. Spurgeon, Sermons, vol. xxxix. No. 2303. XIII. 19. Ibid. vol. x. No. 669. J. Baines, Sermons, p. 255. J. M. Neale, Sermons Preached in Sackville College Chapel, vol. iii. p. 116.
The Bones of Elisha; Or the Power of the Past
2Ki 13:20-21
This miracle, like other miracles and providences of God, is as a lesson written in characters which all may read written in action. It teaches us the lesson which we are all apt to forget the power the quickening, invigorating power of the past.
I. See how this is the case with nations. To a nation a great past is an integral element of its life, so powerful, so precious, that wise patriots and rulers do all they can to preserve it. What does the past do for a nation? It kindles a nation when depressed by misfortune, or degenerated through luxury, into a new life. A great defeat, or a great failure, or a sensible decline in all that gives a nation moral vigour and self-respect, leads it, or leads its leading minds, to consider what their ancestors were what were the characters, the sacrifices, the actions, by which their own declining greatness was originally won. A degenerate posterity asks itself why, with the same blood flowing in its veins, it should be incapable of the virtues of those who have gone before it. The corpse of national life, the languid pulse of national thought, are thus brought into contact with the past. They touch the bones of Elisha: the country may yet revive and stand again on its feet.
II. Observe the bearing of this principle on the history of Churches. To a Church the past is even more than it is to a nation, since its title-deeds have been given it once for all, and it has had everything in the first age of its existence that it can possibly have now. Churches, particularly Churches, like nations, have their days of glory their days, too, of depression and of shame. To the collective Church of Christ alone is the promise given that the gates of hell shall not prevail against it. If a Church is stricken with the languor of death it must be quickened in the old way by contact new and earnest contact under the guidance of the Spirit, with the sacred past.
III. Observe the application of this principle to the Christian soul. Every Christian soul has its past, its sacred memories known only to itself and to God. But, like nations and Churches, souls, too, have their periods of depression their epochs of growth and decline. The eternal realities have been somehow displaced in its affections by the things of time. That soul is in a fair way to die outright. It is carried out to be buried by the spirit of the world by the forces of circumstances; and then some danger, some illness, some heart-ache which convulses the depths of being, leads it to seek retreat. The Moabites are in sight, and it is thrust into the tomb of Elisha: it is brought into contact with its own buried past with the years of old which have been as forgotten as if they had never been with the thoughts that had once been uppermost with the friends who have long since passed into another world. All that early time which seemed to have perished so utterly is there buried away in the tomb of memory; and the discovery of an old letter, or a visit to an early home, or a conversation with a friend who has not been heard of for years, may waken it, as by a touch of the bones of Elisha.
H. P. Liddon, Penny Pulpit, vol. xv. No. 886, p. 289.
References. XIII. 20, 21. H. P. Liddon, Sermons on Old Testament Subjects, p. 318. J. M. Neale, Sermons Preached in Sackville College Chapel, vol. iii. p. 124. XIII. 21. W. H. Hutchings, Sermon-Sketches (2nd Series), p. 256.
2Ki 13:21
The Rev. Gordon Calthrop preached from this text in Westminster Abbey three weeks after Livingstone’s funeral. The congregation were actually sitting over Livingstone’s fresh grave. ‘Let us be quickened,’ said the preacher, ‘into fresh life by contact with the bones of Livingstone, and let thousands of Africans, through the influence of his death, be revived and stand up on their feet.’
Fuente: Expositor’s Dictionary of Text by Robertson
2Ki 13
1. In the three and twentieth year of Joash the son of Ahaziah king of Judah Jehoahaz the son of Jehu began to reign over Israel in Samaria, and reigned seventeen years.
2. And he did that which was evil in the sight of the Lord, and followed [walked after] the sins of Jeroboam the son of Nebat, which made Israel to sin; he departed not therefrom.
3. And the anger of the Lord was kindled against Israel, and he delivered them into the hand of Hazael [comp. chap. 2Ki 10:32 , seq. ] king of Syria, and into the hand of Benhadad the son of Hazael, all their days [all the days. An indefinite designation of a long period of disaster],
4. And Jehoahaz besought [literally, stroked the face of. A metaphor which occurs in Exo 32:11 ; 1Ki 13:6 ] the Lord, and the Lord hearkened unto him: for he saw the oppression [comp Exo 3:7 ; Deu 26:7 ] of Israel, because the king of Syria oppressed them.
5. (And the Lord gave Israel a saviour [Jeroboam II., the grandson of Jehoahaz, a vigorous and successful sovereign, of whom it is said that Jehovah “saved” Israel by his hand, chap. 2Ki 14:27 ], so that they went out from under the hand [referring to the oppressive supremacy of Syria] of the Syrians: and the children of Israel dwelt in their tents [in the open country] as beforetime.
6. Nevertheless they departed not from the sins of the house of Jeroboam, who made Israel sin, but [he] walked therein [therein they walked. It is the conduct of the nation that is being described]: and there remained [stood] the grove also in Samaria.)
7. Neither did he leave of the people to Jehoahaz but fifty horsemen, and ten chariots [the destruction of these particular kinds of forces was equivalent to complete disarmament and rendered further resistance hopeless], and ten thousand footmen; for the king of Syria had destroyed them, and had made them like the dust by threshing [Israel was down-trodden by the conqueror (comp. 2Sa 22:43 ; Isa 10:6 )].
8. Now the rest of the acts of Jehoahaz, and all that he did, and his might [prowess], are they not written in the book of the chronicles of the kings of Israel?
9. And Jehoahaz slept with his fathers [or lay down ( i.e., to sleep) like his fathers. The same phrase is used even of Amaziah, who came to a violent end (chap. 2Ki 14:22 )]; and they buried him in Samaria: and Joash his son reigned in his stead.
10. In the thirty and seventh year of Joash king of Judah began Jehoash the son of Jehoahaz to reign over Israel in Samaria, and reigned sixteen years.
11. And he did that which was evil in the sight of the Lord; he departed not from all the sins of Jeroboam the son of Nebat, who made Israel sin: but he walked therein.
12. And the rest [this is repeated (chap. 2Ki 14:15-16 )], of the acts of Joash, and all that he did, and his might wherewith he fought against Amaziah [see the account of chap. 2Ki 14:8 , seq. ] king of Judah, are they not written in the book of the chronicles of the kings of Israel?
13. And Joash slept with his fathers; and Jeroboam sat upon his throne: and Joash was buried in Samaria with the kings of Israel.
14. Now Elisha was fallen sick of his sickness whereof he died [he was to die]. And Joash the king of Israel came down unto him [to his house], and wept over his face [as he lay on the bed], and said, O my father, my father, the chariot of Israel, and the horsemen thereof.
15. And Elisha said unto him, Take bow and arrows. And he took unto him bow and arrows.
16. And he said to the king of Israel, Put thine hand upon the bow [Heb., make thine hand to ride]. And he put his hand upon it: and Elisha put his hands upon the king’s hands [so as to invest the act of shooting with a prophetic character].
17. And he said, Open the window [lattice] eastward. And he opened it. Then Elisha said, Shoot And he shot And he said, The arrow of the Lord’s deliverance, and the arrow of deliverance from Syria: for thou shalt smite the Syrians in Aphek posh, 2Ki 13:4 ; 1Ki 20:26 . The scene of former defeats was to become that of triumph], till thou have consumed them.
18. And he said, Take the arrows [ i.e., the bundle of arrows]. And he took them. And he said unto the king of Israel, Smite upon the ground. And he smote thrice [three being a sacred number] and stayed.
19. And the man of God was wroth with him [because his present want of zeal augured a like deficiency in prosecuting a war hereafter. The natural irritability of a sick man may have also had something to do with it], and said, Thou shouldest have smitten five or six times; then hadst thou smitten Syria till thou hadst consumed it; whereas now thou shalt smite Syria but thrice.
20 And Elisha died, and they buried him. And the bands of the Moabites invaded the land at the coming in of the year.
21. And it came to pass, as they [a party of Israelites. The story is told with vivid definiteness] were burying a man, that, behold, they spied a band [the troop] of men; and they cast the man into the sepulchre of Elisha [comp. Mar 16:3 , Mar 16:4 . In this case the tomb was more easily opened, as the action was obviously done in haste]: and when the man was let down, and touched the bones of Elisha, he revived, and stood up on his feet.
22. But Hazael king of Syria oppressed Israel all the days of Jehoahaz.
23. And the Lord was gracious unto them, and had compassion on them, and had respect [turned] unto them, because of his covenant with Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, and would not destroy them, neither cast he them from his presence as yet.
24. So Hazael king of Syria died; and Benhadad [Benhadad III. The name Benhadad, docs not, of course, signify any connection with the dynasty overthrown by Hazael. It was a divine title] his son reigned in his stead.
25. And Jehoash the son of Jehoahaz [returned and] took again out of the hand of Benhadad the son of Hazael the cities, which he had taken out of the hand of Jehoahaz his father by [in the] war. Three times did Joash beat [smite] him, and recovered the cities of Israel.
The Dying Prophet
This chapter opens with an account of the wicked reign of Jehoahaz the son of Jehu, who reigned seventeen years over Israel in Samaria. He was a weak-minded and a bad-hearted man. In this respect he was no exception to the kings of Israel. It is a remarkable thing, that whilst Judah had now end again a good king, Israel never had one after the division of the kingdom. How are we to account for this? Israel and Judah were practically one family, yet along the one line from the point of departure there is nothing but stubbornness, selfishness, idolatry, and love of evil. Along the other line there were occasional gleams of goodness, high quality of character, and some approach to patriotic statesmanship. This would be a marvel to us if the same thing were not happening every day in the year, within our own knowledge, and perhaps within our own families. The mystery is not to be accounted for, and certainly it is not to be lightly treated. All these things are for our instruction: they call upon us to halt, and think, and pray; they make us quiet, when otherwise we might be tumultuous and violent in the face of heaven. But is not the mystery deepened by the fact that every man is himself two selves both Israel and Judah in his own personality? Look at him for days together, and say if ever sweeter man lived, apt in religious thinking, gifted even in the power of prayer, carrying with him as it were the very key of heaven, and having boldest and broadest access to God at all hours. The same man shall descend from heaven like a star that has lost its centre, and shall plunge in darkness, and do wickedness with both hands. Instances of this kind are known to us, and may be too painfully known to us by reason of our own consciousness. Which will be uppermost at the last? Determining the personal life by a majority for even personal lives are settled by majorities as well as the affairs of state on which side will the majority be at the last? Let us hope the best, even of those who now seem to be the worst. The men whom we have seen farthest away from the throne of God and the cross of Christ and all spiritual loveliness, have come back again, and have almost claimed the very highest place known to Christ. Then when they have returned, we have said, After all, the good will get the upper hand: “Gad, a troop shall overcome him: but he shall overcome at the last.” There remains, however, this broad lesson in the history now before us, that whilst in Judah there were occasional kings worthy of the name, yet in Israel from the point of division there was one continual succession of bad men.
What was the Lord’s action in relation to the city which had been ruined by the policy of this evil Jehoahaz? A very tender word supplies the answer: “Jehoahaz besought the Lord,” and the Lord is very pitiful and kind; a touch at his robe and he turns round as if a friend had greeted him; one look through blinding tears, and he comes back to the prodigal as if he himself had something to make up to the wayward man. The Lord heard even Jehoahaz “And the Lord gave Israel a saviour” ( 2Ki 13:5 ). A beautiful word this! We have come to love it. It stands in our English Bible, however, in significant typography; it has not a capital initial; it has but a small letter, like the rest of the word. Still, coming back upon it from Christian associations, it reads like the New Testament in the midst of the Old. “A saviour,” the very syllables have music in them; the word itself sounds like a gospel. There has always been in the world a man who especially represented God not God’s majesty only, but God’s love and tenderness, pity and mercy. Here again is a great mystery that one man should be different from another. A marvellous thing that one man should be as a saviour, and another should be as a saved one. Why this difference? This also cometh forth from the Lord of hosts, which is excellent in counsel, and wonderful in working. Have no fear of the cry about equality, because equality is impossible. There are kingships that come up out of eternity; there are rulerships which are ordained of God. In the highest sense, the powers that be are ordained of God, not in the case of the individual men, viewed within the limits of their own personality, but in the idea which they represent an idea of righteousness, clemency, purity, progress. God has always had his Abel in the world, who offered the acceptable sacrifice; he has always had a Moses or a Joshua, or some brave judge in Israel who knew right from wrong, and who could not be bribed to do that which was corrupt; he has always had his Eli or Samuel, or mighty singer who turned righteousness into music; evermore has God had his representative upon the earth. Why did not Israel create their own saviour? Why was not Jehoahaz made the saviour of his own people? Saviours are divine creations. Redeemers come from heaven. Great prophet-minds are creations of God, and they are as it were sent down here like lights to show us the road in darkness, and to reveal to us beauties which but for them would have been undiscovered. We know them when they come. If we do not give them instant welcome, we acknowledge the mystery of their personality, We say regarding each of them, “Whence hath this man this wisdom?” He is no scholar, he has not gone through the usual curriculum, certainly; yet when he speaks he seems to have a right to speak; when he gives his judgments we feel that the words which proceed out of his mouth are gracious and wise. In all these things Christ teaches us to recognise the hand of God, and we are thus trained towards Christ himself the real Saviour, so mighty that he could humble himself; so majestic that he could take upon him the form of a servant; so infinite that he was first, last; the beginning, the end, the unbeginning beginning, the unconcluding end. Thus early we come upon sweet names. They surprise us as flowers would amaze us in a wilderness.
What a tremendous hold sin gets upon the heart. “Nevertheless they departed not from the sins of the house of Jeroboam, who made Israel sin, but walked therein” ( 2Ki 13:6 ). Israel was punished, and still sinned; Israel had a saviour sent, and still sinned. Hazael, the cruel Syrian king, impoverished the army of Israel until there was nothing left to Jehoahaz “but fifty horsemen, and ten chariots, and ten thousand footmen; for the king of Syria had destroyed them, and had made them like the dust by threshing” ( 2Ki 13:7 ). He visited them with contempt. To leave them fifty horsemen and ten thousand footmen was to brand them with an insult. So has providence dealt with many men: they have been reduced to a minimum; they have had the barest field in the world; one inch more taken away, and down they would fall, and be irrecoverably lost. What is the meaning of this pruning, cutting, impoverishment, this almost total depletion? Why this mental darkness, this social degradation, this loss of status and influence, this withdrawment from our companionship, this intolerable solitude! Instead of answering the question in words, let each ponder for himself the inquiry, and answer it according to his own knowledge.
How very little we know even of the men whose lives are written: “The rest of the acts of Jehoahaz, and all that he did, and his might, are they not written in the book of the chronicles of the kings of Israel?” No! Another hand there indeed endeavours to sketch the life, but how much is left out! No human chronicler can put down all things concerning the subject which he has undertaken to depict. But the rest of our lives is written. A diary is kept in heaven; the journal is not published for the perusal of others; but the whole life, day by day, is put down in the book of remembrance; and we shall be able to recognise the writing, and to confirm the accuracy of the minute. We cannot get away from it, there is the writing, and it abides a perpetual witness for us or against us. What is the divine scribe now writing? The pen is going. We are obliged to use such figures to represent the spiritual reality. The writing is now proceeding: every thought registered, every deed chronicled, every day’s work added up and carried over to the next page. It is a solemn thing to live! We are stewards, trustees, servants sent on messages, and entrusted with specified duties, and we are expected back with a definite answer and a complete report of our lives.
These introductory points bring us to the decease of Elisha. The account begins in the fourteenth verse and proceeds to the twenty-first, “Elisha was fallen sick of his sickness whereof he died.” He was supposed to be about a hundred years of age. We have seen that he was a domestic rather than a public prophet; he was unlike his great predecessor and father. The awful Elijah dwelt alone. He came upon society now and then; came down like a flood from the threatening clouds: shot out like a fire, and burned the men whom he approached. He needed no hospitality. He asked for no testimonial, pledge, or favour, certificate, introduction, or commendation. He was in very deed a son of thunder. Such a man is often wanted a man who accepts no invitation; a man who stands back in religious solitude and speaks the judgments of God with an unfaltering voice. Elisha was exactly the contrary. He worked his miracles in the house. He often called upon people; he was quiet, serene, most sympathetic and tender-hearted; now and then he could stand bolt upright, and send away proud men from his door with disdain they could never forget; but in the usual process of his life he was a kind of mother-man in Israel. He went into people’s houses, and asked them how they were. He consented to increase their oil and their flour, and to bless their family life with prophetic benedictions. He was most gentle to the young prophets, so much so that you could scarcely tell the old man from the young man: he was young in heart: his voice was musical to the end, and on the very last day there flashed out of him the old grand power. See in Elijah, John the Baptist, monastic, solitary, self-involved, haughty in a certain sense, disdainful and contemptuous of things valued by men who worship at base altars. Then see in Elisha the type of the Messiah, the gentle One, who wrought his miracles in houses, raised little children from the dead, healed the sick, opened the eyes of the blind, brake bread at eventide for those who had given him hospitality; yet even he could stand up sometimes and create a place for himself, and no man might venture within the circumference of his elevated majesty. Still, he came back again to the domestic life. “Now Jesus loved Martha, and her sister, and Lazarus.” A domestic visitor, a domestic pastor, a family Saviour, the God of the families of the earth: not only so, see what the line of progress means, look at the historical philosophy of the fact. First you have majesty, thunder, righteousness: all things significant of divine rule and authority; then you have grace and truth: “first that which is natural, afterward that which is spiritual:” the kingdom of heaven enclosed within a parable; the whole purpose of God set forth in beatitudes: the awful voices of Sinai displaced by the gentle Sermon on the Mount. Such is the line of development or progress, from the outward to the inward; from the natural to the spiritual; from the earthly to the celestial; and thus we proceed, being changed as it were from glory to glory, at last losing all carnality, fleshliness, worldliness, all sordidness and weight and sense of burden, and becoming finally angels bright with everlasting light, and strong with knowledge that never fails. Thus one life is shed off after another, until at last we are clothed upon with our house which is from heaven.
A very beautiful incident occurred near the close of Elisha’s death. The king called upon him, “and wept over his face, and said, O my father, my father” ( 2Ki 13:14 ). There are times when the heart gets the better even of the worst men; there are hours in which even bad kings become almost good. In those hours it is the heart that speaks. This man described Elisha well, for, said he, “The chariot of Israel, and the horsemen thereof:” an expression equal to: Thou art worthy of honour, for thou art greater than all the horses of Israel and all the chariots of the kingdom; thou art stronger, thou hast done more for Israel than the army ever did: O my father, my father, by thy removal Israel loses her defences and is exposed to the enemy. Tributes come at last, righteous eulogiums are pronounced sometimes by reluctant or unwilling lips. There are hours in which men are well rewarded for whole years of neglect and contempt. How true it is that Elisha was the security of Israel! It is ever so. The religious people of the country are its salvation. This is a proposition which would be met with contempt in many quarters, but religious people are accustomed to be contemned. They stand, however, on the foundations of history, and they recall the words If ten righteous men can be found, the cities shall not be destroyed: ye are the salt of the earth; ye are the light of the world; a city that is set on an hill cannot be hid. Realise your position and its corresponding responsibilities, and know that “righteousness exalteth a nation,” and that the Church the living Church, the spiritual Church of any country is its best army Christians are the most useful of all the restrictive and regulative influences of a social kind. The teacher, the sick-visitor, those who sympathise with the wronged and suffering, and the great prophets are the true army and the invincible defence of the land. What then? Spread the Bible; uphold all Christian influences; prize Christian instruction in the school, in the house, and in the church. Prayer is a battering-ram. Faith in God will save the land, even when it is most corrupt in its high places, when its kings have gone wrong, and its judges have accepted the bribe. All this will be acknowledged at the last, as it was acknowledged in the case of Elisha. Elisha then gave the king comfort. A beautiful transaction now took place:
“And Elisha said unto him [Joash] take bow and arrows. And he said to the king of Israel, Put thine hand upon the bow. And he put his hand upon it: and Elisha put his hands upon the king’s hands” ( 2Ki 13:15-16 ).
