James Nisbet Commentary - 2 King 6:13 - 6:13

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James Nisbet Commentary - 2 King 6:13 - 6:13


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This Chapter Verse Commentaries:

OUR DOTHANS

‘He is in Dothan.’

2Ki_6:13

Elisha was in Dothan at the time of war between Syria and Israel. The Syrians had information of Elisha’s presence, and it seemed a golden opportunity for securing an enemy who was so extremely dangerous to them, for Elisha, as supernaturally informed by his Master of the movements of His people’s enemies, was worth a whole army to the king of Israel. Dothan was so situated that it seemed an easy thing for the Syrians to trap Elisha there. It was a sort of conical mount, on the top of which stood a little fortified town; and granted a sufficient army, in these days before artillery, there was no way in which the people of Dothan might escape. So in the silence of the night the Syrians surrounded Dothan, Elisha apparently asleep in peace, and his young man asleep too; but when he had risen early and gone forth, behold there was a whole camp round the city. The terrible Syrians were there, and the little hill and the town upon it rose up in the midst of the besiegers all around it. It was absolutely cut off. Circumstances, in the form of the Syrians, were most adverse, and the servant, seeing there was no apparent chance of escape, exclaimed, ‘Alas! master, what shall we do?’ Then it was that Elisha answered in those remarkable terms which seemed such an absolute contradiction of facts, ‘They that be with us are more than all that are against us.’

I. Dothan was apparently an exceedingly small place, certainly not a population of warriors.—They were the ordinary people of a little town, and yet Elisha says, apparently referring to the human beings around him, ‘They that are with us are more than that great host in thy sight that are against us’; and then he prayed that the young man’s eyes might be opened, and God would give him second sight. All the while the prophet had been seeing the unseen but real circumstances, and now he prays his young servant-man may see them too; and the young man’s eyes are opened, and what does he see? ‘Behold the mountain was full of horses and chariots of fire round about Elisha.” He had mistaken the nearness of things. He thought the nearest thing (and so to human eyes it appeared) was the awful hostile forces, the merciless Syrian camp, the terrible environment. He had forgotten that there was space and room between them and the town for something else, and at the slopes of the little hill there was another camp, the camp of the embattled spirits of God, the ‘angels that excel in strength, that do His commandments and hearken to the voice of His word’; and for them the command was, ‘Keep absolutely safe My servant and his servant too.’

We need not follow the story into its sequel; it is a remarkable one. What is the Lord’s message to us, for discouragements and fears, for the terrors about circumstances that may arise daily, in this message of Dothan—the seen enemies and the unseen friends, the seen siege and the absolutely unseen but infinitely stronger and victoriously prevailing defence? There is not a shadow of a doubt the Spirit of God dictated the insertion of this particular incident, that we might take its message home for the soul and its need, for the heart and its besiegers.

II. First, then, we have the siege.—There is always a threefold unholy alliance combined against us, and its forces are always in the field—the world, the flesh, and the devil. The world—in circumstances that seem adverse to God; the flesh—all that belongs to the life of self; and the devil—the great unseen general and manager and director of the forces of evil; an awfully real personality, and the head of a whole world of personal wills that are against our souls, that mean them unmitigated harm, that intend their ruin, and that have an awful experience of long ages of action against us to show them what to do.

How much circumstances mean to every human being that has life to live! Think of some one converted to God in the slums of a city, where all the public opinion is utterly against everything we mean by God and good. Take a less extreme case, the heart that has just been awakened to the depth of its need, and to the unspeakable necessity of the Lord Jesus Christ. It is, we will suppose, the heart of a son or daughter of a well-ordered home, in which, nevertheless, it would be idle to expect positive spiritual help. Many a heart that thinks itself unfavourably placed owes a great deal of its unfavourableness to its own fault. Don’t let us think, when we have misrepresented religion by our own spirit and conduct, that therefore all these things are against us. They may be only against our own wrongfulness of spirit, and temper, and our exquisite unwisdom of action. Still there comes in a service where all looks easy, and yet there may be difficulties for the heart that wants simply and fully to follow the Lord Jesus Christ.

Now we leave all these to be interpreted by each one, according to what we know of ourselves and those dear to us, as the counterpart of the Syrians of Dothan. We are not thinking so much of persons as of conditions. It is not this or that person, it is the indefinable tone of society that may have to be met, and you are infinitely conscious of what seems to you great weakness of character to resist, great weakness of will and purpose of standing out under these conditions. You have been trying and have failed. ‘Alas! my master, how shall we do?’ I know not which most to deplore—my weakness in this miserable Dothan, or the might and power of the forces against my soul, the circumstances around me, the treacherous self within me, and the knowledge that behind it all are the unseen foes. Is it not a hopeless thing? Shall we not walk out of Dothan and surrender to the Syrians at discretion, and thus have done with a hopeless war? Dear friends, there are souls that have done so, they have discovered their awful weakness without discovering a greater power, and have surrendered at discretion to the Syrians.

III. But now the blessed Word of God comes to give us the second sight.—Faith in the Word of God is the second sight of the Gospel. We walk by faith, not by sight; and faith, taking God at His word, is as a second sight to the soul. And what the Word now says to faith is this: ‘Fear not, discouraged heart—defeated will, disappointed life, tired out with disappointment in your own strength—fear not; that which is with you is immeasurably greater than that which is with them.’ You remember, St. Paul was once in Dothan—I don’t mean geographically but spiritually—when the ‘thorn in the flesh,’ the ‘messenger of Satan,’ brought him to the very verge of despair as to how he was to hold out. As the young man went to Elisha, so St. Paul went to his Lord, with very much the same feeling. ‘Alas, Master and Lord, what shall I do?’ There is nothing for it but flight. ‘I beseech Thee, I beseech Thee, I beseech Thee (you remember it was three times), let this depart from me!’ and then the Lord Jesus opened his eyes that he might see; and he saw something better than horses and chariots of fire, which were but the figures or symbols of the presence. He just told him, ‘My grace is enough for thee.’ That was illumination, that was second sight, that was the hill full of the hosts of God, and the man in that Dothan, whose walls were helpless to keep out the dead weight of the forces which seemed ready to come up against them, was able to keep his place there, gladly, confidently. He no longer wanted to fly. Why should he either fly or yield? His grace is enough! There are circumstances in the shape of the thorn in the flesh, the messenger of Satan too strong for me, but here is an inner circle within the circumstances around me. This is not a picture, this is not mere imagery—you know, in Jesus Christ, it is fact. Our failures are all our own, our victory is altogether in our Lord.

Bishop H. C. G. Moule.

Illustrations

(1) ‘In Elisha’s case the unseen agencies belonged to what we commonly call Providence. That is, they were concerned about the safety of one of God’s servants; they protected Elisha from danger; they made him secure amidst a thousand enemies; they made him calm for suffering and brave for action, as knowing himself “immortal till his work was done.” Was it only of Elisha that these things were written? Was it only for Elisha that these things were done? Surely we have here the very same revelation of the care of God for His people, which is expressed also, in general, in the thirty-fourth Psalm, “The angel of the Lord encampeth round about them that fear Him, and delivereth them.’ Oh, if our eyes were opened, like those of this young man, what a scene would be discovered in this one aspect!’

(2) ‘If God be on our side, fighting for us, we need not fear what man can do. No one can stand against God; no hosts of evil can do aught if God is fighting our battles for us. Some one once expressed to President Lincoln the hope that the Lord was on the side of the country. The good man replied that that gave him no anxiety whatever—his only care was to know that he and the people were on God’s side. We need to make sure of this; then all will be well. The way to have God with us is to keep near to Him.’