Bible Commentaries
2 Kings 13

Verses 13-21

IX

ELISHA, THE SUCCESSOR OF ELIJAH

2 Kings 2:13-13:21; 2 Chronicles 21:1-20

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 is 2 Kings 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 Acts 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 is 1 Kings 19:16 to 2 Kings 13:21. Elisha means, "God the Saviour." The Greek form is Elisaios; we find it in the Greek text of Luke 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): 2 Kings 2:14 tells us that he divided the Jordan with the mantle of Elijah; 2 Kings 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 2 Kings 2:23, his sending of the she-bears (referred to above) ; the fourth is recorded in 2 Kings 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 2 Kings 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 2 Kings 4:8-37, first the giving and then the restoring to life of the son of the Shunamite. The seventh is given in 2 Kings 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 2 Kings 5:1-4, the multiplying of the twenty loaves so as to feed 100 men. The ninth, 2 Kings 5:1-4, the healing of Naaman’s leprosy, and the tenth, 2 Kings 5:26-27, the inflicting on Gehazi the leprosy of which Naaman was healed.

The eleventh miracle is found in 2 Kings 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, 2 Kings 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, 2 Kings 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, 2 Kings 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, 2 Kings 8:2-6, the foreseeing and foretelling of the seven years of famine.

Seventeenth, 2 Kings 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, 2 Kings 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 Acts 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 Acts 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 1 Kings 22:47-49, and second, in 2 Chronicles 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 1 Kings 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, 1 Kings 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.

Then1 Kings 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.

1 Kings 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, 2 Kings 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, 2 Kings 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, 2 Kings 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 (Leviticus 25:39-41; see allusion, Matthew 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, 2 Kings 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 – Genesis 1, 2, 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 (2 Kings 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" (2 Kings 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, 2 Kings 22; 2 Chronicles 20, answer:

1. Where is Tarshish?

2. Where is Ophir?

3. Where is Ezion-geber?

4. What is the relevance of 1 Kings 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 (2 Kings 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 (2 Kings 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"?

XIII

FROM THE RISE OF JEHU TO THE REIGN OF JEHOASH AND THE CORRESPONDING HISTORY OF JUDAH

2 Kings 10:18-13:9; 2 Chronicles 22:9-24:24.

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 2 Kings 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.

Verses 10-29

XIV

THE REIGNS OF JEHOASH AND JEROBOAM (OF ISRAEL) AND OF AMAZIAH AND UZZIAH (OF JUDAH)

2 Kings 13:10-14:29; 2 Chronicles 24:25-26:15

Jehoahaz was followed by Jehoash his son who was a better man and an abler man and more successful. He had great encouragement from Elisha to fight with Syria and to redeem his kingdom from the iron grasp of Benhadad. Jehoash was encouraged at the outset. Elisha told him to shoot his arrows against Syria, and three times he smote upon the ground. The prophecy came true. Three times Jehoash smote the Syrian army and recovered the cities taken from his father by Benhadad. In the meanwhile Syria and Damascus had been assaulted by Assyria and were brought almost to the verge of extinction. Assyrian annals tell how the king of Assyria took Damascus and almost destroyed it, and it was largely because Syria was thus weakened by Assyria that Jehoash was able to recover and relieve Israel from its oppression.

Amaziah succeeded Joash on the throne of Judah. His character is described as one who was wicked and lazy, though he was better than the general run of the northern kings. His policy was to destroy the servants who killed his father, but he spared their children in accordance with the positive prohibition found in Deuteronomy 24:16. Here arises a question of the morality of the killing of Achan’s sons, Naboth’s sons and Ahab’s sons. Two causes operated in favor of the exception to this prohibition: (1) the sons were apt to be accessories to the crimes of their fathers and thus incriminate themselves; and (2) the “blood feud” that was to follow. Then we should consider these cases either under the direct command of God or in the hands of Oriental monarchs.

In 2 Kings 13:20-21, we have recorded the last miracle of Elisha, viz: that in his tomb. This occurred, perhaps, to give special light to the heathen, a testimony to the power of the God of Israel, and to encourage the king and the people with respect to Elisha’s unfulfilled prophecies. Close upon this follows the account of the fulfilment of Elisha’s dying prophecy and Joash’s success over Benhadad (2 Kings 13:23-25). In this we note that, notwithstanding the sins of Israel, God gave them victory over Syria for the sake of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob; that the "as yet" shows his mercy still extended to Israel; that Hazael, king of Syria) died, and that Benhadad III, his son, reigned in his stead.