That is the point We cannot live without contact with higher lives. There must be a touch, a fellowship, an electric thrill, a unity that can hardly be expressed in verbal symbols. The king’s hands were nothing but common fingers until Elisha touched them and infused into them divine energy. And Elisha said, “Open the window eastward. And he opened it. Then Elisha said, Shoot. And he shot.” In many nations, notably in ancient Rome, the challenge to war was this: the party intending to conquer a nation took bow and arrow, and shot the arrow into the country which he intended to subdue. That was accepted as a challenge, or, if not accepted, possession was immediately taken of the land. Have we shot preliminary arrows into the lands we ought to take for Christ? What arrow have we shot into the land of ignorance, the land of oppression, the land of spiritual darkness, the land of heathenism? We should find the Lord’s arrows in every land, and they should mean: There is going to be a battle to-day a great fight; and the Lord will conquer. The Church should always be addressing its challenges to the world. When the world has some new plan of pleasing, entertaining, or satisfying the people, the Church should invent something infinitely superior. This is the duty to which we are called in Christ Jesus. We should have nobler feasts, larger charities, medicines that can heal more diseases; we should be enabled to say to the world, You need not go away from the Church for anything; is any man sick? Let him call for the elders of the Church; is any among you merry? Let him sing and dance and be glad. The Church has an answer to every condition and every class of circumstances. If not if it is mumbling its obsolete dogmas, if it is talking sentences the world cannot understand, if it is overshooting the mark by high references, literary allusions, and learned things that are inapplicable and jejune, the world will go away and leave the Church in its own society. Let us, then, take lessons, and so live that even our dead bones shall have virtue in them. We see that when a body was let down into the grave and touched the bones of Elisha, the dead man stood up on his feet and lived. Herein is a mystery we cannot explain, but a parable the meaning of which is evident. We get our life out of the dead Christ, and the Christ that rose again. We have life out of death; we have deliverance out of the grave; we have heaven out of the tomb in which the Saviour lay. These are mysteries. We acknowledge their impenetrableness and their solemnity, and if we cannot explain them in words, yet there are solemn occasions in life in which every one of them comes in like an angel, and says, I am waiting, I am ministering, I am still of use in the upbuilding of the world’s best life. Let not history be lost upon us. The history of evil is written in plain letters. No man, wayfarer though he be, need misunderstand the solemn suggestion with which the history of evil is fraught. “The wicked shall be turned into hell, and all the nations that forget God.” They have a sad fate who have challenged God to battle. If they are not yet crushed, it is because his mercy endureth for ever. On the other hand, let the Elishas of society work on, suffer on, visit sick folk in their sickness, and give the message of God to those who are far away from the father’s house as to thought and purpose and sacrifice. There is a quiet ministry, as well a grand public one: there is an opening for Elisha as certainly as there was for Elijah; nay, the world could not tolerate Elijah long. Who could live always amid thunder and lightning and a great tempest of judgment? We live under Christ, who has a word in season to him that is weary, a balm for every wound, an answer to every desire that is pure. Blessed Saviour, we are under thy government, under thy benediction; it is good to be there; it is like resting on high hills on summer days, when the very sun is a friend, and the great heaven is a protection. As for those who wish to receive this Saviour, he stands ready. The reluctance is not on his side. “Believe on the Lord Jesus Christ, and thou shalt be saved.”
Prayer
Almighty God, thy voice is everywhere if we could but hear it Lord, anoint our ears that they may be able to hear. We would not only hear the broad commandments, the great words spoken in thunder; we would hear the undertones, the minor voices, the persuasive whispers and entreaties, which thou art always breathing upon the sons of men. We beseech thee that we may be enabled always, by the mighty energy of thy Holy Spirit, to say, Speak, Lord, for thy servant heareth. We bless thee for all the voices of providence, all the monitions of history, all the eloquence of events; may we hear, and consider, and understand, and apply our hearts unto wisdom. Thy purpose concerning us is always good: thy mercy endureth for ever; it is larger than our sin: where sin abounded grace did much more abound. Who can excel the Most High? Who can get in advance of God? Behold, thy love is our continual astonishment, and thy grace awakens within us ineffable surprise. How long-suffering thou art, how patient, how hopeful! Surely thou dost see more than we see, or thine anger would burn us, and utterly consume us: but thou dost look upon all things from eternity; thou knowest what time is a flicker, a pulse, a flying shuttle, a shadow that is being chased away. Thou dwellest in the solemn unbeginning, unending eternity, and thou dost speak words from thine habitation worthy of its dignity; behold, thou dost publish gospels, and then judgments; and ere the judgments are uttered the gospels are resumed, and repeated in still tenderer tones. Oh, that we might hear these, lest at the last the Son of God should say, O Jerusalem, Jerusalem, how often would I have gathered thee, but ye would not. May our reply to thy love be a glad consent; may we now say, The will of the Lord be done. We should have no confidence in our own prayers did we not breathe them at the cross: did we not, whilst praying, touch the Son of God, who loved us and gave himself for us. He bare our sins, and carried our iniquities, and drank the cup of woe. We live in him; to him we commit our prayers. Amen.
Fuente: The People’s Bible by Joseph Parker
IX
ELISHA, THE SUCCESSOR OF ELIJAH
2Ki 2:13-13:21
For the sake of unity, this chapter, like the one on Elijah, will be confined to a single person, Elisha, who was the minister, the disciple, and the successor of the prophet Elijah. “Minister” means an attendant who serves another generally a younger man accompanying and helping an older man. A passage illustrating this service 2Ki 3:11 : “Elisha, who poured water on the hands of Elijah.” We may here recall a situation when no wash basin was convenient, and the water was poured on our hands for our morning ablutions. A corresponding New Testament passage is Act 13:5 : “Paul and Barnabas had John Mark to their minister,” that is, the young man, John Mark, attended the two older preachers, and rendered what service he could. Elisha was also a disciple of Elijah. A disciple is a student studying under a teacher. In the Latin we call the teacher magister. Elijah was Elisha’s teacher in holy things. Then Elisha was a successor to Elijah. Elijah held the great office of prophet to Israel, and in view of his speedy departure, God told him to anoint Elisha to be his successor, that is, successor as prophet to the ten tribes.
About four years before the death of Ahab, 800 B.C., Elijah, acting under a commission from God, found Elisha plowing, and the record says, “with twelve yoke of oxen.” I heard a cowman once say that it was sufficient evidence of a man’s fitness to preach when he could plow twelve yoke of oxen and not swear. But the text may mean that Elisha himself plowed with one yoke, and superintended eleven other plowmen. Anyhow, Elijah approached him and dropped his mantle around him. That was a symbolic action, signifying, “When I pass away you must take my mantle and be my successor.” Elisha asked permission to attend to a few household affairs. He called together all the family, and announced that God had called him to a work so life-filling he must give up the farm life and devote himself to the higher business. To symbolize the great change in vocation he killed his own yoke of oxen and roasted them with his implements of husbandry; and had a feast of the family to celebrate his going into the ministry. It is a great thing when the preacher knows how to burn the bridges behind him, and when the family of the preacher recognizes the fulness and completeness of the call to the service of God.
The lesson of this and other calls is that no man can anticipate whom God will call to be his preacher. He called this man from the plow handles. He called Amos from the gathering of sycomore fruit; he called Matthew from the receipt of custom; he called the fishermen from their nets; he called a doctor in the person of Luke. We cannot foretell; the whole matter must be left to God and to God alone, for he alone may put a man into the ministry. I heard Dr. Broadus preach a great sermon on that once: “I thank Christ Jesus, my Lord, for that he hath enabled me and counted me faithful, putting me into this ministry, who was before a blasphemer.”
Elijah served as a prophet fifty-five years. That is a long ministry. There were six kings of Israel before he passed away, as follows: Ahab, Ahaziah, Jehoram, Jehu, Jehoahaz, and Joash. There were five sovereigns of Judah, to wit: Jehoshaphat, Jehoram, Ahaziah, Athaliah (this one a woman) and Joash. Athaliah was queen by usurpation.
God said to Elijah, “Anoint Elisha to be thy successor; anoint Jehu to be king of Israel, and anoint Hazael to be king of Syria.” Now here were two men God-appointed to the position of king, as this man was to the position of prophet, and we distinguish them in this way: It does not follow that because the providence of God makes a man to be king, that the man is conscious of his divine call, like the one who is called to be a preacher. For instance, he says, “I called Cyrus to do what I wanted done: I know him, though he does not know me.” The lesson is that God’s rule is supreme over all offices. Even the most wicked are overruled to serve his general purposes in the government of the world.
The biblical material for a sketch of Elisha’s life 1Ki 19:16 to 2Ki 13:21 . Elisha means, “God the Saviour.” The Greek form is Elisaios; we find it in the Greek text of Luk 4:27 , where our Lord says, “There were many widows in Israel in the days of Elisaios. ” “Elijah” is Hebrew, and “Elias” is the corresponding Greek word; “Elisha” is Hebrew, and “Elisaios” is the corresponding Greek form.
We will now distinguish between the work of Elijah and Elisha, giving some likenesses and some unlikenesses. In the chapter on Elijah attention has already been called to the one great unlikeness, viz: that Elijah did not live in public sight; he appeared only occasionally for a very short time. Elisha’s whole life was in the sight of the public; he had a residence in the city of Samaria, and a residence at Gilgal; he was continually passing from one theological seminary to another; he was in the palaces of the kings, and they always knew where to find him. He had a great deal to do with the home life of the people, with the public life of the people and with the governmental life of the people. There were some points of likeness in their work, so obvious I need not now stop to enumerate them. Elijah’s life was more ascetic, and his ministry was mainly a ministry of judgment, while Elisha’s was one of mercy.
The New Testament likenesses of these two prophets are as follows: Elijah corresponds to John the Baptist, and Elisha’s ministry is very much like the ministry of Jesus in many respects.
There were many schools of the prophets in the days of Elijah and Elisha. Commencing with Jericho we have one; the next was at Bethel; the third at Gilgal not the Gilgal near Jericho but the one in the hill country of Ephraim and there was one at Mount Carmel. These stretched across the whole width of the country four theological seminaries. The history shows us that Elijah, just before his translation, visited every one of them in order, and that Elisha, as soon as Elijah was translated, visited the same ones in reverse order, and there is one passage in the text that tells us that he was continually doing this.
I think the greatest work of Elisha’s life was this instruction work; it was the most far-reaching; it provided a great number of men to take up the work after he passed away. Indeed the schools of the prophets were the great bulwarks of the kingdom of God for 500 years during the Hebrew monarchy. We cannot put the finger on a reformation, except one, in that five hundred years that the prophets did not start. One priest carried on a reformation we will come to it later. But the historians, the poets, the orators, the reformers, and the revivalists, all came from the prophets. Every book in the Bible is written by a man that had the prophetic spirit. Elisha was the voice of God to the conscience of the kings and the people, and when we study the details of his life we will see that as the government heard and obeyed Elisha it prospered, and as it went against his counsel it met disaster.
We have two beautiful stories that show his work in the homes. One of them is the greatest lesson on hospitality that I know of in the Bible. A wealthy family lived right on the path between the Gilgal seminary and the Mount Carmel seminary. The woman of the house called her husband’s attention to the fact that the man of God, Elisha, was continually passing to and fro by their house; that he was a good man, and that they should build a little chamber on the wall to be the prophet’s chamber. “We will put a little table in it, and a chair, and a bed, and we will say to him, Let this be your home when you are passing through.” Elisha was very much impressed with this woman’s thoughtfulness, and the reason for it. He asked her what he could do for her. But she lived among her own people, wanted no favor from the king nor the general of the army. Elisha’s servant suggested that she was childless, so he prophesied to her that within a year she would be the mother of a son. The son was born and grew up to be a bright boy, and, like other boys, followed his father to the field. One hot day when they were reaping and it was very hot in reaping time over there he had a sunstroke and said, “My head! My head!” The father told his servant to take him to his mother as usual, let a child get sick and the daddy is sure to say, “Take him to his mother.” I don’t know what would become of the children if the mothers did not take care of them when they are sick. But the boy died. The woman had a beast saddled and went to the seminary at Mount Carmel. She knew Elisha was there for he had not passed back. It was a very touching story. Anyhow, Elisha restored the boy to life, and to show how it lingered in his mind, years afterward he sent word to her that there would be a famine of seven years, and she had better migrate until the famine was over. She went away for seven years, and when she came back a land-grabber had captured her home and her inheritance. She appealed the case to Elisha, and Elisha appealed the case to the king, and then the kin said, “Tell me, I pray thee, all the great things that Elisha hath done.” When he had heard the full story of this man’s work he said, “Let this woman have her home back again, and interest for all the time it has been used by another.” This is a very sweet story of family life.
There is another story. One of the “theologs ” I do not know how young he was, for he had married and had children the famine pressed so debt was incurred, and they had a law then we find it in the Mosaic code that they might make a bondman of the one who would not pay his debts. The wife of this “theolog” came to Elisha and said, “My husband is one of the prophets; the famine has brought very hard times, and my boys are about to be enslaved because we cannot pay the debt.” Then he wrought the miracle that we will consider a little later, and provided for the payment of the debt of that wife of the prophet and for the sustenance of them until the famine passed away.
These two stories show how this man in going through the country affected the family life of the people; there may have been hundreds of others. I want to say that I have traveled around a good deal in my days, over every county in this state. It may be God’s particular providence, but I have never been anywhere that I did not find good people. In the retrospect of every trip of my life there is a precious memory of godly men that I met on the trip. I found one in the brush in Parker County, where it looked like a “razor-back” hog could not make a living, and they were very poor. I was on my way to an association, and must needs pass through this jungle, and stopped about noon at a small house in the brush, where I received the kindest hospitality in my life. They were God’s children. They fixed the best they had to eat, and it was good, too the best sausage I ever did eat. So this work of Elisha among the families pleases me. I have been over such ground, and I do know that the preacher who is unable to find good, homes and good people, and who is unable to leave a blessing behind him in the homes, is a very poor preacher. I have been entertained by the great governors of the state and the generals of armies, but I have never enjoyed any hospitality anywhere more precious than in that log cabin in the jungle.
The next great work of Elisha was the miracles wrought by him. There were two miracles of judgment. One was when he cursed the lads of Bethel that place of idolatry and turned two she-bears loose that tore up about forty of them. That is one judgment) and I will discuss that in the next chapter. Just now I am simply outlining the man’s whole life for the sake of unity.
The second miracle of judgment was the inflicting on Gehazi the leprosy of Naaman. The rest of his miracles were miracles of patriotism or of mercy. The following is a list (not of every one, for every time he prophesied it was a miracle): 2Ki 2:14 tells us that he divided the Jordan with the mantle of Elijah; 2Ki 2:19 , that he healed the bad springs of Jericho, the water that made the people sick and made the land barren, which was evidently a miracle of mercy. The third miracle recorded is in 2Ki 2:23 , his sending of the she-bears (referred to above) ; the fourth is recorded in 2Ki 3:16 , the miracle of the waters. Three armies led by three kings were in the mountains of Edom, on their way to attack Moab. There was no water, and they were about to perish, and they appealed to Elisha. He told them to go out to the dry torrent bed and dig trenches saying, “To-morrow all of those trenches will be full of water, and you won’t see a cloud nor hear it thunder.” It was a miracle in the sense that he foresaw how that water would come from rain in the mountains. I have seen that very thing happen. Away off in the mountains there may be rain one can’t see it nor hear it from where he is in the valley. The river bed is as dry as a powder horn, and it looks as if there never will be any rain. I was standing in a river bed in West Texas once, heard a roaring, looked up and saw a wave coming down that looked to me to be about ten feet high the first wave and it was carrying rocks before it that seemed as big as a house, and rolling them just as one would roll a marble.. So his miracle consisted in his knowledge of that storm which they could not see nor hear. If they had not dug the trenches they would have still had no water for a mountain torrent is very swift to fall. In that place where I was, in fifteen minutes there was a river, and in two or three hours it had all passed away. But the trenches of Elisha were filled from the passing flood.
The fifth miracle is recorded in 2Ki 4:2-7 , the multiplying of the widow’s oil, that prophet’s wife that I have already referred to. The sixth miracle is recorded in 2Ki 4:8-37 , first the giving and then the restoring to life of the son of the Shunamite. The seventh is given in 2Ki 4:38 , the healing of the poisonous porridge: “Ah, man of God! there is death in the pot,” or “theological seminaries and wild gourds.” The eighth miracle is found in 2Ki 5:1-4 , the multiplying of the twenty loaves so as to feed 100 men. The ninth, 2Ki 5:1-4 , the healing of Naaman’s leprosy, and the tenth, 2Ki 5:26-27 , the inflicting on Gehazi the leprosy of which Naaman was healed.
The eleventh miracle is found in 2Ki 6:1-7 , his making the ax to swim. One of the prophets borrowed an ax to increase the quarters; the seminary was growing and the place was too straight for them, and they had to enlarge it. They did not have axes enough, and one of them borrowed an ax. In going down to the stream to cut the wood, the head of the ax slipped off and fell into the water and there is a text: “Alas, my master, for it was borrowed.” The miracle in this case was his suspension of the law of gravity, and making that ax head to swim, so that the man who lost it could just reach out and get it.
Twelfth, 2Ki 6:8-12 , the revealing of the secret thought of the Syrian king, even the thoughts of his bedchamber. No matter what, at night, the Syrian king thought out for the next day, Elisha knew it by the time he thought it, and would safeguard the attack at that point.
Thirteenth, 2Ki 6:15 , his giving vision to his doubtful servant when the great host came to capture them. The servant was scared. Elisha said, “Open this young man’s eyes, and let him see that they who are for us are more than those who are against us.” What a text! His eyes were opened, and he saw that hilltop guarded with the chariots of God and his angels. We need these eye openers when we get scared.
Fourteenth, the blinding of that Syrian host that came to take him. He took them and prayed to the Lord to open their eyes again. An Irishman reported at the first battle of Manasseh, thus: “I surrounded six Yankees and captured them.” Well, Elisha surrounded a little army and led them into captivity.
Fifteenth, 2Ki 7:6 , a mighty host of Syrians was besieging Samaria, until the women were eating their own children, the famine was so great. Elisha took the case to God, and that night, right over the Syrian camp was heard the sound of bugles and shouting, and the racing of chariots, and it scared them nearly to death. They thought a great army had been brought up, and a panic seized them, as a stampede seizes a herd of cattle, and they fled. They left their tents and their baggage: their provisions, their jewels, and the further they went the more things they dropped, all the way to the Jordan River, until they left a trail behind them of the cast-off incumbrances. The word “panic” comes from the heathen god, “Pan,” and the conception is that these sudden demoralizations must come from deity. I once saw sixteen steers put an army of 4,000 to flight, and I was one of the men. We were in a lane with a high fence on one side and a bayou on the other side, and suddenly, up the lane we heard the most awful clatter, and saw the biggest cloud of dust, and one of the men shouted, “The cavalry is on us! The cavalry is on us!” and without thinking everybody got scared. A lot of the men were found standing in the bayou up to their necks, others had gone over the fence and clear across the field without stopping. I did not get that far, but I got over the fence.
