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2Ki_2:18-25
Formerly, and perhaps in consequence of the curse pronounced on the place by Joshua, the waters were wholly unfit for domestic purposes or for irrigation, by reason of their unwholesomeness or bitterness. But the evil was miraculously healed by Elisha, and the waters brought into their present wholesome state. Jericho was the first place he reached after he had crossed the Jordan; and it was probably the extraordinary miracle by which he passed it that suggested to the people that he had power over the waters, and might remove the disadvantage which rendered what would otherwise be a most pleasant place scarcely habitable—there being perhaps no water available in dry weather but such as might be preserved in cisterns, or brought from the inconveniently distant Jordan. So a deputation of the inhabitants waited upon the prophet, respectfully drawing his attention to the case. He heard them, and desired them to bring him a new dish. In the original the word indicates a kind of dish used in cooking or serving up victuals—which may be noted as of itself a suggestive indication that the waters were to be made potable. And it was new—the more to illustrate the intended miracle, by making it evident that there was nothing in the vessel, or adhering to it from previous use, which possessed any curative power. He also told them to put salt into the vessel. So far from in any way contributing to the intended result, the salt might be supposed rather to increase the evil—water charged with salt being unfit for use, and unfriendly to vegetable life. No people knew this better than the inhabitants, living, as they did, within ken of the Salt Sea; and being well, therefore, acquainted with the effects of salt in water. It was probably for this reason that the salt was chosen—that the effect might be produced not only by agencies not in any way contributing to the result, but naturally contrary to it. This was, therefore, what the Jews call a miracle within a miracle. Thus furnished, Elisha forthwith proceeded to the spring—attended, doubtless, by a large concourse of people; and there he cast in the salt, saying, in the fulness of faith, and in language well suited to direct attention from himself as the agent to the Lord as the author of the miracle—“Thus saith the Lord, I have healed these waters: there shall not be from thence any more death or barren land.” And so it came to pass, to the great joy of the people, who could not but see the entirely miraculous nature of the transaction, not only in the agency employed, but in the fact that no human act could have had any permanent effect upon the water. The effect of whatever human resource or knowledge could have done, must have passed off before the day closed, as the water then in the basin and the channel became mixed with that which rose freshly from the spring. It is surely impossible for human art by any one act to produce an abiding effect upon running water.
Soon after this the prophet went to Bethel. This, it will be recollected, was a seat of the worship of one of Jeroboam’s golden calves—the inhabitants of which were therefore doubtless very corrupt in their religious notions and services. The reception which the prophet met with confirms the impression. He was assailed by a rabble of young blackguards with cries of “Go up, thou bald-head! go up, thou bald-head!” And how did the prophet meet this rude assault, from what the reader takes from the narrative to have been a gang of unmannerly boys? He turned and cursed them—nothing less—cursed them in the name of the Lord; and forthwith came two she-bears—perhaps robbed of their whelps—and tore forty-and-two of them. We dare say there are few young readers, or indeed old ones, of this passage in the Bible, who do not think the prophet was terribly severe; and that, although the “children” deserved a good whipping or something of that sort for their impudence, it was going rather too far to punish them with death. But, in the first place, he did not do so. He “cursed them”—and that not from personal resentment, but under a divine impulse, without which, we will venture to say, no prophet ever dared to pronounce a curse. He cursed, and that was all. He did not punish. He left it to the Lord to determine and inflict the measure of punishment; and that the Lord judged the crime worthy of death, requires us to look more closely into its nature.
