Podcast 84 Story if Elisha, “Pt 10”

Modern readers are often shocked when reading ancient texts. For one thing they are shocked at how little human life is regarded. For another they are shocked at the brutality. and for another they are shocked at the extremes people are willing to go to survive. Some Old Testament stories reveal that extremism. The following miracle of Elisha is peculiar from start to finish.

2 Kings 6:34-35

And it came to pass after this, that Ben-hadad king of Syria gathered all his host, and went up, and besieged Samaria. And there was a great famine in Samaria: and, behold, they besieged it, until an ass’s head was sold for fourscore pieces of silver, and the fourth part of a cab of dove’s dung for five pieces of silver.

The approximate year of the above is 852 BC -841 BC. Samaria is the capital of Israel or Ephraim. The siege of the Syrians is causing the famine.

The costs quoted above are astronomical. Eighty pieces of silver is $600 or more, meaning most were starving. The food listed could hardly be more undesirable which adds to the seriousness of the famine.

But nothing could be more heartbreaking than the following story. It is simply unimaginable.

2 Kings 6:26-29

And as the king of Israel was passing by upon the wall, there cried a woman unto him, saying, Help, my lord, O king. And he said, If the Lord do not help thee, whence shall I help thee? out of the barnfloor, or out of the winepress? And the king said unto her, What aileth thee? And she answered, This woman said unto me, Give thy son, that we may eat him to day, and we will eat my son tomorrow. So we boiled my son, and did eat him: and I said unto her on the next day, Give thy son, that we may eat him: and she hath hid her son.

The king is not shocked by the infanticide and cannibalism of the heartless mothers, nor does his anger turn against the true enemy, Syria. Neither does he turn toward the Lord for the things that are happening to his own country are because his wickedness. Rather than repent, wearing sackcloth and ashes before God and seeking the Lord’s prophet for help, Jehoram, King of Israel, immediately wants to murder Elisha, the one Man of God who could save him. That shows his own depravity.

2 Kings 6:30-31

And it came to pass, when the king heard the words of the woman, that he rent his clothes; and he passed by upon the wall, and the people looked, and, behold, he had sackcloth within upon his flesh. Then he said, God do so and more also to me, if the head of Elisha the son of Shaphat shall stand on him this day.

The prophet Elisha, like his mentor Elijah, is unmoved by the King’s threats.

2 Kings 6:32-33

But Elisha sat in his house, and the elders sat with him; and the king sent a man from before him: but ere the messenger came to him, he said to the elders, See ye how this son of a murderer hath sent to take away mine head? look, when the messenger cometh, shut the door, and hold him fast at the door: is not the sound of his master’s feet behind him? And while he yet talked with them, behold, the messenger came down unto him: and he said, Behold, this evil is of the Lord; what should I wait for the Lord any longer?

Notice that Elisha refers to Jehoram as the “son of a murder.” Jehoram’s father was Ahab, an idol worshiper and mass murderer for he murdered the prophets. His wife, and mother of Jehoram, was Jezebel, a Phoenician Princess and Idol worshiper. Both came to an early and violent death. Jezebel was thrown out of a window, her body eaten by dogs.

Elisha’s answer to the messenger contains both the promise of a miracle and the forecast of the messenger’s own death.