Sixteenth, 2Ki 8:2-6 , the foreseeing and foretelling of the seven years of famine.
Seventeenth, 2Ki 8:11 , the revelation of the very heart of Hazael to himself. He did not believe himself to be so bad a man. Elisha just looked at him and commenced weeping. Hazael could not understand. Elisha says, “I see how you are going to sweep over my country with fire and sword; I see the children that you will slay; I see the bloody trail behind you.” Hazael says, “Am I a dog, that I should do these things?” But Elisha under inspiration read the real man) and saw what there was in the man. One of the best sermons that I ever heard was by a distinguished English clergyman on this subject.
Eighteenth, 2Ki 13:14 , his dying prophecy.
Nineteenth, the miracle from his bones after he was buried. We will discuss that more particularly later.
We have thus seen his great teaching work, his relation to the government, and his miracles.
Now, let us consider some of his miracles more particularly. The Romanists misuse the miracle of the bones of Elisha, and that passage in Act 19:11-12 , where Paul sent out handkerchiefs and aprons, and miracles were wrought by them. On these two passages they found all their teachings of the relics of the saints, attributing miraculous power to a bit of the cross, and they have splinters enough of that “true cross” now scattered about to make a forest of crosses. In New Orleans an’ auctioneer said, “Today I have sold to seventeen men the cannon ball that killed Sir Edward Packenham.” The greatest superstition and fraud of the ages is the Romanist theory of the miracle working power of the reputed relics of the saints. Some of Elisha’s miracles were like some of our Lord’s. The enlargement of the twenty loaves to suffice for 100 men reminds us of two miracles of our Lord, and his curing a case of leprosy reminds us of many miracles of our Lord like that. In the Bible, miracles are always numerous in the great religious crises, where credentials are needed for God’s people, such as the great series of miracles in Egypt by Moses, the series of miracles in the days of Elisha and the miracles in the days of our Lord.
The greatest of Elisha’s work is his teaching work, greater than his work in relation to the government, his work in the families, or his miracles. I think the more far-reaching power of his work was in his teaching. There were spoken similar words at the exodus of Elijah and Elisha. When Elijah went up, Elisha said, “My Father! My Father! The chariots of Israel and the horsemen thereof!” The same words are used when Elisha died. What does it mean? It pays the greatest compliment to the departed: that they alone were worth more to Israel than all its chariots, and its cavalry; that they were the real defenders of the nation.
At one point his work touched the Southern Kingdom, viz: When Moab was invaded, and he wrought that miracle of the waters, filled the trenches and supplied the thirsty armies. Jehoshaphat, the king of Judah was along, and for his sake Elisha saved them.
There are many great pulpit themes in connection with Elisha’s history. I suggest merely a few: First, “Let a double portion of thy spirit be upon me” that was his prayer when Elijah was leaving him; second, “The chariots of Israel and the horsemen thereof”; third, when he came to the Jordan he did not say, “Where is Elijah?” but he smote the Jordan and said, “Where is the Lord God of Elijah?” for it made no difference if Elijah was gone, God was there yet; fourth, “The oil stayed” not as long as the woman has a vessel to put it in; fifth, the little chamber on the wall; sixth, “Ah, man of God! There is death in the pot” or “theological seminaries and wild gourds” radical criticism, for instance there is death in the pot whenever preachers are fed on that sort of food; seventh, “Is it well with thy husband?” “Is it well?” and I will have frequently commenced a meeting with that text; eighth, Elisha’s staff in the hands of Gehazi, who was an unworthy man and the unworthy cannot wield the staff of the prophets; ninth, “Alas, my master, it was borrowed!”; tenth, the Growing Seminary “The place is too straight for us”; eleventh, “Make this valley full of trenches,” that is, the Lord will send the water, but there is something for us to do; let us have a place for it when it comes; twelfth, the secret thoughts of the bedchamber are known to God; thirteenth, “They that be with us are more than those that be against us”; fourteenth, “Tell me, I pray thee, all the great works done by Elisha.”
These are just a few in the great mine of Elijah or Elisha where we may dig down for sermons. The sermons ought to be full of meat; that is why we preach to feed the hungry. We should let our buckets down often into the well of salvation, for we cannot lower the well, and we may draw up a fresh sermon every Sunday. We should not keep on preaching the same sermon; it is first a dinner roast, then we give it cold for supper, then hash its fragments for breakfast, and make soup out of the bones for the next dinner, and next time we hold it over the pot and boil the shadow, and so the diet gets thinner and thinner. Let’s get a fresh one every time.
QUESTIONS
1. Who was Elisha?
2. What is the meaning of “minister to Elijah”? Illustrate and give corresponding passage in the New Testament.
3. What is the meaning of “Elisha, a disciple of Elijah”?
4. What is the meaning of “Elisha, a successor to Elijah”?
5. Give the date, author, manner, and nature of Elisha’s call, his response and how he celebrated the event.
6. What is the lesson of this and other calls? Illustrate.
7. How long his prophetic term of office and what kings of Israel and Judah were his contemporaries?
8. What secular calls accompanied his, how do you distinguish between his and the call of the others and what is the lesson therefrom?
9. What is the biblical material for a sketch of Elisha’s life?
10. What is the meaning of his name?
11. What is the Greek and Hebrew forms of his name? Give other examples.
12. What likenesses and unlikenesses of the work of Elijah and Elisha?
13. What New Testament likenesses of these two prophets?
14. How many schools of the prophets in the days of Elijah and Elisha, and where were they located?
15. What was Elisha’s great teaching work in the seminaries? Discuss.
16. What was Elisha’s part in governmental affairs?
17. What of his work in the families? Illustrate.
18. What two classes of his miracles and what miracles of each class?
19. What is the Romanist misuse of the miracle of Elisha’s bones and Act 19:11-12 ?
20. What miracles were like some of our Lord’s?
21. When and why were Bible miracles numerous?
22. Which of Elisha’s works was the greatest?
23. What words spoken at the exodus of Elijah and Elisha and what their meaning?
24. At what point did Elisha’s work touch the Southern Kingdom?
25. What New Testament lesson from the life of Elisha?
26. Give several pulpit themes from this section not given by the
27. What is the author’s exhortation relative to preaching growing out of this discussion of Elisha?
X
GATHERING UP THE FRAGMENTS THAT NOTHING BE LOST
The title of this chapter is a New Testament text for an Old Testament discussion. For the sake of unity the last two chapters were devoted exclusively to Elijah and Elisha. It is the purpose of this discussion to call attention to some matters worthy of note that could not very well be incorporated in those personal matters, and yet should not be omitted altogether.
It is true, however, that the heart of the history is in the lives of these two great prophets of the Northern Kingdom. In bringing up the record we will follow the chronological order of the scriptures calling for exposition.
Jehoshaphat’s Shipping Alliance with Ahaziah. We have two accounts of this: first, in 1Ki 22:47-49 , and second, in 2Ch 20:35-37 . I wish to explain, first of all, the locality of certain places named in these accounts. Tarshish, as a place, is in Spain. About that there can be no question. About Ophir, no man can be so confident. There was an Ophir in the southern part of Arabia; a man named Ophir settled there, but I do not think that to be the Ophir of this section. The Ophir referred to here is distinguished for the abundance and fine quality of its gold. Several books in the Bible refer to the excellency of “the gold of Ophir,” and to the abundance of it. Quite a number of distinguished scholars would locate it in the eastern part of Africa. Some others would locate it in India, and still others as the Arabian Ophir. My own opinion is, and I give it as more than probable, that the southeastern coast of Africa is the right place for Ophir. Many traditions put it there, the romance of Rider Haggard, “King Solomon’s Mines,” follows the traditions. The now well-known conditions of the Transvaal would meet the case in some respects.
Ezion-geber is a seaport at the head of the Gulf of Akaba, which is a projection of the Red Sea. What is here attempted by these men is to re-establish the famous commerce of Solomon. I cite the passages in the history of Solomon that tell about this commerce. In 1Ki 9:26 we have this record: “And King Solomon made a navy of ships in Eziongeber, which is beside Eloth, on the shore of the Red Sea, in the land of Edom. And Hiram (king of Tyre) sent in the navy his servants, shipmen that had knowledge of the sea, with the servants of Solomon. And they came to Ophir, and fetched from thence gold, four hundred and twenty talents, and brought it to King Solomon.” Now, 1Ki 10:11 reads: “And the navy also of Hiram, that brought gold from Ophir, brought in from Ophir great plenty of Almug trees and precious stones.” This “almug-trees” is supposed to be the famous sweet-scented sandalwood. The precious stones would agree particularly with the diamond mines at Kimberly in the Transvaal.
Then1Ki_10:22 reads: “For the king had at sea a navy of Tarshish with the navy of Hiram: Once every three years came the navy of Tarshish, bringing gold, and silver, ivory, and apes, and peacocks.” The ivory and apes would fit very well with the African coast, but we would have to go to India to get the spices, which are mentioned elsewhere, and the peacocks. A three years’ voyage for this traffic seems to forbid the near-by Arabian Ophir, and does make it reasonable that the merchant fleet touched many points Arabia, Africa, and the East Indies. It is, therefore, not necessary to find one place notable for all these products gold, jewels, sandalwood, ivory, apes, spices, and peacocks. Solomon, then, established as his only seaport on the south Eziongeber, a navy, manned partly by experienced seamen of Tyre, and these ships would make a voyage every three years. That is a long voyage and they might well go to Africa and to India to get these varied products, some at one point and some at another.
Now Jehoshaphat and Ahaziah (king of Israel) made an alliance to re-establish that commerce. The first difficulty, however, is that the Chronicles account says that these ships were to go to Tarshish, and the Kings account says that they were ships of Tarshish to go to Ophir. My explanation of that difficulty is this: It is quite evident that no navy established at Eziongeber would try to reach Spain by circumnavigating Africa, when it would be so much easier to go from Joppa, Tyre, or Sidon over the Mediterranean Sea to Spain. “Tarshish ships” refers, not to the destination of the ships, but to the kind of ships, that is, the trade of the Mediterranean had given that name to a kind of merchant vessel, called “Ships of Tarshish.” And the ships built for the Tarshish trade, as the name “lndianman” was rather loosely applied to certain great English and Dutch merchant vessels. It is an error in the text of Chronicles that these ships were to go to Tarshish. They were Tarshish ships, that is, built after the model of Tarshish ships, but these ships were built at Eziongeber for trade with Ophir, Africa, and India.
1Ki 22:47 of the Kings account needs explanation: “And there was no king in Edom; a deputy was king.” The relevancy of that verse is very pointed. If Edom had been free and had its own king, inasmuch as Eziongeber was in Edom, Judah never could have gone there to build a navy. But Edom at this time was subject to Judah, and a Judean deputy ruled over it. That explains why they could come to Eziongeber.
One other matter needs explanation. The account in Kings says, “Then said Ahaziah the son of Ahab unto Jehoshaphat, Let my servants go with thy servants in the ships. But Jehoshaphat would not.” Ahaziah attributed the shipwreck of that fleet to the incompetency of the Judean seamen. He did not believe that there would have been a shipwreck if he had been allowed to furnish experienced mariners, as Hiram did. So Kings gives us what seems to be the human account of that shipwreck, viz: the incompetency of the mariners; but Chronicles gives us the divine account, thus: “Because thou hast joined thyself with Ahaziah, the Lord hath destroyed thy works. And the ships were broken.” How often do we see these two things: the human explanation of the thing, and the divine explanation of the same thing. Ahaziah had no true conception of God, and he would at once attribute that shipwreck to human incompetency, but Jehoshaphat knew better; he knew that shipwreck came because he had done wickedly in keeping up this alliance with the idolatrous kings of the ten tribes.
THE TRANSLATION OF ELIJAH Let us consider several important matters in connection with the translation of Elijah, 2Ki 2:1-18 . First, why the course followed by Elijah? Why does he go from Carmel to Gilgal and try to leave Elisha there, and from Gilgal to Bethel and try to leave Elisha there, and from Bethel to Jericho and try to leave Elisha there? The explanation is that the old prophet, having been warned of God that his ministry was ended and that the time of his exodus was at hand, wished to revisit in succession all of these seminaries. These were his stopping places, and he goes from one seminary to another. It must have been a very solemn thing for each of these schools of the prophets, when Elisha and Elijah came up to them, for by the inspiration of God as we see from the record, each school of the prophets knew what was going to happen. At two different places they say to Elisha, “Do you know that your master will be taken away to-day?” Now, the same Spirit of God that notified Elijah that his time of departure was at hand, also notified Elisha, also notified each school of the prophets; they knew.
But why keep saying to Elisha, “You stay here at Gilgal; the Lord hath sent me to Bethel,” and, “You stay here at Bethel; the Lord hath sent me to Jericho,” and “You stay here at Jericho; the Lord hath sent me to the Jordan”? It was a test of the faith of Elisha. Ruth said to Naomi, “Entreat me not to leave thee, nor to forsake thee; for where thou goest, I will go; and God do so to me, if thy God be my God, and thy people my people, and where thou diest there will I die also.” With such spirit as that, Elisha, as the minister to Elijah, and as the disciple of Elijah, and wishing to qualify himself to be the successor of Elijah, steadfastly replied: “As the Lord liveth and thy soul liveth, I will not forsake thee.” “I am going with you just as far as I can go; we may come to a point of separation, but I will go with you to that point.” All of us, when we leave this world, find a place where the departing soul must be without human companionship. Friends may attend us to that border line but they cannot pass over with us.
We have already discussed the miracle of the crossing of the Jordan. Elijah smote the Jordan with his mantle and it divided; that was doubtless his lesson to Elisha, and we will see that he learned the lesson. I heard a Methodist preacher once, taking that as a text, say, “We oftentimes complain that our cross is too heavy for us, and groan under it, and wish to be relieved from it.” “But,” says he, “brethren, when we come to the Jordan of death, with that cross that we groaned under we will smite that river, and we will pass over dry-shod, and leave the cross behind forever, and go home to a crown to wear.”
The next notable thing in this account is Elijah’s question to Elisha: “Have you anything to ask from me?” “Now, this is the last time; what do you want me to do for you?” And he says, “I pray thee leave a double portion of thy spirit on me.” We see that he is seeking qualification to be the successor. “Double” here does not mean twice as much as Elijah had, but the reference is probably to the first-born share of an inheritance. The first-born always gets a double share, and Elisha means by asking a double portion of his spirit that it may accredit him as successor. Or possibly “double” may be rendered “duplicate,” for the same purpose of attenuation. The other prophets would get one share, but Elisha asks for the first-born portion. Elijah suggests a difficulty, not in himself, but in Elisha ; he said, “You ask a hard thing of me, yet if you see me when I go away, you will get the double portion of my spirit,” that is, it was a matter depending on the faith of the petitioner, his power of personal perception. “When I go up, if your eyes are open enough to see my transit from this world to a higher, that will show that you are qualified to have this double portion of my spirit.” We have something similar in the life of our Lord. The father of the demoniac boy says to our Lord, “If thou canst do anything, have compassion on us and help us.” Jesus replied, “If thou canst! All things are possible to him that believeth.” It was not a question of Christ’s ability, but of the supplicant’s faith.
The next thing is the translation itself. What is meant by it? In the Old Testament history two men never died; they passed into the other world, soul and body without death: Enoch and Elijah. And at the second coming of Christ every Christian living at that time will do the same thing. “In a moment, in the twinkling of an eye, they shall be changed.” Now, what is that change of the body by virtue of which without death, it may ascend into heaven? It is a spiritualization of the body eliminating its mortality, equivalent to what takes place in the resurrection and glorification of the dead bodies. I preached a sermon once on “How Death [personified] Was Twice Startled.” In the account of Adam it is said, “And he died” and so of every other man, “and he died.” Methuselah lived 969 years, but he died. And death pursuing all the members of the race, strikes them down, whether king or pauper, whether prophet or priest. But when he comes to Enoch his dart missed the mark and he did not get him. And when he came to Elijah he missed again. Now the translations of Enoch and Elijah are an absolute demonstration of two things: First, the immortality of the soul, the continuance of life; that death makes no break in the continuity of being. Second, that God intended from the beginning to save the body. The tree of life was put in the garden of Eden, that by eating of it the mortality of the body might be eliminated. Sin separated man from that tree of life, but it is the purpose of God that the normal man, soul and body, shall be saved. The tradition of the Jews is very rich on the spiritual significance of the translation of Enoch and Elijah. In Enoch’s case it is said, “He was not found because God took him,” and in this case fifty of the sons of the prophets went out to see if when Elijah went to heaven his body was not left behind, and they looked all over the country to find his body. Elisha knew; he saw the body go up.
Now, in Revelation we have the Cherubim as the chariot of God. This chariot that met Elijah at the death station was the chariot of God, the Cherubim. Just as the angels met Lazarus and took his soul up to heaven, and it is to this wonderful passage that the Negro hymn belongs: “Swing Low, Sweet Chariot.”
Elisha cried as the great prophet ascended, “My Father! My rather I The chariots of Israel and the horsemen thereof,” the meaning of which is that thus had gone up to heaven he who in his life had been the defense of Israel, worth more than all of its chariots and all of its cavalry. Now these very words “were used when Elisha died. “My Father! My Father! The chariots of Israel and the horsemen thereof,” signifying that he had been the bulwark of the nation as Elijah had been before him.
ELISHA’S MINISTRY, 2Ki 2:19-25 As Elijah went up something dropped not his body, but just his mantle his mantle fell, and it fell on Elisha, symbolic of the transfer of prophetic leadership from one to the other. Now, he wants to test it, a test that will accredit him; so he goes back to the same Jordan, folds that same mantle up just as Elijah had done, and smites the Jordan. But, mark you, he did not say, “Where is Elijah” the man, Elijah, was gone, but, “Where is the Lord God of Elijah?” and the waters divided and he came over. There he stood accredited with a repetition of the miracle just a little before performed by Elijah, which demonstrated that he was to be to the people what Elijah had been. And this was so evident that the sons of the prophets recognized it and remarked on it: “The spirit of Elijah doth rest on Elisha.” It is a touching thing to me, this account of more than fifty of these prophets, as the president of their seminary is about to disappear, came down the last hill that overlooks the Jordan, watching to see what became of him. And they witness the passage of the Jordan they may have seen the illumination of the descent of the chariot of fire. They wanted to go and get the body the idea of his body going up they had not taken in, and they could not be content until Elisha, grieved at their persistence) finally let them go and find out for themselves that the body had gone to heaven.
I have just two things to say on the healing of the noxious waters at Jericho. The first is that neither the new cruse nor the salt put in it healed the water. It was a symbolic act to indicate that the healing would be by the power of God. Just as when Moses cast a branch into the bitter waters of Marah, as a symbolic act. The healing power comes from God. The other re-mark is on that expression, “unto this day,” which we so frequently meet in these books. Its frequent recurrence is positive proof that the compiler of Kings and the compiler of Chronicles are quoting from the original documents. “Unto this day” means the day of the original writer. It does not mean unto the day of Ezra wherever it appears in Chronicles, but it means unto the day of the writer of the part of history that he is quoting from. More than one great conservative scholar has called attention to this as proof that whoever compiled these histories is quoting the inspired documents of the prophets.