We will find that Amaziah in the latter part of his reign committed a very grievous and particular sin that brought a host of evil consequences. The sin committed by him was that, when he proposed to wage war against Edom lying south of his territory, he hired a hundred thousand mercenary soldiers of the Northern Kingdom to aid him in the war, and when an unnamed prophet of God comes and rebukes him, he says, "If I don’t take these men now that I have paid for them, I will lose my hundred talents of money." The prophet replied, "The Lord can give you more than that." So he yielded to the protest of the prophet and rejected the services of the men – a hundred thousand – whom he had already paid for. That of course made the mercenaries very mad. They were not only buoyed up with the hope of their pay but the hope of capturing a great deal of booty in the war, and when they were not permitted to go to the war, on their return home they swept all that part of Judah that lay between them and their own land as dry as if a fire had passed over it. Now Amaziah having committed the sin, first, of relying upon the mercenaries instead of relying upon Jehovah, committed a second sin by importing the gods of Edom for which a prophet rebuked him, and he made him forbear. Stirred up in his mind by these degradations that had been committed upon his people by the hundred thousand mercenaries on their way home and the prophet’s rebuke, without consulting God or any prophet he sends a braggadocio challenge to the king of Israel, and says, "Come, set your face up before mine," and the king of Israel replied, "Why should you make this challenge? It will likely prove to be very disastrous to you." Well, Amaziah shook his fist at him and told him to come on and set his face up, and he did come and set his face up, and he wiped the army of Amaziah off the face of the earth in the great battle that followed, and Judah was sorely straightened by that defeat; even Jerusalem was captured, her walls broken down, and all her vast treasures plundered and carried away. All this indicates that Jehoash was one of the most fortunate, most successful, most able, and most kind and benevolent rulers northern Israel ever had, but at the same time southern Israel had a foolish king.

Jehoash was succeeded by Jeroboam II, Jehoash had saved his country from the terrible oppression of Syria, had conquered Judah, had obtained enormous spoils which almost set the kingdom again upon its feet) and ushered in a period of prosperity. He was followed by his grandson Jeroboam il, the greatest of all the monarchs of northern Israel. Jeroboam II was the most successful of all, for in his day nearly all of northern Israel that had previously belonged to Solomon’s kingdom was recovered and he reigned to the north as far as Hamath and to the south all the land of the Jordan and reconquered the land on the east side of the Jordan. The kingdom was at the height of its prosperity under Jeroboam II.

There have been four kings of the dynasty of Jehu, and only in the latter part of the reign of the third king, Jehoash, has Israel in any way succeeded in loosing herself from the bonds of oppression at the hand of Syria. The record says, "The Lord gave Israel a saviour, so that they went out from under the hands of the Syrians: and the children of Israel dwelt in their tents as before time." Who was that saviour? Some think probably it was Jehoash, the preceding king and father of Jeroboam II, who was the means of a threefold defeat of the Syrian army. But it may be interpreted as referring to Jeroboam II, the greatest of all the northern kings, who freed his country entirely from the dominion of Syria. Price in The Monuments and the Old Testament, thinks it refers to an Assyrian king, Adad Nirari, who at about this time made an onslaught on the kingdom of Syria and especially the city of Damascus and almost totally destroyed it. In that case he was indeed saviour, in that he destroyed the country that was oppressing Israel. The dynasty of Jehu lasted altogether about 102 years and in that time there were five kings. Jeroboam II is the fourth and greatest of all. He reigned forty-one years, the longest reign in the history of the Northern Kingdom.

In 2 Kings 14:25 reference is made to Jonah the son of Amittai, the prophet which was of Gathhepher. This is the time in which Jonah the prophet lived. About this time he made his strange expedition to Nineveh the capital of Assyria, and preached there. He had doubtless preached in northern Israel also. At this time arises also a greater prophet, Amos, and in the pictures which Amos gives we have a vivid and lurid representation of the sins of northern Israel. So the reign of Jeroboam II, though the most glorious in the history of northern Israel, was attended by these two great prophets who pronounced the inevitable and irretrievable doom of the nation. Just as this time occurred the death of Amaziah at the hand of his conspirators and Uzziah his son succeeded him. But according to some authorities there was an interregnum between Uzziah and Amaziah. This conclusion is based upon the following facts as given in the record: First, it says that Amaziah died and that he had reigned fifteen years before Jeroboam II, king of Israel. Kings and Chronicles both say that he reigned twenty-nine years in all and that the last fifteen years of the twenty-nine was contemporaneous with the reign of Jeroboam II. In other words, he died in the fifteenth year of Jeroboam, but 2 Kings 15:1 says that Uzziah his successor did not begin to reign until the twenty-seventh year of Jeroboam, so if both statements be correct then Judah had no king from the fifteenth year of Jeroboam to the twenty-seventh year of Jeroboam, a period of at least eleven years and possibly twelve. The whole question turns on the accuracy of the text in 2 Kings 15:1 where it says that Uzziah began to reign in the twenty-seventh year of Jeroboam. Now, if we accept that text as accurate, then there was an interregnum of eleven years. Josephus does not accept it. He says the number is wrong; that it ought to be in the fourteenth year instead of the twenty-seventh year of Jeroboam. But it is quite easy to accept this text, not question it at all, and then we account for that interregnum of eleven years by the extreme youth of Uzziah when Amaziah died. He was only five years old when Amaziah died. They seem to have deferred making him king until he was sixteen. In other words, there was a regency for that period of eleven years. Now, that is the only chronological difficulty in the whole period and it is not a very serious one.