In the first place, we are to take the children not as mere thoughtless boys, scarcely knowing what they were about, but as young men acting from a strong animus against the prophet for his works’ sake, and with a full meaning to insult and discourage him at the commencement of his career. The Hebrew word here employed to describe them (naarim, singular naar), no doubt does denote even an infant, and a mere child; but also does as frequently denote grown-up lads, youths, and young men, and is often used, irrespective of age, in application to servants and soldiers. In fact its use is more extensive than ours of the term “boy,” though that is very wide, and more nearly corresponds to the Irish use of the same word “boy,” or “gorsoon,” or the French of “garçon.” We need only to point out a few passages to show this. The term is applied to Ishmael when he was about fourteen years old; Note: Gen_21:16. to Isaac when he was grown up to a young man; Note: Gen_22:12. Hamor of Shechem, when of marriageable age, and probably not less than twenty years old; Note: Gen_34:20. to Joseph when he was seventeen; Note: Gen_37:2. to Gideon’s son Jether, when old enough to be ordered to slay two kings; Note: Jdg_8:20. to Solomon after he had become king; Note: 1Ki_3:7. to the four hundred Amalekites who escaped on camels; Note: 1Sa_30:17. to Elisha’s servant Gehazi; Note: 2Ki_4:12. to the son of the prophets who anointed Jehu; Note: 2Ki_9:4. to the two hundred and thirty-two attendants of the princes of the provinces who went out against Benhadad; Note: 1Ki_20:15. to the soldiers of the Assyrian king; Note: 2Ki_19:6. and in other places too numerous to cite. In all these cases, though differently translated according to the apparent meaning of the sacred writer—by child, lad, young man, servant—the word is but one in the original, and is the same which is here employed to express “children.”
But it will be said those designated here are not only children, but “little children.” Even so; but in one of the instances just cited, Solomon calls himself “a little child” when certainly a young man; and we wish to point attention to the fact, which we have never seen noticed, that although those who came out against the prophet are called “little children,” the “little” is dropped where the forty-two who are slain are mentioned. Even the word for “children” is then changed to another (jeladim, singular jelad); and although that word is of nearly synonymous use and application with the other, Note: Lamech applies it to the person he had slain, whom he also calls “a man,” Gen_4:23. It is also applied to Joseph when seventeen (equally with the other term), Gen_37:30; Gen_42:22; to the “young men” who were brought up with Rehoboam, who was forty years old, 1Ki_12:8; 1Ki_12:10; to Daniel and the pious youths his companions, Dan_1:4; Dan_1:10, etc. the change, with the dropping of the word “little,” is probably intended to mark the distinction. Wherever there is a mob of idle young men, there is sure to be a number of mischievous urchins, who shout and bawl, as they do, without knowing much of the matter. Although, therefore, there were no doubt little children among this rabble of young Bethelites, there is every reason to suppose that the forty-two of them who were destroyed were the oldest ones, the ringleaders of the set, and who very well knew what they were about. It is worthy of note here, that the Jews have long considered a father responsible for the sins of his sons while they are under thirteen years of age, after which they become accountable for themselves. There is a ceremony, wherein the father publicly in the congregation transfers to his son, when he attains that age, the responsibility he has hitherto borne for him. This notion is old. We trace it in Joh_9:23, where the parents decline to answer for their son, on the ground that he has reached the age of personal responsibility, and can answer for himself. If this idea was as old as the time of Elisha—and it probably was, though the age may then have been later—it supplies a fresh argument to show that the youngest of those destroyed was not under the age to which personal responsibility was fixed by the Jews themselves—the Bethelites among the rest.
Observe further, that these youths were not accidentally encountered: they did not happen to be at their sports outside the town when the prophet passed; but they “came out” of malice prepense “to meet” and insult him. Such a purpose against the prophet must have been the result of their ungodly training in that evil place, and must have had its root in the sneers and sarcasms which they had all their lives heard leveled at the name and acts of Elijah. Him, surrounded as he was with terrors, they would not have dared thus to insult and abuse; but from his comparatively meek and gentle successor, whom they had never hitherto seen in any position of authority, they thought there was nothing to apprehend, and that they could with impunity pour out the blackness of their hearts upon him. They had heard that Elijah had been taken up to heaven, and they believed it; but instead of being suitably impressed by it, they regarded it as a fine new subject of derision—telling the disciple to “go up” after his master, and then they should be well rid of both. To this they added the ignominious term of “baldhead,” which was one of great indignity with the Israelites—baldness being usually seen among them as the effect of the loathsome disease of leprosy. It was a term of contempt, equivalent to calling him a mean and unworthy fellow—a social outcast. In this sense it is still used as a term of abuse in the further East (India, etc.), and is often applied as such to men who have ample heads of hair. In western Asia, where men shave their heads, the term is not now known as one of reproach.
The offence, involving as it did a blasphemous insult upon one of the Lord’s most signal acts, made a near approach to what in the New Testament is called the sin against the Holy Ghost. It became the Lord to vindicate his own honor among a people governed by sensible dispensations of judgments and of mercy; and it became him to vindicate the character and authority of his anointed prophet at the outset of his high career.