THE CHILDREN OF BETHEL AND THE SHE-BEARS Perhaps a thousand infidels have referred Elisha’s curse to vindictiveness and inhumanity. The word rendered “little children” is precisely the word Solomon uses in his prayer at Gibeon when he says, “I am a little child” he was then a grown man. Childhood with the Hebrews extended over a much greater period of time than it does with us. The word may signify “young men” in our modern use of the term. And notice the place was Bethel, the place of calf worship, where the spirit of the city was against the schools of the prophets, and these young fellows call them “street Arabs,” “toughs,” whom it suited to follow this man and mock him: “Go up, thou bald bead; go up, thou bald head.” Elisha did not resent an indignity against himself, but here is the point: these hostile idolaters at Bethel, through their children are challenging the act of God in making Elisha the head of the prophetic line. He turned and looked at them and he saw the spirit that animated them saw that it was an issue between Bethel calf worship and Bethel, the school of the prophets, and that the parents of these children doubtless sympathized in the mockery, and saw it to be necessary that they should learn that sacrilege and blasphemy against God should not go unpunished. So, in the name of the Lord he pronounces a curse on them had it been his curse, no result would have followed. One man asks, “What were these she-bears doing so close to Bethel?” The answer is that in several places in the history is noted the prevalence of wild animals in Israel. We have seen how the old prophet who went to this very Bethel to rebuke Jeroboam and turned back to visit the other prophet, was killed by a lion close to the city.
Another infidel question is, “How could God make a she bear obey him?” Well, let the infidel answer how God’s Spirit could influence a single pair of all the animals to go into the ark. Over and over again in the Bible the dominance of the Spirit of God over inanimate things and over the brute creation is repeatedly affirmed. The bears could not understand, but they would follow an impulse of their own anger without attempting to account for it.
THE INCREASE IN THE WIDOW’S OIL, 2Ki 4:1-7
We have already considered this miracle somewhat in the chapter on Elisha, and now note particularly:
1. It often happens that the widow of a man of God, whether prophet or preacher, is left in destitution. Sometimes the fault lies in the imprudence of the preacher or in the extravagance of his family, but more frequently, perhaps, in the inadequate provision for ministerial support. This destitution is greatly aggravated if there be debt. The influence of a preacher is handicapped to a painful degree, when, from any cause, he fails to meet his financial obligations promptly. In a commercial age this handicap becomes much more serious.
2. The Mosaic Law (Lev 25:39-41 ; see allusion, Mat 18:25 ) permitted a creditor to make bond-servant of a debtor and his children. For a long time the English law permitted imprisonment for debt. This widow of a prophet appeals to Elisha, the head of the prophetic school, for relief, affirming that her husband did fear God. In other words, he was faultless in the matter of debt. The enforcement of the law by the creditor under such circumstances indicates a merciless heart.
3. The one great lesson of the miracle is that the flow of the increased oil never stayed as long as there was a vessel to receive it. God wastes not his grace if we have no place to put it: according to our faith in preparation is his blessing. He will fill all the vessels we set before him.
DEATH IN THE POT, 2Ki 4:38-41 We recall this miracle to deepen a lesson barely alluded to in the chapter on Elisha. The seminaries at that time lived a much more simple life than the seminaries of the present time; it did not take such a large fund to keep them up. Elisha said, “Set on the great pot,” and one of the sons of the prophets went out to gather vegetables. He got some wild vegetables he knew nothing about here called wild gourd and shred them into the pot, not knowing they were poisonous. Hence the text: “O man of God, there is death in the pot.” I once took that as the text for a sermon on “Theological Seminaries and Wild Gourds,” showing that the power of seminaries depends much on the kind of food the teachers give them. If they teach them that the story of Adam and Eve is an allegory, then they might just as well make the second Adam an allegory, for his mission is dependent on the failure of the first. If they teach them the radical criticism; if they teach anything that takes away from inspiration and infallibility of the divine Word of God or from any of its great doctrines then, “O man of God, there is death in the pot” that will be a sick seminary.
In a conversation once with a radical critic I submitted for his criticism, without naming the author, the exact words of Tom Paine in his “Age of Reason,” denying that the story of Adam and Eve was history. He accepted it as eminently correct. Then I gave the author, and inquired if it would be well for preachers and commentators to revert to such authorities on biblical interpretation. He made no reply. We find Paine’s words not only in the first part of the “Age of Reason,” written in a French prison without a Bible before him, but repeated in the second part after he was free and had access to Bibles. I gave this man a practical illustration, saying, “You may take the three thousand published sermons of Spurgeon, two sets of them, and arrange them, one set according to the books from which the texts are taken Gen 1:2 , Gen 1:3 , etc., and make a commentary on the Bible. By arranging the other set of them in topical order, you have a body of systematic theology.” Now this man Spurgeon believed in the historical integrity and infallibility of the Bible, in its inspiration of God, and he preached that, just that. As the old saying goes, “The proof of the pudding is in the chewing of the bag.” He preached just that, and what was the result? Thousands and thousands of converts wherever he preached, no matter what part of the Bible he was preaching from; preachers felt called to enter the ministry, orphan homes rose up, almshouses for aged widows, colportage systems established, missionaries sent out, and all over the wide world his missionaries die in the cause. One man was found in the Alps, frozen to death, with a sermon of Spurgeon in his hand. One man was found shot through the heart by bush rangers of Australia, and the bullet passed through Spurgeon’s sermon on “The Blood of Jesus.” Now, I said to this man, “Get all your radical critics together, and let them preach three thousand sermons on your line of teaching. How many will be converted? How many backsliders will be reclaimed? How many almshouses and orphanages will be opened? How many colportage systems established? Ah! the proof of the pudding is in the chewing of the bag. If what you say is the best thing to teach about the Bible is true, then when you preach, it will have the best results. But does it?”
We have considered Elisha’s miracle for providing water for the allied armies of Israel, Judah, and Edom, when invading Moab (2Ki 3:10-19 ). We revert to it to note partakelarly this passage: “And when the king of Moab saw that the battle was too sore for him, he took with him seven hundred men that drew sword, to break through unto the king of Edom: but they could not. Then he took his eldest son that should have reigned in his stead, and offered him for a burnt offering upon the wall. And there was great wrath against Israel: and they departed from him, and returned to their own land” (2Ki 3:26-27 ). On this passage I submit two observations:
1. Not long after this time the prophet Micah indignantly inquires, “Shall I give my firstborn for my transgressions, the fruit of my body for the sin of my soul?” The context is a strong denunciation of the offering of human sacrifices to appease an angry deity. The Mosaic law strongly condemned the heathen custom of causing their children to pass through the fire of Molech. Both this book of Kings and Jeremiah denounce judgment on those guilty of this horrible practice. The Greek and Roman classics, and the histories of Egypt and Phoenicia, show how widespread was this awful custom.
2. But our chief difficulty is to expound the words, “There was great wrath against Israel.” But what was its connection with the impious sacrifice of the king of Moab? Whose the wrath? The questions are not easy to answer. It is probable that the armies of Edom and Judah were angry at Israel for pressing the king of Moab to such dire extremity, and so horrified at the sacrifice that they refused longer to co-operate in the campaign. This explanation, while not altogether satisfactory, is preferred to others more improbable. It cannot mean the wrath of God, nor the wrath of the Moabites against Israel. It must mean, therefore, the wrath of the men of Judah and Edom against Israel for pressing Mesha to such an extent that he would offer his own son as a sacrifice.
QUESTIONS
I. On the two accounts of Jehoshaphat’s shipping alliance with Ahaziah, 2Ki 22 ; 2Ch 20 , answer:
1. Where is Tarshish?
2. Where is Ophir?
3. Where is Ezion-geber?
4. What is the relevance of 1Ki 22:47 ?
5. Explain “ships of Tarshish” in Kings, and “to go to Tarshish” in Chronicles.
6. What commerce were they seeking to revive, and what passage from 1 Kings bearing thereon?
7. How does the book of Kings seem to account for the wreck of the fleet, and how does Chronicles give a better reason?
II. On the account of Elijah’s translation (2Ki 2:1-18 ) answer:
1. Why the course taken by Elijah by way of Gilgal, Bethel, and Jericho?
2. How did both Elisha and the schools of the prophets know about the impending event?
3. What was the object of Elijah in telling Elisha to tarry at each stopping place while he went on?
4. What was the meaning of Elisha’s request for “a double portion” of Elijah’s spirit and why was this a hard thing to ask, i.e., wherein the difficulty? Illustrate by a New Testament lesson.
5. What was the meaning of Elijah’s translation, and what other cases, past or prospective?
6. What was the meaning of Elisha’s expression, “My Father! My Father! The chariots of Israel and the horsemen thereof,” and who and when applied the same language to Elisha?
7. How does Elisha seek a test of his succession to Elijah and how do others recognize the credentials?
III. How do you explain the seeming inhumanity of Elisha’s cursing the children of Bethel?
IV. On the widow’s oil (2Ki 4:1-7 ), answer:
1. What often happens to the widow of a prophet or preacher, and what circumstance greatly aggravates the trouble?
2. What is the Mosaic law relative to debtors and creditors?
3. What one great lesson of the miracle?
V. On “Death in the Pot” answer:
1. What the incident of the wild gourds?
2. What application does the author make of this?
3. What comparison does the author make between Spurgeon and the Radical Critics?
VI. On Elisha’s miracle, the water supply, answer:
1. What is the allusion in Micah’s words, “Shall I give my first-born,” etc.?
2. What the meaning of “There was great wrath against Israel”?
Fuente: B.H. Carroll’s An Interpretation of the English Bible
XIII
FROM THE RISE OF JEHU TO THE REIGN OF JEHOASH AND THE CORRESPONDING HISTORY OF JUDAH
2Ki 10:18-13:9
Israel is now on a rapid decline, while Judah is under the sway of a wicked woman. There are some antecedent facts which relate to the Southern Kingdom, Judah, and the story of her fortunes which we need to review here. In previous chapters we have considered the character and reign of Jehoshaphat. He is described as a good man, a great king, an eminently righteous and successful king, one of the best kings that Judah ever had, and the record tells of the various reforms which he instituted, the cities which he built, the new system of judiciary which he established and the various other great improvements in his kingdom. But Jehoshaphat made three mistakes in his reign:
First, he married his son to the daughter of Jezebel. It was the cause of great disaster to his realm, almost to the extinction of his dynasty and the wrecking of his kingdom. Second, he made an alliance with Ahab to reconquer Ramothgilead, and take it from Syria. The 400 false prophets all promised him victory, but Micaiah prophesied failure, and that prophecy came true as they failed to take Ramothgilead and Ahab was slain, and Jehoshaphat returned home to Jerusalem in partial disgrace. There is no question but that Jehoshaphat lost a great deal of popularity by that mistake and failure.
Third, he made an alliance with Jehoram, son of Ahab, in an attempt to reconquer and subject Moab to the northern realm. But for Elisha who told them to make the valley full of trenches and thus make room for water to flow down that their hosts might have drink he would there have suffered probably an ignominious defeat. Through Elisha and the providence of God he was saved but the expedition proved fruitless. The king of Moab sacrificed his first-born son and great wrath came upon Israel and they retired from the siege and went home and left King Mesha still master of his own country. Shortly before his death we find Jehoshaphat appoints his son Jehoram as king with him and they are joint kings over southern Israel. Jehoram becomes co-regent with Jehoshaphat when thirty-two years of age. Very soon we find the influence of Athaliah his wife. She had him under her control even more than Jezebel had Ahab under her control. She was a vicious, strong-minded, self-willed, determined, and depraved woman. Here is Athaliah’s influence. We can almost see Jezebel herself here. Under the influence of this northern woman Jehoram begins his murderous work by shedding the blood of six of his brothers. We find his character described thus: “He had the daughter of Ahab to wife, and he did that which was evil in the sight of the Lord.” Notice further: “Moreover he made high places in the mountains of Judah, and made the inhabitants of Jerusalem to go a whoring, and led Judah astray.” That is, he attempted to lead all southern Israel after the worship of Baal, just as Jezebel had tried to lead all northern Israel after the worship of Baal. Athaliah is her mother’s daughter.
All this leads to great troubles. His dynasty is in danger. The first thing we read is that disaster befalls the kingdom. In the same account we have the story of the revolt of Edom, one of his provinces which paid him heavy tribute. He undertakes to put down the rebellion, and, in a desperate conflict the Edomites with their chariots and horsemen having surrounded him, he rises up at night and breaks through the rank of the enemy and saves himself, but Edom passes out of his hands and is lost to his realm, and a large revenue is, of course, lost with it. This is the first stage of the downfall of himself and kingdom.
The next stage is the revolt of Libnah. This Philistine city had been paying tribute no doubt and now revolts against him and secures its freedom and thus another stronghold is cut off from his kingdom. This added to his unpopularity still more.
Shortly after this we have the story of the posthumous message from Elijah the prophet written before the going away of the great servant of God, doubtless preserved by Elisha and now sent to Jehoram. It is the prophet Elijah’s message of doom to this wicked king: “Behold, the Lord will smite with a great plague thy people, and thy children and thy wives, and all thy substance,” and Jehoram is to be smitten with a horrible and loathsome disease, too loathsome to be mentioned. We don’t know what that plague was nor how many people perished because of it. These things would add greatly to the unpopularity of Jehoram throughout his realm.
Another invasion takes place: “And the Lord stirred up against Jehoram the spirit of the Philistines, and of the Arabians, which are beside the Ethiopians: and they came up against Judah, and brake into it, and carried away all the substance that was found in the king’s house, and his sons also, and his wives; so that there was never a son left him, save Jehoahaz, the youngest of the sons.” They invaded his capital, took his treasures, and his harem, and carried them away, only one son left, Jehoahaz, known more correctly as Ahaziah.
Shortly after this Jehoram falls a prey to his sickness or disease and dies, unlamented, undesired. In some respects a blessed death, that is, to those who were left. He is refused burial in the sepulchers of the kings. They buried him in the City of David but not in the sepulchers of the kings. He is too loathsome to be buried in the sacred burying grounds of the kings of Israel where David was buried. This reign is one of the first fruitages of that ill-fated alliance of Jehoshaphat with the house of Ahab.
Then follows the reign of Ahaziah his son, which lasts about one year. He is a worthy son of his unspeakable mother. We find his record very short and is all a failure and ends in disgrace and murder. The record says that he entered into an alliance with Jehoram, his uncle, of northern Israel to fight against Ramothgilead, and bring it back into subjection out of the hands of Syria. Evidently their onslaught is successful. Ramothgilead is captured and Jehu left in charge of it. Jehoram is wounded and has to return to Jezreel in order that he might be healed, and while he is recovering Ahaziah goes back to Jerusalem, then pays a visit to Jehoram at Jezreel, and while they are at Jezreel we have enacted a scene which we discussed in a previous chapter. Jehoram is slain by an arrow shot from the bow of Jehu. Ahaziah flees for his life and is pursued by Jehu’s men, wounded in his chariot, escapes to Megiddo, and there dies. This is the end of the second of the kings of Judah that came under the influence of this unholy alliance of northern Israel.
Now we take up the reign of Athaliah. As soon as Athaliah heard of the death of Ahaziah her son, and knowing that all of Ahaziah’s brothers had been captured and taken away by the Arabians and Philistines, and there was no proper heir to the throne excepting her grandsons, the narrative says that she arose and destroyed all the seed royal, that is, all her own grandsons. A woman that would do that is a monster rather than a woman. Fortunately, however, providence interposes. The chief priest of the nation, Jehoiada, a man of great influence and power, had married a sister of Ahaziah, and daughter of Athaliah, and by means of intimacy which this relationship permitted, took the only son of Ahaziah, just one year old, and hid him. Thus the dynasty is preserved.
Now let us look at Jehu’s reign. The first great act which he performs is the destruction of Baal and Baal -worshipers, and he does it under false pretense. He does it in a most treacherous manner under the guise of zeal for their religion and he deceives them. He says, “Ahab served Baal little, Jehu shall serve him much,” and in that way gains the popularity of all those in favor of Baal worship. In that way he manages to secure the presence of a great host of Baal worshipers, but took pains to see that none of the Jehovah worshipers were there. All the priests of Baal are butchered. That is different from the death of the 450 prophets of Baal and the 450 prophets of Asherah by Elijah at Mount Carmel. That was a fair teat by Elijah, but they failed, and therefore deserved death. This was treachery on the part of Jehu, treachery that was inexcusable, and having done that, he breaks down the altars of Baal, destroys all the Baal worshipers in the capital of Samaria. But that does not imply that there were no Baal worshipers anywhere else in the kingdom for there were Baal cults in various sections still. Although Jehu had destroyed Baal worship as a state religion he institutes one very little better. He is a worshiper of Jehovah but it is a corrupt worship of the calves of Dan and Bethel and he follows in the way of Jeroboam the son of Nebat who made Israel to sin. It is awful how all of these men are said to have followed Jeroboam the son of Nebat in that he made Israel to sin. Every one of them does the same thing. There is a sermon on that statement entitled, “The Monotony of Sin.” All for generations doing the same thing and they are doing the same thing now; they have been doing the same thing for thousands of years. Jehu’s reign is on the whole an evil reign. The religion of Jehovah made little progress under his rule.
Now Athaliah reigns and we have the strange spectacle of a woman on the throne of Judah, the daughter of Jezebel with Phoenician blood in her veins. We would expect that she would try to do what Jezebel did, viz: install, as the state religion of Judah, the worship of Baal, and so she did. There was no persecution of the prophets in southern Israel. She evidently could not do that, but she partly destroyed the Temple, took the sacred vessels out of it, established priests in her own temple of Baal and set up Baal worship, using the vessels that had been dedicated to Jehovah. Shrines were built throughout the whole kingdom, and now southern Judah is in danger of being brought under the sway of Baal as northern Israel was before Elijah appeared upon the scene. But there was one man in the realm raised up by divine providence to save the situation. Jehoiada is the son-in-law of Athaliah, a -man of influence and power, and evidently a man of great wisdom and piety, the foremost counsellor in the realm, the wisest and best man in the kingdom, the high priest. Six years of silence passes, and Jehoiada is wise enough to know how to hold his tongue and hold his wife’s tongue all that time. It is something for a man to be able to hold his tongue on such a great secret as he possessed, for six years. When little Joash had grown to be seven years old we find that Jehoiada began to strengthen himself in the kingdom and to mature his plans to set Joash upon the throne and destroy his mother-in-law, Athaliah. The time is ripe for action, the people are evidently dissatisfied with the reign of Athaliah, and are ready for the change. Jehoiada matures his plans with great deliberation, extreme caution and great shrewdness. We can’t understand all the details of the situation, the exact relation of the house and the Temple, but we find that he divides the Temple guards and palace guards into three companies, and stations them in separate places surrounding the king, so that he is perfectly safe, and no enemies can get to him. A way is left open by which Athaliah may come into the Temple and any who may follow her, but they will at once be slain as they attempt to pass through. At a given time and a given signal, all the soldiers in their places, the people throng around and raise the shout, Joash is set upon the throne; he is handed the testimony of the law according to the command of Moses, the crown is placed upon his head, and Joash is proclaimed king. Athaliah does not know what is taking place, she hears the noise, rushes forth and pretends to be horrified, tears her clothes and shouts, “Treason! Treason!” Was it treason? How many people there are who know they are in the wrong, and yet when the people turn against them, are ready to cry out like that. They put on an air of injured innocence. Hypocrites! This avails her nothing. She is in the Temple courts and they will not spill Phoenician blood there. “Have her forth between the ranks,” says Jehoiada, and as they made way for her she went to the entry of the horse gate and there she is slain. Jehoiada matured his plans as perfectly as Jehu and carried them out almost as quickly and successfully. That ends the reign of Phoenician blood upon the throne of Israel. There is no doubt that most of the people of Israel felt that a great crisis had passed.