Amaziah’s son, Uzziah, at a very tender age became king and he reigned fifty-two years. That is a long period, over half a century. The record about it is very fine on a number of points. While he did not destroy the high places, he did walk in the ways of David so far as relates to the worship of Jehovah in the appointed place in the Temple. He was a great builder of fortifications and towns and cities. One thing said about him constitutes a fine text: He loved husbandry. In his wars he had conquered a fine section of country, very fruitful, all the Philistine country clear on to the entrance of Egypt and that Negeb, or south country, from the days of Isaac was remarkable for the yield of its crops. It is said of Isaac that he reaped a hundredfold, i.e., if he sowed one bushel of wheat, he would reap a hundred bushels from that one. Uzziah devoted a great deal of attention to matters of that kind. He was very successful in his wars, not only against Philistia but against the Arabians and against the Ammonites. He became exalted in his power.

In 2 Kings 14:28-29 we have a summary of the reign of Jeroboam and an account of his death. The condition of Syria during the reign of Jeroboam II was one of weakness and consequent inactivity. The great kings had come and gone, and some weak monarchs sat on the throne which had been almost crushed by Assyria, and was in no position to oppress Israel. This gave Jeroboam II his opportunity. Being a great man, an able general and administrator he carried the boundaries of northern Israel almost as far north as David and Solomon had done, capturing all the northern part that had been taken by Syria. He retook all eastern Palestine as far as the land of Moab, and likewise he recaptured the land of Moab that had revolted and freed itself from the dynasty of Omri. The extent of his kingdom was almost as great as that of David’s with the exception, of course) of southern Israel, and with this great extension of his kingdom there was a great influx of wealth and prosperity. The depression of the three reigns preceding was followed by an abundance of prosperity and the result was a corresponding excess of luxury and sin. Their prosperity produced all the evils of civilization, and they went to excess with it. Jeroboam died and after an interregnum of twenty-two years, was succeeded by his son Zechariah. This interregnum is determined by comparing 2 Kings 14:23 and 2 Kings 15:1-2; 2 Kings 15:8.

QUESTIONS

1. What was the character of Jehoash?

2. What was Elisha’s encouraging prophecy on his deathbed, and what incidents of its delivery?

3. Who succeeded Joash and what was his character?

4. What was his policy, and where in the book of Moses is found the statement which occurs in 2 Kings 14:6 and 2 Chronicles 25:4, and how do you harmonize this passage in Deuteronomy with the killing of Achan’s sons, Naboth’s sons, and Ahab’s sons?

5. What was the last miracle of Elisha and why this miracle?

6. Notwithstanding the sins of Israel what the Lord’s dealings with them and why, what change occurred just at this time in Syria, and what prophecy of Elisha was here fulfilled?

7. What were Amaziah’s plans against Edom, what was the result of each step taken and what can you say of the cruelty of Judah?

8. How did the Israelitish mercenaries deport themselves when sent back?

9. What was Amaziah’s further wickedness, what was his warning and how did he receive it?

10. Recite the account of the war between Amaziah and Jehoash, and what was the parable of Jehoash and its application, what was the result and what is the modern name of stealing?

11. Who succeeded Jehoash and what was his character?

12. What were the possibilities of Jeroboam II, and what did he accomplish for Israel?

13. What prophet comes in here, what was his commission and how did he receive and discharge it?

14. Give an account of the death of Amaziah.

15. What of the interregnum in Judah here and how does the author determine it?

16. Uzziah – what was his other name, how was he made king, how long his reign, and how does it compare with the reigns of others?

17. What of his character and prosperity and wherein did he fail?

18. During his prosperous years what (1) of his building of Eloth, (2) of his success of war, (3) of his building and husbandry, (4) of his army, (5) of his fame?

19. Give an account of the death of Jeroboam II.

20. What of the interregnum here in Israel and how determined by the author?