Now let us look at the reign of Joash. He reigned for forty years beginning when a boy only seven. Joash was a grandson of Athaliah on his father’s side, so there was a little of the Phoenician blood in his veins. It is not all pure Hebrew blood, and as blood will tell sooner or later, we find that his Phoenician, corrupt, heathen blood manifests itself in the life of Joash afterward.
His great religious revolutions and reforms were instituted by Jehoiada. As soon as Joash is made king, Jehoiada renews the covenant thus: “And Jehoiada made a covenant between himself and all the people, and the king, that they should be the Lord’s people.” That covenant had been broken through Athaliah’s introduction of Baal worship, through the breaking up of the Temple services and the defection of the people to Baal. Now Jehoiada must renew the covenant between God and Judah. The covenant made at Sinai had been broken more than once, and had been renewed. He establishes a covenant between the king and the people, and between the king and Jehovah on the basis of the law of Moses. The king is to be representative of Jehovah and must rule as Jehovah directs through his prophets. Now there is a revival of true religion and a reformation is begun. The first thing to be done is to destroy Baal: “And all the people of the land went to the house of Baal, and brake it down; his altars and his images brake they in pieces thoroughly, and slew Mattan the priest of Baal before the altars. And the priest appointed officers over the house of the Lord.” They carried out a work in southern Israel almost similar to what Jehu did-in northern Israel: the priests of Baal are slain, the temple of Baal is broken down, and the shrines of Baal destroyed, and Baal worship is given a severe blow in southern Israel, but it is not extinguished; there are still Baal worshipers in high places, shrines here and there throughout the country where they carry on this vile and licentious worship of their deity.
The next thing was to reorganize the Temple service: “And Jehoiada appointed the officers of the house of the Lord under the hand of the priests and Levites whom David had distributed in the house of the Lord, to offer the burnt sacrifices of the Lord, as it is written in the law of Moses, with rejoicing and with singing, according to the order of David.” The reorganization of the Temple service, a reinstitution of the sacrifices of the burnt offerings and thus once more the nation is brought back to the worship of the true God, Jehovah. Again, it is said, “So all the people of the land rejoiced, and the city was quiet.” A brief pointed statement, but there is a history behind it. There must have been turmoil, strife, confusion, bloodshed, and unrest in the city of Jerusalem as this revolution in religion was going on, but Jehoiada’s hands have hold of the reigns of power and the city calms down and is quiet. Joash is a good and faithful king so long as he is under the influence of Jehoiada, who did the strange thing to take two wives for Joash, which is very hard to account for.
There were great reforms instituted by Joash. Notice what the king himself institutes. He begins first to repair the Temple that had been broken down during the reign of Athaliah and Jehoram, and in order to do that he must raise money, and to raise money he commands the priests to bring in the revenue which they receive from the people. Under the law of Moses every man of Israel had to pay a shekel or a half-shekel every year. Now the priests or Levites were to receive that money and bring it to the king to be utilized in repairing the Temple. Joash depends upon the honesty of the priests. We see here a very inefficient organization, and it doesn’t work. “Howbeit the Levites hastened it not.” They pocketed the money. It didn’t go into the treasury and therefore the house of the Lord could not be repaired. That scheme failed because the priests lacked honesty and integrity.
Now let us look at Jehu’s political relations. We find by consulting Price’s The Monuments and the Old Testament, that Jehu was forced to pay heavy tribute to Shalmaneser, king of Assyria. Shalmaneser says himself at that time, “I received tribute of the Tyreans and the Sidonians and of Jehu the son of Omri,” in one of his inscriptions and on the back of an obelisk left by Shalmaneser we have pictures of Jehu bringing to him presents of gold, basins of gold, bowls of gold, cups of gold, lead, a royal scepter and staves. Thus we see that Jehu had to pay heavy tribute in order to maintain the integrity of his kingdom after thus securing it. We have no record that Jehu ever fought against Shalmaneser or that Shalmaneser ever fought against Jehu; but Shalmaneser had gained a great victory over Damascus and Syria, and Jehu had to pay him this heavy tribute to keep him away from Israel. Thus Jehu’s reign was not all peace and prosperity. He is in a sense under the iron heel of Assyria. We also see from 2Ki 10:32-33 that Jehu lost all eastern Palestine, which was smitten by Hazael, king of Syria, and thus his kingdom was stripped and there was left to him only a small portion of western Palestine: “In those days the Lord began to cut Israel short; and Hazael smote them in all the coasts of Israel; from Jordan eastward, all the land of Gilead, the Gadites, and the Reubenites, and the Manassites, from Aroer, which is by the valley of Arnon, even Gilead and Bashan.” Thus Jehu is stripped of all of his possessions east of the Jordan. Though one of the ablest of the monarchs of northern Israel, Jehu was also the one that led Israel into sin, and his kingdom was in worse condition at the end than it was at the beginning.
Now let us take up the reign of Jehoahaz. Jehu reigned twenty-eight years, and was succeeded by Jehoahaz his son, who reigned only seventeen years, and followed in the footsteps of his father and Jeroboam the son of Nebat which made Israel to sin. In the reign of Jehoahaz we read: “And Hazael king of Syria oppressed Israel all the days of Jehoahaz. And the anger of the Lord was kindled against Israel and he delivered them into the hand of Hazael king of Syria, and into the hand of Benhadad the son of Hazael, continually “That means that they were compelled to pay tribute, heavy tribute to their conquerors, which drained them of all their resources and left them little better than slaves.
Jehoiada brings forth a new scheme. He is a wise man, and when he finds this other plan of Joash will not work, he suggests that they make a great chest, or box, and bore a hole in the top of it so that no man can get his hand into it, and place this box beside the altar near the entrance to the house of the Lord where the people come and go so that every man could put his tax into the box. It is not long before they find a large amount of money in it, and they are very careful how it should be counted and paid out, and very careful about the men who are to count it and hand it over to the workmen. We see how they go on with the details of the work, and they found enough money to repair the breaches of the Temple that had been broken down, and to provide the various vessels, the cups of silver, snuffers, basins, trumpets, vessels of gold, or vessels of silver. Then we find that the Temple worship is resumed, and the burnt offerings were offered continually as it had been for several years previous. Then follows an account of the death of Jehoiada, an old man, 130 years old. They buried him in the city of David among the kings as he was a king’s son-in-law, and was honored as few other Israelites have been who were not of the royal family.
After his death the bad blood flowing in the veins of Joash is manifest. A change comes; the pressure is off; the wise counsellor is gone, and Joash now begins to show what is his true nature and character. He comes under the influence of the princes of Judah, the upper ten or the upper 400, who secretly or openly preferred the worship of Baal to the worship of Jehovah, possibly because of its licentiousness. Joash is foolish enough to listen to them, sanctions the worship of Baal and of Asherah, turns his back upon the worship of Jehovah. Worse than that, Zechariah, the son of Jehoiada, a prophet of God, is raised up to rebuke and reprove Joash for his sin, but Joash commands that Zechariah be stoned to death in the Temple area because he has dared to warn and admonish the king. Base ingratitude. “O, what a falling off was this!” Zechariah’s last words, “The Lord look upon it and require it,” were remembered and recorded, as was the dying statement of Jesus Christ and of Stephen, the martyr. Some scholars think that when Jesus Christ was speaking to the Pharisees about the blood of Zechariah, which should be required of their generation, that he referred to this same Zechariah. Joash has incurred the hostility of the prophets and the worshipers of Jehovah in his realm. The best people of his country conspired against him, and very soon he is put to death. Israel is in a desperate condition during the reign of Jehoahaz. Hazael and Benhadad have assaulted him and-defeated him to such an extent that only fifty horsemen and ten chariots and ten thousand footmen are left. For the king of Syria destroyed them and made them like the dust in the threshing. The kingdom could hardly be lower and exist at all. It is at its lowest ebb. Joash’s reign ends in misery and defeat. Hazael whom Elijah had anointed in Damascus, that ruthless monarch of Syria, who has crushed northern Israel under his feet and ground it to dust, advances as far south as Judah and Jerusalem and meets a large army of Joash and defeats it utterly, kills the princes of the people, and sends all the spoil that he captures back to Damascus. Then Hazael goes down to Philistia and takes the strong city of Gath, then he turns his eye upon Jerusalem with its vast treasures and is intending to advance up one of those mountain defiles to the hilltop whereon Jerusalem is situated and conquer the capital and take all its treasures. The only thing Joash can do, is to buy Hazael off. Then Joash strips the Temple of all the hallowed things, takes the gold and the treasure and hands it over to Hazael. Hazael is satisfied, as all he wants is the plunder and the treasure of the Temple, and in this way he got it without fighting for it.
Joash perishes by the hands of his own servants who had become disgusted with him because of his apostasy and evil reign. They buried him with the family in the City of David, but it does not say in the sepulchers of the kings.
QUESTIONS
1. What was the condition of Israel at this time?
2. What were the antecedent facts in the history of Judah bearing on this period?
3. After the death of Ahaziah who reigned in his stead, how did she get the throne, and how was God’s promise to David made sure?
4. What was Jehu’s policy and what was his scheme to destroy Baal?
5. What right had Jehu to destroy so many people?
6. What do you think of his method and what did God command in Jehu?
7. How did the Lord reward Jehu for his service and wherein did Jehu fail?
8. Recite the story of how the royal line of David was restored.
9. How did Athaliah meet with her deserts?
10. Who was Joash’s mother and what was the bearing on the life of Joash?
11. What was the character of Jehoiada and what were his works?
12. What was Jehoiada’s influence over Joash, what was the spiritual condition of the kingdom of Judah at this time, what strange thing did Jehoiada do and how do you account for it?
13. What command did Joash give and what was his plan for carrying it out?
14. What happened to Israel during the reign of Joash and what was the character of the Syrians.
15. Who succeeded Jehu, what was his character, who oppressed Israel during this time and what were the events in his reign?
16. How did Joash’s plan for repairing the Temple work, what was the fault with the plans and what was the lesson?
17. What new plan did they adopt and what custom perhaps originated here?
18. What order did he here reset?
19. What was the lesson here of the value of the preacher to the world?
20. What prophetic book has its setting here?
21. What distinction in Jehoiada’s burial?
22. What was his sin of omission; his sin of commission?
23. What indicates Joash’s weakness, what were his sins, what was the origin of the high places and groves, and what was the paliation for the sins of Joash?
24. How did the Lord try to bring them back, how did they receive the Lord’s prophet’s what special case cited, how did Joash show his ingratitude in his case, and what New Testament use of this incident?
25. What was the judgment executed on Joash and how did he escape?
26. Rewrite the story of Joash’s death and contrast this death with that of Jehoiada.
Fuente: B.H. Carroll’s An Interpretation of the English Bible
2Ki 13:1 In the three and twentieth year of Joash the son of Ahaziah king of Judah Jehoahaz the son of Jehu began to reign over Israel in Samaria, [and reigned] seventeen years.
Ver. 1. In the three and twentieth year of Joash. ] In the tenth year of his reign, the city of Carthage was built by Queen Dido, as Josephus reporteth out of the annals of the Tyrians. a This discrediteth Virgil’s poem of the hot affection between Dido and Aeneas, dead above two hundred years before.
a Lib. i. contra Appion.
three and twentieth year. See note on 2Ki 13:10.
Chapter 13
Now we’re going to move north again to the reign of Jehoahaz over Israel in chapter thirteen. So up in Israel, Jehu has died and his son Jehoahaz begins to reign over Israel there in Samaria, and he reigned for seventeen years.
And he did that which was evil in the sight of the LORD ( 2Ki 13:2 ),
Now, I told you before that Israel did not have one decent king. Of every king of Israel, it is declared, “He did evil in the sight of the Lord.” Not one of them followed after the Lord. How tragic.
continued in the sins of Jeroboam [the first king who had led the people away from Jehovah to the worship of the calves.] And the anger of the LORD was kindled against Israel, he delivered them into the hand of Hazael the king of Syria, and into the hand of Benhadad who was the son of Hazael. And Jehoahaz sought the LORD, and the LORD hearkened unto him: for he saw the oppression of Israel, because the king of Syria was oppressing them. (And the LORD raised up a saviour for Israel, so that they went out from under the hand of the Syrians: and the children of Israel began to dwell in their own cities, their own tents, as beforetime. Nevertheless they did not depart from their sins, but they walked in them: and there remained the grove, [the place of pagan worship] in the city of Samaria.) ( 2Ki 13:2-6 ).
And so the people were really cut down. And the death of Jehoahaz is recorded in verse eight.
The rest of his deeds are in the books of the chronicles of the kings of Israel ( 2Ki 13:8 ).
Now we’re going to come back. We have his death recorded, but we’re going to come back to Jehoahaz in chapter fourteen. So try and hold that in your mind. We get his death here, but as we get back to Amaziah because Amaziah related to Jehoahaz, we’ll come back to Jehoahaz.
And the rest of the acts of Joash [who is also Jehoahaz], and all that he did, the fighting against Amaziah king of Judah, are written in the books of the chronicles of the king of Israel ( 2Ki 13:12 ).
We don’t have that in the Chronicles, but we will have more of that in the next chapter.
Now we turn to Elisha and the death of Elisha.
Elisha was fallen sick of his sickness whereof he died. And Joash the king of Israel came down unto him, and wept over his face, and said, O my father, my father! the chariot of Israel, and the horsemen thereof ( 2Ki 13:14 ).
So this is what is called parenthetical. We’re still… Joash is still king. We already reported his death, but now we’re recording about Elisha. And he is… he came down when Elisha was sick. Now this to me is interesting. As far as the Old Testament is concerned, two men stand out as having great faith for miracles. One is Elijah and the other is Elisha. As Elisha was or… as Elijah was ready to be caught up into heaven, he said to Elisha, “What do you want?” He said, “I like a double portion of the Spirit that is upon me.” He said, “If you see me when I go, it will be granted. If you don’t, then it won’t be granted.” So Elisha was there, and he saw Elijah caught up into heaven. And his life was a life of miracles. Marvelous miracles of God were wrought by this man Elisha. A man of great faith. But this particular verse of scripture, “Now Elisha fell sick of this sickness whereof he died.”
Let me tell you something; people of great faith get sick. People of tremendous faith die. And it is folly to believe that sickness or death results from a lack of faith or commitment to God. Sickness and death happen to everybody. But there are always those who are trying to sell snake oil. From the days of the early prairie. The cure-all. From bunions to earaches. And there always seems to be someone offering the spiritual snake oil or the panacea or the cure-all to all of the problems that a Christian faces. And these panaceas are offered to people and they go through various stages. When they are offered, you know, the book is written and all you have to do is praise the Lord. And if you just praise the Lord for anything and everything, then that’s going to be a cure-all, once you learn to really praise the Lord. It’s all going to work out smoothly, you know. All of these people and all these horrible problems, until they begin to praise the Lord for the problem, and once they start praising the Lord, the problem went away.
Let me tell you something. There are some problems you can praise the Lord for from now to eternity, and they’re not going to go away. And I think it’s absolute idiocy to praise the Lord for some of the things that happen. My uncle died as an alcoholic, oh, praise the Lord! No, that’s tragic that he should die an alcoholic. But people are offering these cure-alls. Enough faith, you never need to be sick. Enough faith, you’ll always be prosperous. And the spiritual cure-alls that are offered. And they go for a while, but soon there are people who try it and it doesn’t work and then all of a sudden as they share their failure, they find that other people have experienced the same failures. They’ve been praising the Lord for a long time, nothing’s happening to their situation and they’ve been believing; nothing’s happened. Who really can understand the ways of God?
I will frankly confess I don’t understand the ways of God. Now don’t let that surprise you. If I stood up here and told you I understood the ways of God, then I would be a first-class liar. Any man tells you, “Well, I understand the ways of God,” he doesn’t know what he’s talking about. And he is contradicting God because God said, “My ways are not your ways, my thoughts are not your thoughts” ( Isa 55:8 , Isa 55:9 ). For “my ways are beyond your finding out” ( Rom 11:33 ).
And I frankly confess I do not know the mysteries of God. I do not know why God allows certain beautiful Christians to be sick. I do not know why God allows many beautiful Christians to suffer. I do not know why many beautiful Christians are in prison in Siberia and in China and been tortured for their faith. I do not know why James was beheaded and Peter was crucified upside down. And Paul was beheaded and the early disciples all suffered martyrdom, because they believed God just as much as any of these pseudo prophets today. And if God wanted us to all be wealthy and prosperous and all, then He would have declared it plainly in the Scripture, and there would be a consistency to it within the Christian body.
It’s a tragedy the way that these doctrines have proliferated through the country. People so anxious to believe. Let me tell you something, these doctrines haven’t really had an effect upon the Siberian Christians yet. If you went up there and said, “Hey, you know, God wants you all to be prosperous and wealthy. You all ought to be driving Cadillacs up here.” And yet, because of the hardships, they have been forced to a much deeper commitment than we even dream about. Their commitment to Christ caused them the slavery that they experience in Siberia. And there are thousands of Christians enslaved in Siberia today because they dare to proclaim their faith and commitment to Jesus Christ.
I wonder just how strong the commitment would be if God began to take away some of the Cadillacs. Well, He has actually. That’s the problem with this thing; it’s beginning to die out, thank God. Because too many people who went out on the basis on this and began to charge their Cadillacs and their caviar and all, and when the bills came due, they didn’t have enough faith to pay them.
“Elisha was fallen sick of the sickness whereof he died.” It doesn’t mean that God doesn’t love you. It doesn’t mean that God is opposed to you. It doesn’t mean that you’ve done something wrong and God is punishing you because you are sick. It isn’t a sign of second-class spiritual development or growth. The best of God’s children get sick. And it is tragic to lay that kind of a thing on, “Well, there’s something wrong in your life or you know, if you only had enough faith.” Or you know, “Just confess your sin, whatever you’ve been doing, and God will heal you.” We’ll be getting to the book of Job soon and we’ll learn about this kind of doctrine.
So he came to Elisha who was there really sort of on his deathbed.
And Elisha said to the king Joash, Take your bow and your arrows. And he said, Put your hand in your bow and draw back. And Elisha put his hands upon the king’s hand. He said, Now open the window towards the east. And he opened it. Then Elisha said, Shoot. And he shot. And he said, The arrow of the LORD’S deliverance, the deliverance from Syria: for you will smite the Syrians in Aphek, until you have consumed them. He said, Now take your arrows. And he took them. And he said to the king of Israel, Now smite the arrows on the ground. And the king smote the arrows on the ground three times. And Elisha became upset, he said, Why did you just strike three times; why didn’t you smite five or six times; because then you would have utterly consumed the Syrians: but now you will only defeat them three times. So Elisha died, and they buried him. And at this time the Moabites began to send their bands into the land, [sort of marauding bands]. [And there were there was a man who had died and as they were getting ready to bury him, they saw this band of Moabites coming in; and so they just dropped the guy into the grave and began to ran], and they dropped him into the grave where Elisha was buried: and when this [guy’s] body hit the bones of Elisha, he came to life, and stood up ( 2Ki 13:15-21 ).
That to me is interesting and exciting. Such power in Elisha that even the bones there in the grave, this guy’s body hitting them, the guy comes back to life.
Hazael the king of Syria was harassing Israel during the whole time of Jehoahaz. But the LORD was gracious, had compassion on them, and respect, because of his covenant with Abraham, and Isaac, and Jacob, and he would not destroy them, neither cast him out of his presence as yet. So Hazael the king of Syria died; Benhadad his son reigned in his stead. And Jehoash the son of Jehoahaz took again out of the hand of Benhadad the cities, which had been taken from Jehoahaz his father by war. And three times Joash beat him, and recovered the cities of Israel ( 2Ki 13:22-25 ). “
2Ki 13:1-2. In the three and twentieth year of Joash the son of Ahaziah king of Judah Jehoahaz the son of Jehu began to reign over Israel in Samaria, and reigned seventeen years. And he did that which was evil in the sight of the LORD, and followed the sins of Jeroboam the son, of Nebat, which made Israel to sin; he departed not therefrom.
Seventeen years that is a long time in which to do mischief. Seventeen years of reigning over a people, influencing them all for mischief, turning them aside from God, and doing his utmost to erase the name of Jehovah from the hearts of the people. Remember, this Jehoahaz was the son of John, who had been called to the front because of the sins of the house of Ahab. Though Jehu was brought forward to be a reformer, yet he and his race were as bad as those who were cast out. What a sad thing this is, when those who are planted where the cumber-ground tree used to be become just as barren as the one that has been out down, or are only fruitful in sour fruit! See here the force of evil example. It was many years since Jeroboam, the son of Nebat, had set up the calves at Bethel and Dan; yet here is another king walking in his footsteps. You cannot tell, if you leave a bad example behind, how your children, and your grandchildren to distant generations, may follow your evil footsteps. Bad examples are very vital; they live on age after age; and influence others long after the first transgressor is dead. The thought that we may be ruining those who are yet unborn, should keep us back from sin. Notice also, at the end of the second verse, He departed not therefrom. There is a final perseverance in sin; some men seem to prove it: He departed not therefrom. He was warned against it; he was chastened for it; but he departed not therefrom, If men hold on in sin, how much more ought the people of God to hold on in righteousness! Whatever happens to you when you are once in the good old way, may it be said of you, He departed not therefrom. If all other men should turn aside, yet let that be said of you, He departed not therefrom. But, if you are in the wrong road, may the Lord cause you to turn from it, and to turn to himself at once! If you depart not from evil, you must depart from God.
2Ki 13:3. And the anger of the LORD was kindled against Israel, and he delivered them into the hand of Hazael king of Syria, and into the hand of Ben-hadad the son of Hazael, all their days.
Gods people cannot sin without coming under chastisement. Remember this word of the Lord, You only have I known of all the families of the earth: therefore I will punish you for all your iniquities. If you become church-members, and yet live unholy lives, you come under a special discipline, a discipline which I plainly see to be going on in the Church of God even to this day. For this cause, said Paul of the church in Corinth, many are weak and sickly among you, and many sleep. No doubt God does send many rods to his rebellious family. He is not one of those fathers who spare the rod, and spoil the child. Hazael and Benhadad were both wicked men; yet God used them as rods to chastise his sinning people.
2Ki 13:4. And Jehoahaz besought the LORD, and the LORD hearkened unto him
Bad as he was, he knew the hand that smote him, and he besought Jehovah. What a wonder it is that God does hear the prayers of even wicked men! I have heard it said, sometimes, that the prayer of the wicked is an abomination unto God. There is no such passage as that in the Scripture. It is the sacrifice of the wicked that is abomination to the Lord. Even when a wicked man cries unto God, and even if his prayer be not a spiritual and acceptable prayer, yet God may hear it in a measure, as he did in this case. Sometimes that hearing of prayer leads men to repentance; and they then pray better prayers, and receive greater blessings.
2Ki 13:4. For he saw the oppression of Israel, because the king of Syria oppressed them.
God cannot bear to see the sorrows of his own people. Even when he himself is laying on the rod, if his child cries, it goes to his heart. Remember what he did to Pharaoh when he heard the sighing and crying of his people in Egypt. There is nothing more powerful with a fathers heart than the tears of his child; and God heard the prayers of this bad man because He saw the oppression of Israel, because the king of Syria oppressed them.
2Ki 13:5. (And the LORD gave Israel a saviour, so that they went out from under the hand of the Syrians: and the children of Israel dwelt in their tents, as beforetime.
The Lord gave them deliverance from the cruel fetters of the Syrians. They had been so tormented, so plundered, so oppressed in every way, that God had pity upon them, and gave them peace.
2Ki 13:6. Nevertheless they departed not from the sins of the house of Jeroboam, who made Israel sin, but walked therein: and there remained the grove also in Samaria.)
Israels repentance was only half-hearted; they repented because they suffered. They repented because of the suffering rather than because of the sin. They went back to the sin after they escaped from the sorrow. Oh, be not so, my hearer! If God has chastened thee on account of sin, let thine be a thorough repentance. Go to God with hatred of thy sin; for until thou dost get rid of sin, thy being rid of sorrow will be a small blessing.
2Ki 13:7. Neither did he leave of the people to Jehoahaz but fifty horsemen, and ten chariots, and ten thousand footmen; for the king of Syria had destroyed them, and had made them like the dust by threshing.
God helped them and delivered them; but they were brought very, very low. If Gods people sin, their deliverance will cost them dearly. Israel was once a great and powerful nation; their armies went forth in vast hosts; but now they have only the remnant of an army.
2Ki 13:8. Now the rest of the acts of Jehoahaz, and all that he did, and his might, are they not written in the book of the chronicles of the kings of Israel?
They were not worth writing in the Scriptures. We have very slender records concerning Jehoahaz; but quite enough for such a wicked man.
2Ki 13:9-11. And Jehoahaz slept with his fathers; and they buried him in Samaria: and Joash his son reigned in his stead. In the thirty and seventh year of Joash king of Judah began Jehoash the son of Jehoahaz to reign over Israel in Samaria, and reigned sixteen years. And he did that which was evil in, the sight of the LORD;
One sinner was followed by another. This young man must have seen the mischief that his fathers idolatry brought on the people; but he went on in the same evil way. Oh, you sons of godly parents, you ought to follow your fathers footsteps, for these wicked sons of wicked men followed their fathers evil example! Oh, that there were an inclination in all the children of the godly to be like their parents, for there is evidently a tendency in the heart of the children of the ungodly to be like their sires!
2Ki 13:11. He departed not from all the sins of Jeroboam the son of Nebat, who made Israel sin: but he walked therein.
I repeat what I said before, what a mischievous thing is one evil example! When a man makes another sin, the other who sins is guilty, and the man who makes him sin is a sharer in his guilt. Here is Jeroboam, dead for years, and yet, he keeps on sinning. I may say of him, He, being dead, yet sinneth. His sin goes on burning like a fire; and surely the punishment continues if the sin continues. As long as souls exist, sin will exist; you cannot stop it. Sin will repeat itself again and again, and multiply in its repetition spreading among thousands perhaps yet unborn. Oh, what an evil thing is sin! Prove to me that sin ever ceases to operate, and you might give me some thought that the punishment will cease; but that can never be; and, as long as sin continues to poison, God will continue to punish.
2Ki 13:12-13. And the rest of the acts of Joash, and all that he did, and his might wherewith he fought against Amaziah king of Judah, are they not written in the book of the chronicles of the kings of Israel? And Joash slept with, his fathers; and Jeroboam sat upon his throne: and Joash, was buried in Samaria with the kings of Israel.
Now, here is a story about this Joash which is preserved to us.
2Ki 13:14. Now Elisha was fallen sick of his sickness whereof he died.
An old man, probably in his ninetieth year; he had served his generation well. We read nothing of him for five and forty years; he seems to have been in comparative seclusion; perhaps in his old age he had been neglected and forgotten, as many a man of God has been who once stood in the front rank. Elisha has fallen mortally sick at last, and he is about to go home.
2Ki 13:14. And Joash the king of Israel came down unto him,
This is one good thing that Joash did. He remembered that it was through Elijah and Elisha that the men of his house, the house of Jehu, had been put upon the throne; and when he heard that Elisha was dying, something like compunction crossed his heart, and he came down unto him.
2Ki 13:14. And wept over his face,
As Bishop Hall says, he gave him some drops of warm water; and if a cup of cold water, given to a prophet, shall not be without its reward, so neither shall those tender tears be without their reward.
2Ki 13:14. And said, O my father, my father, the chariot of Israel, and the horsemen thereof.
Elisha must have opened his eyes when he heard those words, for he recollected that those were nearly the last words that he said to Elijah when his master was taken up to heaven. Perhaps the king had heard that; and, with a kind of delicate thoughtfulness, he applied the words to this grand old man, who was now about to die. He was to Israel chariot and horsemen, for it was by his means that Israel had been delivered.
2Ki 13:15-16. And Elisha said unto him, Take bow and arrows. And he took unto him bow and arrows. And he said to the king of Israel, Put thine hand upon the bow. And he put his hand upon it; and Elisha put his hands upon the kings hands.
Not because he could lend much strength, for he was an old man; but because this signified that God would be with the king, that the power which dwelt in the prophets God would come through the prophets hands to help the king.
2Ki 13:17. And he said, Open the window eastward.
They had no glass windows in those days, you know; but they threw back the iron bars that made the shutter, and opened the window eastward.
2Ki 13:17. And he opened it. Then Elisha said, Shoot. And he shot. And he said, The arrow of the LORDS deliverance, and the arrow of deliverance from Syria: for thou shalt smite the Syrians in Aphek, till thou have consumed them.
It was usual, in the East, when war was proclaimed, to do it by shooting an arrow towards the enemys country; and this brave old man, soon about to breathe out his life, had strengthened the king in the great weakness of the Israelitish state to proclaim war once more against Syria.
2Ki 13:18. And he said, Take the arrows. And he took them.
I suppose, a quiver full.
2Ki 13:18. And he said unto the king of Israel, Smite upon the ground.
Shoot the arrows out of the window, and let them strike into the ground, and stick there.
2Ki 13:18-19. And he smote thrice, and stayed. And the man of God was wroth with him,
Elisha was angry, but he did not sin. He loved the people, and he was grieved to think that the king was so slack and slothful.
2Ki 13:19-20. And said, Thou shouldest have smitten five or six times; then hadst thou smitten Syria till thou hadst consumed it: whereas now thou shall smite Syria but thrice. And Elisha died, and they buried him.
God has different ways of taking his people home. Some go on a sudden, whirled away, as Elijah was. This prophet died gently, worn out with age; but there is something very beautiful about his death. A king weeps over his aged face. He has the pleasure, though it was mingled with pain, of helping to deliver his people; and, after his death, God bore full witness to him.
2Ki 13:20-21. And the bands of the Moabites invaded the land at the coming in of the year. And it came to pass, as they were burying a man, that, behold, they spied a band of men; and they cast the man into the sepulcher of Elisha: and when the man was let down, and touched the bones of Elisha, he revived, and stood up on his feet.
Thus God gave Elisha power, even after death, and certainly set the divine seal upon his message. It was as great a glory to him to give life to the dead as it was to Elijah to pass to heaven without dying at all.
2Ki 13:22-23. But Hazael king of Syria oppressed Israel all the days of Jehoahaz. And the LORD was gracious unto them, and had compassion on them, and had respect unto them, because of his covenant
Ah, that is what always lies at the bottom of Gods mercy, his covenant. Oh, that grand word covenant! Some think very little of it, few preach much about it; but this is the very foundation of mercy. This is the deep that lieth under, out of which all the wells of grace spring up.
2Ki 13:23. With Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, and would not destroy them, neither cast he them from his presence as yet.
He would not do it till he was fully driven to it, till provocation upon provocation should wear out his patience,
2Ki 13:24-25. So Hazael king of Syria died; and Benhadad his son reigned in, his stead. And Jehoash the son of Jehoahaz took again out of the hand of Benhadad the son of Hazael the cities, which he had taken out of the hand of Jehoahaz his father by war. Three times did Joash beat him, and recovered the cities of Israel.
He shot three arrows, and now it came to pass that three times did Joash beat Benhadad, and recover the cities of Israel. Oh, that he had beaten the king of Syria six times, and set Israel completely free from its enemy!
2Ki 13:1
Under Jehoahaz the story of corruption ran on in Israel. It was the story of continuation of evil as moral, and its consequent continuation as punishment. Readiness of God to forgive is revealed in the parenthesis. A consciousness of the terrible condition of the people seems to have taken possession of the king, and he besought the Lord. In answer to his prayer a saviour was raised up. No particulars are here given. In all probability they are to be found in chapter fourteen.
Jehoahaz was succeeded by Jehoash, the chief event of whose reign was his visit to Elisha. The prophet was now sick and feeble. In the midst of his perplexities, Jehoash went to see him. It is interesting to notice that he addressed him with the selfsame words which Elisha had used of Elijah at the moment of his translation, “My father, my father, the chariots of Israel, and the horsemen thereof!” and here evidently with the same meaning. The king recognized that the true strength of the nation was not its military equipment, but its possession of such as interpreted the will of God. In his intercourse with Elisha the weakness of the king was manifest. While following the prophetic signs, he lacked that passion and consecration which were necessary to the full accomplishment of his purpose. There was no heart in his striking on the ground with the arrows, and the prophet foretold his limitation and ultimate failure.
Inglorious Ends
2Ki 12:17-21; 2Ki 13:1-9
As long as we are with the Lord, He is with us. Then our enemies are His enemies, and He shows Himself strong on the behalf of those whose heart is perfect toward Him. See 2Ch 15:2. So Joash found it in the earlier part of his reign. We need to ponder the blessings set out in Psa 81:14-16, as guaranteed to the life which is at one with God. But directly Joash listened to the princes and forsook the house of God and gave license to the Asherim and idols, God was turned against the people and became their enemy. See 2Ch 24:23-25. The reign that commenced in sunshine was sadly overcast, and the king perished by the hands of conspirators and never came to the sepulcher of the kings.
Then disaster after disaster befell the nation. They had to learn that they had been chosen for a special service in the world and could not be as others. Yet amid these dark days, what gleams of light there were! The Lord hearkened, 2Ki 13:4; He gave Israel a savior, 2Ki 13:5; He was gracious and had compassion and would not cast them from His presence, 2Ki 13:23. Even when the Lord chastens us sore, He does not give us over unto death, Psa 118:18. There is a needs-be, but there is also a thus-far-and-no-farther.
Jehoahaz
(Jehovah-seized)
2Ki 13:1-9
Contemporary Prophets: Elisha, Jonah.
When the righteous are in authority, the people rejoice: but when the wicked beareth rule, the people mourn.-Pro 29:2
In the three and twentieth year of Joash the son of Ahaziah king of Judah, Jehoahaz the son of Jehu began to reign over Israel in Samaria, and reigned seventeen years. And he did that which was evil in the sight of the Lord, and followed the sins of Jeroboam the son of Nebat, which made Israel to sin; he departed not therefrom. There is no variation from the same sorrowful formula usually used in describing the moral conduct of these Israelitish kings: He did that which was evil in the sight of the Lord. His ways may not have appeared sinful in the sight of his fellows; but God, who seeth not as man seeth, pronounced it evil, and sent upon him and his subjects the chastisement their wicked idolatry deserved.
And the anger of the Lord was kindled against Israel, and He delivered them into the hand of Hazael king of Syria, and into the hand of Ben-hadad the son of Hazael, all their days. Hazaels conquest of the kingdom had begun in the days of Jehu, Jehoahaz father: In those days the Lord began to cut Israel short: and Hazael smote them in all the coasts of Israel; from Jordan eastward, all the land of Gilead, the Gadites, and the Reubenites, and the Manassites, from Aroer, which is by the river Arnon, even Gilead and Bashan (2Ki 10:32, 33). Jehu, though so swift to shed blood in the beginning of his reign, was more slow to take the sword in defence of the land and people of God toward its close. Men of this class are seldom really good soldiers. They may be exceedingly active in obtaining the position they love and covet, while very careless about the true interests of the people of God. There is no hint of his having made the slightest attempt to resist these inroads of the king of Syria in his dominion. He probably remained timorously passive at Samaria while the encroachments on Gods territory were being made. The Black Obelisk records that he (Jahua) sent gold and silver to Shalmaneser I. at this time, probably to invoke the Assyrians aid against Hazael. Certainly valor was not characteristic of Jehu. Impetuosity is not courage, nor must we mistake enthusiasm for the earnestness of conviction. To boast when putting on the harness is an easy matter; the wise will wait until the time to put it off (1Ki 20:11); and then the truly wise will glory only in the Lord.
And Jehoahaz besought the Lord, and the Lord harkened unto him: for He saw the oppression of Israel, because the king of Syria oppressed them. And the Lord gave Israel a saviour, so that they went out from under the hand of the Syrians: and the children of Israel dwelt in their tents, as beforetime. Nevertheless they departed not from the sins of the house of Jeroboam, who made Israel to sin, but walked therein: and there remained the grove (Asherah, N. Tr.) also in Samaria. In this parenthetic paragraph we see how Elishas prophecy of Hazaels pitiless oppression of the children of Israel was fulfilled (2Ki 8:12). Well might the man of God, who so dearly loved Israel, weep as before him stood the destined perpetrator of these cruelties against his people-God even thus seeking to turn them back to repentance from their idolatries. This bitter chastisement appears to have had a salutary effect upon Jehoahaz, for he besought Jehovah. When the goodness of God fails to bring men to repentance, His severity is required, and used. See Psa 78:34; Hos 5:15. Accordingly God accepted of his repentance, Josephus says; and being desirous rather to admonish those that might repent, than to determine that they should be utterly destroyed, He granted them deliverance from war and dangers. So the country having obtained peace, returned to its former condition, and flourished as before (Ant. ix. 8, 5). This restoration to prosperity began under Joash son of Jehoahaz, and culminated during the reign of his grandson Jeroboam II.21 So prayer is frequently answered after the petitioner has passed away. Let none say, then, like the wicked of old, in reference to God, What profit should we have, if we pray unto Him? (Job 21:15.)22 What profit? Ah, true prayer is always heard at the Throne: Whatsoever we ask, we know that we have the petitions that we desired of Him (1Jn 5:15).
Hazael king of Syria oppressed Israel all the days of Jehoahaz (2Ki 13:22). There was no respite until Joashs day. This must have been a test to Jehoahaz faith, if his repentance was really the result of godly sorrow for his and the nations sins. But when has faith, untried, ever flourished? Stagger not, then, nor stumble, beloved fellow-believer, at the trial of your faith. God harkened to Jehoahaz, though he died with Hazael busy at his work of devastation in his realm. Neither did he leave of the people to Jehoahaz but fifty horsemen, and ten chariots, and ten thousand footmen; for the king of Syria had destroyed them, and had made them like the dust by threshing. See Amo 1:3.
Now the rest of the acts of Jehoahaz, and all that he did, and his might, are they not written in the book of the chronicles of the kings of Israel? And Jehoahaz slept with his fathers; and they buried him in Samaria: and Joash his son reigned in his stead.
21 A temporary deliverance may have been granted as 2Ki 13:4, 5, seems to imply; and the reason of being only temporary given in the 6th verse: Nevertheless they departed not from the sins of the house of Jeroboam etc.-[Ed.
22 The very need of the creature, even though unintelligent, is like a prayer-an appeal to God: Who provideth for the raven his food? when his young ones cry unto God (Job 38:41).-[Ed.
2Ki 13:17
We have here a picture of the old generation in contact with the new. We see the old testing the new and teaching the new.
I. If we were to measure the hopes of Joash’s life from the attitude which he holds towards the old man, we must admit that everything promises well. Here is one in whose heart and mind the instinct of hero-worship is very strong. But the old prophet is not satisfied. He would fain test this young man’s ardour, and see of what mettle he was. In the scene before us we have the test. After letting fly the arrow of the Lord’s deliverance, he was to strike upon the ground. Having struck thrice, he stayed, with a hesitating self-consciousness, waiting for some gesture or directions from the prophet, and the old man was wroth. He had applied the test, and the king had failed to bear it, and he saw weakness written there. Joash lacks the two qualities which make up greatness: (1) the spirit of thoroughness, and (2) the glorious power of imagination. A man cannot achieve practical work unless he has the prosaic instinct that does not shrink from the drudgery of it. This Joash has not. He strikes feebly thrice, and then looks round for instructions. Self-consciousness, a weak dependence upon others, the eye askance to see how far he may go, a feebleness within the mind, are his, and he has no power of living by individual heroism and devotion.
II. The prophet is not merely one to test, but also one to teach. He teaches the king to realise himself and to realise God. He sets before him these two things: the insight to see the power of God and action to discharge the duties of life. As one of our own prophets has taught us, what is wanted to make a hero is, not a great soul, but simply a God-begotten soul that is true to its own origin. The heroes and the saints of old were great, but we must remember that the power which made them great was the spirit which was within.
Bishop Boyd-Carpenter, Oxford Review, May 6th, 1885.
References: 2Ki 13:17.-Homiletic Magazine, vol. viii., p. 65. 2Ki 13:18, 2Ki 13:19.-Clergyman’s Magazine, vol. xiii., p. 79. 2Ki 13:19.-J. Baines, Sermons, p. 255; Spurgeon, Sermons, vol. x., No. 569; R. C. Trench, Brief Thoughts and Meditations, p. 109.
2Ki 13:18-19
You have here a man in extreme debility, with his natural strength ebbing away from him. The man of war, the man of action, in his flush of hope, comes to him; and the dying prophet rallies him with his faith and clear views, and lays his thin fingers upon him, through which the king feels the electric power which comes from the prophet, giving him new strength. The dying saint is the stronger of the two.
I. Let us consider whence comes this strength. Not through self-confidence. Not through the splendour of any actions he has done. Not through the cool, deliberate, and iron will which gives the cold, calculating intellect of man power over the mighty forces of nature. Self-confidence is one thing; faith is another.
II. We are not to abuse self-confidence. It is not the brazen courage which challenges the homage of the world. You cannot watch the career of public men or read biography without facing the forces which self-confidence has raised.
III. But having said this, we must remember that there is a limit to the natural resources of this power. By reason of your self-confidence being contracted within the narrow outline of yourself, you have no security for your own personal well-being or the triumph of your cause in that great future which lies beyond sight. On the other hand, by faith you attach yourself to a Power outside of you, to a Power which is infinite. You acquire a command over resources which are inexhaustible. You cast in your fortunes with One who is eternal.
IV. From this line of thought we may draw these practical directions. (1) As to the way in which we are to try the revelations of the truth of God. God has revealed certain truths to us. If we then decline any part of a truth which He reveals, we so far fall short of our knowledge of Him. As children in our Father’s house, we take the crumbs while we are bidden to sit down with the saints at the supper of our Lord. (2) If God gives us implements, resources, and material instruments, our claim on His assisting grace may be assured, for we are to make use of them to the utmost.
C. W. Furse, Contemporary Pulpit, vol. vi., p. 42.
Reference: 2Ki 18:19.-H. P. Liddon, Penny Pulpit, No. 544, and Old Testament Outlines, p. 80.
2Ki 13:20-21
We Protestants do not attach much virtue to relics in the ordinary sense of the term, but there is a sense in which we may reasonably do so. Relics are remains; and while we believe that no virtue resides in the material remains of a good man, we do not therefore exempt from efficacy his mental or spiritual remains. If he has left behind him in writing the effusions of a devout mind, we believe that these writings, by which “he, being dead, yet speaketh,” often exercise an influence for good upon readers long after he himself has passed away, and that thus the miracle wrought by the bones of Elisha is continually repeating itself in the experience of the Church.
Consider:-
I. The power of devotional reading. (1) The power of devotional reading may be seen from considering the effect which constant association with the wise and good would naturally exert upon the mind. It is an axiomatic truth which has passed into a proverb, “He that walketh with wise men shall be wise.” (2) Spiritual reading has to a certain extent taken the place of preaching. This has come about in the order of God’s providence, which has ordained the diffusion of literature in the press, just as it has ordained many less important movements. The reading of spiritual books may be regarded, and ought to be regarded, more or less in the light of a Divine ordinance.
II. Some suggestions may be given as to the conduct of this exercise. (1) A discrimination must be used in the choice of books. (2) Prayer or devout aspirations must be mingled with the reading. (3) Carefully avoid all dissipation in the method of reading.
E. M. Goulburn, Thoughts on Personal Religion, p. 88.
References: 2Ki 13:20, 2Ki 13:21.-A. Edersheim, Elisha the Prophet, p. 318; H. P. Liddon, Penny Pulpit, No. 886, and Old Testament Outlines, p. 79.
2Ki 13:21
I. This narrative teaches us that the influence of faithful workers for the kingdom of God extends beyond the grave, and that frequently a cause for which men have laboured and spent themselves is advanced by the departure from amongst us of those who have taken it in hand. Contact with the death of such a worker not unfrequently imparts life-the life of earnestness, the life of devotion, the life of Christian self-sacrifice-to those who did not possess it, or who possessed it only imperfectly and inefficiently before.
II. It is not very difficult to discover why it should be so. Independently of the fact that when a gap is made by the fall of a leader many others may feel that more effort and devotion is required of themselves, there is a contagion about one who has gone to the extremest length of self-sacrifice that is possible in man. “Greater love hath no man than this, that a man lay down his life for his friends.” And as it is the dying of the Saviour which draws His followers round Him and makes Him the centre of their adoration and their love, so it is the dying of men in the cause they have espoused which kindles the enthusiasm of other spirits and makes them willing to rush forward and take the banner from the fallen warriors’ failing grasp.
G. Calthrop, Penny Pulpit, No. 730.
References: 2Ki 13:21.-Preacher’s Monthly, vol. iv., p. 155; W. Walters, Christian World Pulpit, vol. xxi., p. 189. 2Ki 13-Parker, vol. viii., p. 228. 2Ki 14:25.-Expositor, 3rd series, vol. v., p. 161. 2Ki 14-Parker, vol. viii., p. 239. 2Ki 15:5.-E. Monro, Practical Sermons, vol. iii., p. 117. 2Ki 15:10.-Expositor, 3rd series, vol. v., p. 259. 2Ki 15:19.-E. H. Plumptre, Ibid., 2nd series, vol. ii., p. 230. 2Ki 15-Parker, vol. viii., p. 250. 2Ki 17:1.-Clergyman’s Magazine, vol. xiii., p. 83. 2Ki 17:1-14.-Ibid., vol. xix., p. 105. 2Ki 17:4, 2Ki 17:5.-E. H. Plumptre, Expositor, 2nd series, vol. ii., pp. 316, 318. 2Ki 17:41.-Spurgeon, Sermons, vol. xxvii., No. 1622; Ibid., My Sermon Notes: Genesis to Proverbs, p. 94. 2Ki 17-Parker, vol. viii., p. 263. 2Ki 18:1-37.-Clergyman’s Magazine, vol. v., p. 92. 2Ki 18:3.-E. Monro, Practical Sermons, vol. ii., p. 221. 2Ki 18:3-7.-Preacher’s Monthly, vol. iv., p. 162.
5. Jehoahaz and Jehoash of Israel, Elishas Death
CHAPTER 13
1. The reign of Jehoahaz and his death (2Ki 13:1-9)
2. Jehoash King of Israel (2Ki 13:10-13)
3. Elisha and Joash (2Ki 13:14-19)
4. The death of Elisha (2Ki 13:20-21)
5. Hazael and his death (2Ki 13:22-25)
Jehoahaz, the son of Jehu, reigned after the death of his father (2Ki 10:35) and here we learn that he also followed in the abominable worship which Jeroboam had instituted in Bethel and in Dan. The Lord delivered therefore Israel into the hands of Hazael of Syria and into his sons hand. Jehoahaz prayed to the LORD and the LORD, so abundant in mercy, hearkened, for He saw the oppression of Israel, because the King of Syria oppressed them. Verses 5 and 6 form a parenthesis. The seventh verse tells of the havoc which the King of Syria had wrought among Israel. The prayer of Jehoahaz, though heard, was not fully answered at once. The parenthetic verses (5 and 6) must be looked upon as giving a summary of the entire history; God sent a saviour and yet they continued in their sins. Joash, the son of Jehoahaz, was the first one through whom a partial deliverance was wrought (verse 25) and the full deliverance came under the grandson Jeroboam II (2Ki 14:25-27). We have here a good illustration of how the Lord hears prayer and how in His sovereignty and all-wise purposes He may delay the answer for many years. It should be enough for Gods people to know that prayer is heard and to leave the answer with Him, who does all things well. And so Jehoahaz saw nothing but oppression (verse 22) though he had turned unto the LORD and had prayed. It was a trial of faith.
After his death his son Jehoash (also called Joash, distinguished from the King of Judah of the same name) reigned. There was no change for the better. Verses 10-13 are another brief summary giving briefly the character of his reign, his death and his successor.
The deathbed scene of Elisha and Joashs visit follows. Over sixty years Elisha had been the prophet of God. The last we heard of this great man of God was when he sent his messenger to anoint Jehu. Forty-five years had passed and no ministry of Elisha is recorded. He was quite forgotten and neglected. The same was the case with Daniel in Babylon. When apostasy advances, the Lords true prophets are not wanted; they share the rejection of the Lord and His Truth. Joash then visited the dying prophet. From this we may gather that his abode was known and that Joash realized that Elishas death would be a great loss. He utters the same words which Elisha spoke when Elijah went to heaven. He wept and still his words were the words of unbelief, as if with Elishas death the chariot of Israel and the horsemen thereof, the protection and blessing for Israel would have an end. Then follows the symbolical shooting of the arrows and the smiting of the ground. Halfheartedly the unbelieving king enters into that which Elisha had made so plain. It was Joashs lack of faith, indicated by smiting the ground but thrice, which made the complete victory over the Syrians impossible. Only three times did Joash beat him (Hazaels son Ben-hadad) and recovered the cities of Israel (verse 25). If he had faith it would have been five and six times.
Elisha had died. A corpse about to be buried was hastily cast into the sepulchre of Elisha, where his bones rested. And when the man was let down, and touched the bones of Elisha, he revived and stood up on his feet. This final miracle bears a great and blessed testimony. Here an application must be made concerning Him who is foreshadowed in Elishas ministry of grace. It is by faith in Him who died that sinners receive life and are raised up from the dead. To touch Him in faith means to live. And Israel, moreover, is typically represented by the dead man and through Him who died for that nation, Israel is yet to live.
three and twentieth year: Heb. twentieth year, and third year, 2Ki 8:26, 2Ki 10:36, 2Ki 11:4, 2Ki 11:21
Jehoahaz: 2Ki 10:35
Reciprocal: 2Ki 10:30 – thy children 2Ki 15:12 – Thy sons
2Ki 13:4. Jehoahaz besought the Lord, as oppressed Israel had done in the time of the Judges.
2Ki 13:5. The Lord gave Israel a Saviour. Not Joash, as some say, but Messiah, the Angel of his presence saved them, as the rabbins state. Why have they not told us more? The Messiah probably appeared as to Joshua, Gideon, and Manoah.
2Ki 13:6. There remained the grove in Samaria, where Astarte, one of the four names of Venus, had been worshipped, and probably was so worshipped still; yet Elisha had done much in putting down idolatry.
2Ki 13:14. Now Elisha was fallen sick; persecuted through life, but honoured with a royal visit at his death.
2Ki 13:19. Was wroth. The LXX read, the man of God was grieved. The Elegy of this very illustrious man is sung by the son of Syrac. Sirach 48.
2Ki 13:21. The bones of Elisha. The papists adduce this as an argument for the miraculous power of relics. Ah Rome! Ah Rome!
2Ki 13:24. Benhadad, the second, who revived the name of honour, which his father had received.
REFLECTIONS.
What a calamitous portrait have we here of Israel, and how unlike the glory of former days. When God ceases to defend a people, they soon fall into decay. What a proverb of reproach might the heathen now take up against them. Is this the nation whose God is the Lord: has their God forsaken them: is he no longer able to defend them? Nay, the more enlightened would reply, they have forsaken their God, and therefore he has suffered all these calamities to come upon them. Let individuals, churches and nations, be instructed by the errors of Israel: for what man ever forsook the Lord and prospered. Such was the situation of Judah. Samaria and her king Jehoash were also in the same degenerate condition: and to heighten the calamity they fought one against another, while the Syrians were endeavouring to ruin them both! In those calamitous times God took away the venerable Elisha from the evil to come, having fulfilled to him the promise made to obedience, even long life. He spent sixty or seventy years, if our chronologists be right, in the sacred ministry. He came to his sepulchre full of days and full of grace; and what more can a mortal man ask of God? If he failed in converting his country, he preserved the faithful from apostasy; and he lived to see those who revolted cut off by the sword.
He died revered by the wicked, and was honoured as a prince. His sovereign addressed him in his own words, when Elijah ascended: Oh my father, my father, the chariot of Israel and the horsemen thereof. What shall we do when thou art gone? We shall have no one to deliver, to raise sieges, and give bread in the time of famine. We should therefore regard faithful ministers as the defence of the church and nation; and those who honour them in life and death, are in a fair way to obtain a blessing from the Lord.
Elisha, affected by the royal tears which bedewed his cheeks, sought in the spirit to make the king some returns; and in dying to leave some hope to his country. With this view he directed him to open the window eastward, where the Syrian king had spread his conquests, and to shoot an arrow, which he pronounced to be a pledge of breaking the enemys yoke. The promised victory he farther illustrated by enjoining the king to smite on the floor, which he did three times. Here the prophet felt that the king came short in his efforts to emancipate his country; and therefore promised him but three victories over the oppressor. So it happens in the singular order of grace, that our salvation corresponds with our faith, and with the efforts we make to obtain deliverance.
God, who honoured Elisha during life, honoured him also after his death. Some people going to bury a man, for the Jews buried without the cities, saw an enemy approach. Perhaps Josephus is right, who says that they were robbers who had murdered the man; therefore they committed another barbarous deed in throwing his body into the prophets sepulchre; and behold, on touching his bones, he came to life. So Jesus Christ, when touched by faith, gives life to the soul spiritually dead. So Christ was honoured after his crucifixion, not by quickening an individual, but by giving eternal life to all those who take hold of his covenant.
Let us now fix our eyes on the king. Having received the consoling prediction of the expiring prophet, he went home, and animated the few troops he had; and by making a treble effort, he completely recovered his country. But Hazael was no sooner dead, than his son lost all the fruits of his fathers victories. What vanity in conquests, in depopulating kingdoms, and making cities without an inhabitant. This man, whose leading passion was military fame; this man, so terrible a scourge to Israel, and equally so to other nations, seems to have been anointed of the Lord solely for the purpose of cutting off the wicked. Hence it is said, Him that escapes the sword of Jehu, shall Hazael slay.
The efforts of Elijah and Elisha, though of an extraordinary kind, and those long and repeated strokes of judgment, failed of producing more than a temporary reform; and in this we have assuredly the most striking proof of the power of original sin. Man turns a deaf ear to instruction; he revolts against the rod, or soon forgets the smart; and in defiance of heaven, walks still in his own way. So this prophet died and left his country in its sins, and ultimately doomed to severer strokes of Gods afflicting hand.
2Ki 13:1 to 2Ki 17:6. The remainder of the history of Israel to the fall of Samaria, with the contemporary annals of Judah, is of the nature of chronicle rather than history. There are few interesting narratives like those in the earlier parts of the book. The exceptions are: (a) the death of Elisha (2Ki 13:14 ff.); (b) the war between Israel and Judah (2Ki 14:8-16); (c) the repairs of the Temple at Jerusalem by Ahaz (2Ki 16:10-16). The main sources are: (a) the records of the kings of Israel and Judah; (b) the biography of Elisha; (c) Deuteronomic notes of reigns, etc.; (d) later additions.
2Ki 13:1-9. The Reign of Jehoahaz of Israel.Israel is reduced to the lowest straits by Hazael. Yahweh left of Israels army 10,000 soldiers and 10 chariots. (Ahab had, according to the inscriptions, 2000 chariots.) For 2Ki 13:5 a cf. p. 69.
JEHOAHAZ REIGNS IN ISRAEL
(vv.10-13)
Jehoash reigned in Judah 40 years (ch.12:1), and in his 23rd year Jehoahaz took the throne of Israel (v.1). He reigned 17 years, so it would appear both these kings died about the same time, but verse 10 seems inconsistent with this, whatever may be the explanation.
Jehoahaz followed the sins of Jereboam the son of Nebat, as his father Jehu had done (v.2). None of the kings who reigned in Israel (the twelve tribes) were godly men, but all followed the idolatry that Jereboam had introduced. Again the Lord’s anger was aroused against Israel, so that they were oppressed by Hazael the king of Syria and by his son Ben-Hadad (v.3).
Such oppression was required by Jehoahaz before he would turn in any measure to the Lord, but then he did plead with the Lord who answered him graciously by giving relief through an unnamed deliverer (vv.4,5), and they were restored to their former status of dwelling in tents.
In spite of God’s kindness in answering prayer, Israel continued in their idolatrous worship of the idols Jereboam had set up and also a wooden image in Samaria. The army of Israel was left pathetically weak with only 50 horsemen, ten chariots and 10,000 foot soldiers, as a result of the destruction brought upon them by the Syrians. The 17 years of the reign of Jehoahaz issued only in defeat and disaster, but verse 8 tells us that the rest of his acts and his might are recorded in the book of the chronicles of the kings of Israel, though these are not the scripture books of Chronicles. At his death his son Joash succeeded him on Israel’s throne (v.9).
THE REIGN OF JOASH OVER ISRAEL
(vv.10-13)
Verse 10 indicates that the reign of Joash over Israel overlapped the reign of Jehoash of Judah for three years. Joash of Israel reigned 16 years and maintained the same character of disobedience to God as did the former kings of Israel, clinging still to the idol worship that Jereboam had introduced. Other acts of Joash are said to be recorded in the books of the chronicles of the kings of Israel (v.12), and the death of Joash is mentioned in verse 13. However, there are other matters recorded in this chapter and up to chapter 14:15 concerning the reign of Joash, so that chapter 14:16 repeats the information concerning his death.
ELISHA’S DEATH
(vv, 14-21)
Until this time Elisha remained the one real link with God that was available to the kings of Israel, – a testimony against their evil, but a testimony to the grace of God that was available to them if they would only seek Him. The time had come now that Elisha was to be taken away by death. Joash, knowing this, and feeling his own incompetence, went to visit Elisha and wept over him. He was deeply affected, for even an unbeliever can be affected by the prospect of a godly man dying. Though he may have had no intention whatever of being godly himself, yet he respected the godliness of Elisha and realised that his intercession for Israel was keeping the nation from ruin. How striking it is that Joash repeats the very words of Elisha spoken on the occasion of Elijah’s translation (ch.2:12), “O my father, my father, the chariots of Israel and their horsemen!” (v.14). Elisha had felt the loss of Elijah, now Joash anticipated the loss of Elisha and felt it. After all, he was the king of God’s nation Israel. He knew something of the history of his nation and of God’s miraculous translation of Elijah, and was affected by this.
King Joash of Israel, in visiting Elisha on his deathbed, needed a serious message from Elisha. Though Elisha was a prophet of grace, yet he spoke rather of warfare to Joash, for Israel had enemies that they ought to destroy, just as saints of God now have enemies to whom they must show no mercy, – enemies who are not merely human, but satanic, who seek to deprive us of our proper spiritual blessings. Elisha told Joash to take a bow and arrows, then when the king held the bow, Elisha put his hands on the king’s hands (v.15:16). Opening a window to the east (toward Syria), the king was told to shoot the arrow, which he did. What did Elisha mean by this? That Joash was to strike the Syrians till they were destroyed (v.17). Syria, meaning “exalted” stands for that principle of evil spoken of in 2Co 10:5, “arguments and every high thing that exalts itself against the knowledge of God.” We today must not use carnal weapons for this, but spiritual weapons, “mighty in God for the pulling down of strongholds” (2Co 10:4).
Elisha then told Joash to take the arrows and strike the ground, which Joash did three times (v.18). Elisha was angry with him for stopping at three times, telling him he ought to have struck the ground five or six times. But the obedience of Joash was only half-hearted, with the result that he would only defeat Syria three times. We too may be only half-hearted in our resisting the enemies of God. This is compromise which only leads to further trouble.
Elisha died and was buried (v.20). Elijah had been caught up to heaven without dying, as many saints will be at the coming of the Lord. Elijah thus pictures the resurrection and ascension of the Lord Jesus. But Elisha, in his death, pictures the value of the death of Christ to give life to those who contact Him by faith. For as the Israelites were burying a man a band of Moabite raiders appeared and they hurriedly put the man into Elisha’s grave. When his body touched the bones of Elisha the man revived (v.21). Thus too does everyone who by genuine faith contacts the Lord Jesus in His sacrificial death, find the reviving power of resurrection life.
OPPRESSION AND RELIEF
(vv.22-25)
As Elisha had told Hazael he knew all the evil Hazael would bring to Israel (ch.8:12), so Hazael pursued a course of cruel oppression against Jehoahaz and his kingdom (v.22). Yet in spite of this cruelty, the Lord had compassion on Israel to give them some real help, because of His covenant with Abraham, Isaac and Jacob, so they were not cast out of their land. The longsuffering patience of God is wonderful, but patience is not indifference, and God must eventually judge.
Hazael died, however, and his son Ben Hadad became king of Syria. Then Joash, son of Jehoahaz, recaptured the cities Hazael had taken from his father. As Elisha had promised, Joash defeated Ben Hadad three times, but this did not destroy the power of Syria.
4. Jehoahaz’s evil reign in Israel 13:1-9
Jehoahaz reigned over the Northern Kingdom from 814 to 798 B.C. Because Israel continued to disregard the Mosaic Covenant, God allowed the Arameans to dominate her. Hazael ruled Aram from 841 to 801 B.C., and his son, Ben-Hadad III, succeeded him. The date that Ben-Hadad III’s reign ended seems to have been about 773 B.C. [Note: See the chart of Aramean kings named in 2 Kings in my comments on 8:7-15 above.]
Aram’s oppression moved Jehoahaz to seek Yahweh’s help, which He graciously provided in spite of the king’s unfaithfulness. The deliverer God raised up (2Ki 13:5) was probably King Adad-Nirari III of Assyria (810-783 B.C.) who attacked Damascus as well as Tyre, Sidon, Media, Edom, and Egypt. [Note: J. Barton Payne, The Theology of the Older Testament, p. 132; Merrill, "2 Kings," pp. 280-81.] The Arameans consequently stopped attacking Israel and turned to defending themselves against their neighbor to the east, Assyria. Another way God disciplined Israel at this time was by reducing her army through casualties (2Ki 13:7). This had begun in Jehu’s reign (2Ki 10:32-36) but continued during Jehoahaz’s administration.
Neo-Assyrian Kings [Note: From idem, Kingdom of . . ., p. 336.]
Adad-nirari II
911-891
Tukulti-Ninurta II
890-884
Assur-ansirpal II
883-859
Shalmaneser III
858-824
Shamshi-Adad V
823-811
Adad-nirari III
810-783
Shalmaneser IV
782-773
Assur-dan III
772-755
Assur-nirari V
754-745
Tiglath-pileser III
745-727
Shalmaneser V
727-722
Sargon II
722-705
Sennacherib
705-681
Esarhaddon
681-669
Ashurbanipal
668-627
Ashur-etil-ilani
627-623
Sin-sum-lisir
623
Sin-sar-iskun
623-612
Assur-uballit II
612-609
THE DYNASTY OF JEHU
Jehoahaz
814-797
{2Ki 13:1-9}
Joash
797-781
{2Ki 13:10-21; 2Ki 14:8-16}
Jeroboam II
781-740
{2Ki 14:23-29}
Zechariah
740
{2Ki 15:8-12}
“Them that honor Me I will honor, and they that despise Me shall be lightly esteemed.”
– 1Sa 2:30
ISRAEL had scarcely ever sunk to so low a nadir of degradation as she did in the reign of the son of Jehu. We have already mentioned that some assign to his reign the ghastly story which we have narrated in our sketch of the work of Elisha. It is told in the sixth chapter of the Second Book of Kings, and seems to belong to the reign of Jehoram ben-Ahab; but it may have got displaced from this epoch of yet deeper wretchedness. The accounts of Jehoahaz in 2Ki 13:1-25 are evidently fragmentary and abrupt.
Jehoahaz reigned seventeen years. Naturally, he did not disturb the calf-worship, which, like all his predecessors and successors, he regarded as a perfectly innocent symbolic adoration of Jehovah, whose name he bore and whose service he professed. Why should he do so? It had been established now for more than two centuries. His father, in spite of his passionate and ruthless zeal for Jehovah, had never attempted to disturb it. No prophet-not even Elijah nor Elisha, the practical establishers of his dynasty-had said one word to condemn it. It in no way rested on his conscience as an offence; and the formal condemnation of it by the historian only reflects the more enlightened judgment of the Southern Kingdom and of a later age. But according to the parenthesis which breaks the thread of this kings story, {2Ki 13:5-6} he was guilty of a far more culpable defection from orthodox worship; for in his reign, the Asherah-the tree or pillar of the Tyrian nature-goddess-still remained in Samaria, and therefore must have had its worshippers. How it came there we cannot tell. Jezebel had set it up, {1Ki 16:33} with the connivance of Ahab. Jehu apparently had “put it away” with the great stele of Baal, {2Ki 3:2} but, for some reason or other, he had not destroyed it. It now apparently occupied some public place, a symbol of decadence, and provocative of the wrath of Heaven.
Jehoahaz sank very low. Hazaels savage sword, not content with the devastation of Bashan and Gilead, wasted the west of Israel also in all its borders. The king became a mere vassal of his brutal neighbor at Damascus. So little of the barest semblance of power was left him, that whereas, in the reign of David, Israel could muster an army of eight hundred thousand, and in the reign of Joash, the son and successor of Jehoahaz, Amaziah could hire from Israel one hundred thousand mighty men of valor as mercenaries, Jehoahaz was only allowed to maintain an army of ten chariots, fifty horsemen, and ten thousand infantry! In the picturesque phrase of the historian, “the King of Syria had threshed down Israel to the dust,” in spite of all that Jehoahaz did, or tried to do, and “all his might.” How completely helpless the Israelites were is shown by the fact that their armies could offer no opposition to the free passage of the Syrian troops through their land. Hazael did not regard them as threatening his rear; for, in the reign of Jehoahaz, he marched southwards, took the Philistine city of Gath, and threatened Jerusalem. Joash of Judah could only buy them off with the bribe of all his treasures, and according to the Chronicler they “destroyed all the princes of the people,” and took great spoil to Damascus. {2Ch 24:23}
Where was Elisha? After the anointing of Jehu he vanishes from the scene. Unless the narrative of the siege of Samaria has been displaced, we do not so much as once hear of him for nearly half a century.
The fearful depth of humiliation to which the king was reduced drove him to repentance. Wearied to death of the Syrian oppression of which he was the daily witness, and of the utter misery caused by prowling bands of Ammonites and Moabites-jackals who waited on the Syrian lion-Jehoahaz “besought the Lord, and the Lord hearkened unto him, and gave Israel a savior, so that they went out from under the hand of the Syrians: and the children of Israel dwelt in their tents, as beforetime.” If this indeed refers to events which come out of place in the memoirs of Elisha; and if Jehoahaz ben-Jehu, not Jehoram ben-Ahab, was the king in whose reign the siege of Samaria was so marvellously raised, then Elisha may possibly be the temporary deliverer who is here alluded to. On this supposition we may see a sign of the repentance of Jehoahaz in the shirt of sackcloth which he wore under his robes, as it became visible to his starving people when he rent his clothes on hearing the cannibal instincts which had driven mothers to devour their own children. But the respite must have been brief, since Hazael (2Ki 13:22) oppressed Israel all the days of Jehoahaz. If this rearrangement of events be untenable, we must suppose that the repentance of Jehoahaz was only so far accepted, and his prayer so far heard, that the deliverance, which did not come in his own days, came in those of his son and of his grandson.
Of him and of his wretched reign we hear no more; but a very different epoch dawned with the accession of his son Joash, named after the contemporary King of Judah, Joash ben-Ahaziah.
In the Books of Kings and Chronicles Joash of Israel is condemned with the usual refrains about the sins of Jeroboam. No other sin is laid to his charge; and breaking the monotony of reprobation which tells us of every king of Israel without exception that “he did that which was evil in the sight of the Lord,” Josephus boldly ventures to call him “a good man; and the antithesis to his father.”
He reigned sixteen years. At the beginning of his reign he found his country the despised prey, not only of Syria, but of the paltry neighboring bandit-sheykhs who infested the east of the Jordan; he left it comparatively strong, prosperous, and independent.
In his reign we hear again of Elisha, now a very old man of past eighty years. Nearly half a century had elapsed since the grandfather of Joash had destroyed the house of Ahab at the prophets command. News came to the king that Elisha was sick of a mortal sickness, and he naturally went to visit the death-bed of one who had called his dynasty to the throne, and had in earlier years played so memorable a part in the history of his country. He found the old man dying, and he wept over him, crying, “My father; my father! the chariot of Israel, and the horsemen thereof.” {Comp. 2Ki 2:12} The address strikes us with some surprise. Elisha had indeed delivered Samaria more than once when the city had been reduced to direst extremity; but in spite of his prayers and of his presence, the sins of Israel and her kings had rendered this chariot of Israel of very small avail. The names of Ahab, Jehu, Jehoahaz, call up memories of a series of miseries and humiliations which had reduced Israel to the very verge of extinction. For sixty-three years Elisha had been the prophet of Israel; and though his public interpositions had been signal on several occasions, they had not been availing to prevent Ahab from becoming the vassal of Assyria, nor Israel from becoming the appendage of the dominion of that Hazael whom Elisha himself had anointed King of Syria, and who had become of all the enemies of his country the most persistent and the most implacable.
The narrative which follows is very singular. We must give it-as it occurs, with but little apprehension of its exact significance.
Elisha, though Joash “did that which was evil in the sight of the Lord,” seems to have regarded him with affection. He bade the youth take his bow, and laid his feeble, trembling hands on the strong hands of the king.
Then he ordered an attendant to fling open the lattice, and told the king to shoot eastward towards Gilead, the region whence the bands of Syria made their way over the Jordan. The king shot, and the fire came back into the old prophets eye as he heard the arrow whistle eastward. He cried, “The arrow of Jehovahs deliverance, even the arrow of victory over Syria: for thou shalt smite the Syrians in Aphek, till thou have consumed them.” Then he bade the young king to take the sheaf of arrows, and smite towards the ground, as if he was striking down an enemy. Not understanding the significance of the act, the king made the sign of thrice striking the arrows downwards, and then naturally stopped. But Elisha was angry-or at any rate grieved. “You should have smitten five or six times,” he said, “and then you would have smitten Syria to destruction. Now you shall only smite Syria thrice.” The kings fault seems to have been lack of energy and faith.
There are in this story some peculiar elements which it is impossible to explain, but it has one beautiful and striking feature. It tells us of the death – bed of a prophet. Most of Gods greatest prophets have perished amid the hatred of priests and worldlings. The progress of the truth they taught has been “from scaffold to scaffold, and from stake to stake.”
“Careless seems the Great Avenger. Historys pages but record
One death-grapple in the darkness twixt old systems and the Word-
Truth forever on the scaffold, wrong forever on the throne;
Yet that scaffold sways the Future, and behind the dim unknown
Standeth God within the shadow, keeping watch above His own!”
Now and then, however, as an exception, a great prophetic teacher or reformer escapes the hatred of the priests and of the world, and dies in peace. Savonarola is burnt, Huss is burnt, but Wicliff dies in his bed at Lutterworth, and Luther died in peace at Eisleben. Elijah passed away in storm, and was seen no more. A king comes to weep by the death-bed of the aged Elisha. “For us,” it has been said, “the scene at his bedside contains a lesson of comfort and even encouragement. Let us try to realize it. A man with no material power is dying in the capital of Israel. He is not rich: he holds no office which gives him any immediate control over the actions of men; he has but one weapon-the power of his word. Yet Israels king stands weeping at his bedside-weeping because this inspired messenger of Jehovah is to be taken from him. In him both king and people will lose a mighty support, for this man is a greater strength to Israel than chariots and horsemen are. Joash does well to mourn for him, for he has had courage to wake the nations conscience; the might of his personality has sufficed to turn them in the true direction, and rouse their moral and religious life. Such men as Elisha everywhere and always give a strength to their people above the strength of armies, for the true blessings of a nation are reared on the foundations of its moral force.”
The annals are here interrupted to introduce a posthumous miracle-unlike any other in the whole Bible-wrought by the bones of Elisha. He died, and they buried him, “giving him,” as Josephus says, “a magnificent burial.” As usual, the spring brought with it the marauding bands of Moabites. Some Israelites who were burying a man caught sight of them, and, anxious to escape, thrust the man into the sepulcher of Elisha, which happened to be nearest at hand. But when he was placed in the rocky tomb, and touched the bones of Elisha, he revived, and stood up on his feet. Doubtless the story rests on some real circumstance. There is, however, something singular in the turn of the original, which says (literally) that the man went and touched the bones of Elisha; and there is proof that the story was told in varying forms, for Josephus says that it was the Moabite plunderers who had killed the man, and that he was thrown by them into Elishas tomb. It is easy to invent moral and spiritual lessons out of this incident, but not so easy to see what lesson is intended by it. Certainly there is not throughout Scripture any other passage which even seems to sanction any suspicions of magic potency in the relics of the dead.
But Elishas symbolic prophecy of deliverance from Syria was amply fulfilled. About this time Hazael had died, and had left his power in the feebler hands of his son Benhadad III. Jehoahaz had not been able to make any way against him, {2Ki 13:3} but Joash his son thrice met and thrice defeated him at Aphek. As a consequence of these victories, he won back all the cities which Hazael had taken from his father on the west of Jordan. The east of Jordan was never recovered. It fell under the shadow of Assyria, and was practically lost forever to the tribes of Israel.
Whether Assyria lent her help to Joash under certain conditions we do not know. Certain it is that from this time the terror of Syria vanishes. The Assyrian king Rammanirari III about this time subjugated all Syria and its king, whom the tablets call Mari, perhaps the same as Benhadad III. In the next reign Damascus itself fell into the power of Jeroboam II, the son of Joash.
One more event, to which we have already alluded, is narrated in the reign of this prosperous and valiant king.
Amity had reigned for a century between Judah and Israel, the result of the politic-impolitic alliance which Jehoshaphat had sanctioned between his son Jehoram and the daughter of Jezebel. It was obviously most desirable that the two small kingdoms should be united as closely as possible by an offensive and defensive alliance. But the bond between them was broken by the overweening vanity of Amaziah ben-Joash of Judah. His victory over the Edomites, and his conquest of Petra, had puffed him up with the mistaken notion that he was a very great man and an invincible warrior. He had the wicked infatuation to kindle an unprovoked war against the Northern Tribes. It was the most wanton of the many instances in which, if Ephraim did not envy Judah, at least Judah vexed Ephraim. Amaziah challenged Joash to come out to battle, that they might look one another in the face. He had not recognized the difference between fighting with and without the sanction of the God of battles.
Joash had on his hands enough of necessary and internecine war to make him more than indifferent to that bloody game. Moreover, as the superior of Amaziah in every way, he saw through his inflated emptiness. He knew that it was the worst possible policy for Judah and Israel to weaken each other in fratricidal war, while Syria threatened their northern and. eastern frontiers, and while the tread of the mighty march of Assyria was echoing ominously in the ears of the nations from afar. Better and kinder feelings may have mingled with these wise convictions. He had no wish to destroy the poor fool who so vaingloriously provoked his superior might. His answer was one of the most crushingly contemptuous pieces of irony which history records, and yet it was eminently kindly and good-humoured: It was meant to save the King of Judah from advancing any further on the path of certain ruin.
“The thistle that was in Lebanon” (such was the apologue which he addressed to his would-be rival) “sent to the cedar that was in Lebanon, saying: Give thy daughter to my son to wife. The cedar took no sort of notice of the thistles ludicrous presumption, but a wild beast that was in Lebanon passed by, and trod down the thistle.”
It was the answer of a giant to a dwarf; and to make it quite clear to the humblest comprehension, Joash good-naturedly added:
“You are puffed up with your victory over Edom: glory in this, and stay at home. Why by your vain meddling should you ruin yourself and Judah with you? Keep quiet: I have something else to do than to attend to you.”
Happy had it been for Amaziah if he had taken warning! But vanity is a bad counselor, and folly and self-deception-ill-matched pair-were whirling him to his doom. Seeing that he was bent on his own perdition, Joash took the initiative and marched to Beth-Shemesh, in the territory of Judah. There the kings met, and there Amaziah was hopelessly defeated. His troops fled to their scattered homes, and he fell into the hands of his conqueror. Joash did not care to take any sanguinary revenge; but much as he despised his enemy, he thought it necessary to teach him and Judah the permanent lesson of not again meddling to their own hurt.
He took the captive king with him to Jerusalem, which opened its gates without a blow. We do not know whether, like a Roman conqueror, he entered it through the breach of four hundred cubits which he ordered them to make in the walls, but otherwise he contented himself with spoil which would swell his treasure, and amply compensate for the expenses of the expedition which had been forced upon him. He ransacked Jerusalem for silver and gold; he made Obed-Edom, the treasurer, give up to him all the sacred vessels of the Temple, and all that was worth taking from the palace. He also took hostages-probably from among the number of the kings sons-to secure immunity from further intrusions. It is the first time in Scripture that hostages are mentioned. It is to his credit that he shed no blood, and was even content to leave his defeated challenger with the disgraced phantom of his kingly power, till, fifteen years later, he followed his father to the grave through the red path of murder at the hand of his own subjects.
After this we hear no further records of this vigorous and able king, in whom the characteristics of his grandfather Jehu are reflected in softer outline. He left his son Jeroboam II to continue his career of prosperity, and to advance Israel to a pitch of greatness which she had never yet attained, in which she rivaled the grandeur of the united kingdom in the earlier days of Solomons dominion.
Fuente: John Trapp’s Complete Commentary (Old and New Testaments)
Fuente: Companion Bible Notes, Appendices and Graphics
Fuente: Through the Bible Commentary
Fuente: Spurgeon’s Verse Expositions of the Bible
Fuente: Old and New Testaments Restoration Commentary
Fuente: An Exposition on the Whole Bible
Fuente: F.B. Meyer’s Through the Bible Commentary
Fuente: Commentaries on the New Testament and Prophets
Fuente: The Sermon Bible
Fuente: Gaebelein’s Annotated Bible (Commentary)
Fuente: The Treasury of Scripture Knowledge
Fuente: Sutcliffe’s Commentary on the Old and New Testaments
Fuente: Peake’s Commentary on the Bible
Fuente: Grant’s Commentary on the Bible
Fuente: Expository Notes of Dr. Constable (Old and New Testaments)
Fuente: Expositors Bible Commentary