"Now Elisha had been suffering from the illness from which he died. Jehoash king of Israel went down to see him and wept over him. 'My father! My father!' he cried. 'The chariots and horsemen of Israel!'" (2 Kings 13:14) Based on the length of the reigns of the kings of Israel from the time Elisha was called to be a prophet until the time he passes away, about sixty years have gone by. If we knew how old Elisha was when he answered the Lord's calling on his life, we would know his approximate age now, but I think we can come up with a ballpark figure. When the prophet Elijah stopped by Elisha's home to throw his prophet's mantle across him as Elisha plowed his father's fields and supervised servants doing the same, Elisha was old enough to be performing the work of a responsible and dependable grown man. But he was young enough to still be unmarried. My guess is that he was somewhere between the ages of eighteen and twenty-five when he said goodbye to his parents to be the apprentice of the prophet Elijah. This would make him anywhere from seventy-eight to eighty-five years old at the time of his death, although I do want to point out that some scholars suggest he could have been as old as ninety when he died.
Elisha has lived a long life. He has served the Lord and ministered to the nation of Israel for six decades. He is now terminally ill and upon hearing this news the king goes to his house to visit him. The king is grief-stricken by the prophet's imminent death because even though he doesn't worship the Lord in the place and in the manner the Lord commanded, he has not forsaken the Lord for false gods as some of his predecessors did. He appears to hold the Lord's prophet in high esteem and he weeps at his bedside, calling him "father" and quoting the same words of distress that Elisha himself spoke at the scene of Elijah's departure.
When the Lord took the prophet Elijah from the earth in a whirlwind, Elisha was present to observe him being caught up to heaven. The author of 2 Kings told us, "As they were walking along and talking together, suddenly a chariot of fire and horses of fire appeared and separated the two of them, and Elijah went up to heaven in a whirlwind. Elisha saw this and cried out, 'My father! My father! The chariots and horsemen of Israel!'" (2 Kings 2:11-12a) I believe King Jehoash quotes Elisha's own words to demonstrate his deep distress to the prophet. Just as Elisha was extremely saddened to see Elijah taken from the earth, the king is very grieved to know that Elisha will soon depart from the earth.
The nation of Israel has been severely oppressed by the nation of Aram during King Jehoash's reign and during the reign of Jehoash's father, Jehoahaz. It could be that Jehoash fears there is no hope of defeating this oppressive enemy with the counsel of Elisha. Elisha wants to give him words of encouragement that the situation will improve. Elisha's intention may also be to remind the king that the Lord is Israel's helper and that He is able to give victory whether or not Elisha is still on the earth. The king is to place his trust in the Lord, not on a man. Elisha gives the king something to do that is intended to symbolize victory.
"Elisha said, 'Get a bow and some arrows,' and he did so. 'Take the bow in your hands,' he said to the king of Israel. When he had taken it, Elisha put his hands on the king's hands. 'Open the east window,' he said, and he opened it. 'Shoot!' Elisha said, and he shot. 'The Lord's arrow of victory, the arrow of victory over Aram!' Elisha declared. 'You will completely destroy the Arameans at Aphek.'" (2 Kings 13:15-17) The east window looked toward the region of Aram. Aphek is the location where the late King Ahab won a great victory against the Arameans. But since the day of Ahab's victory the Arameans have taken control of many cities and towns of Israel in the east and have subjugated the people there, as we learned earlier in our study of the Jehu Dynasty of Israel. Elisha is assuring the king that the situation in the east won't always be the way it is now.
King Ahab's victory over the Arameans was very decisive, culminating in the capture of the Aramean king, Ben-Hadad. But contrary to the Lord's instructions, Ahab did not put Ben-Hadad to death. Instead he made a treaty with him---a treaty whose terms Ben-Hadad didn't even fully satisfy, for he refused to return to Israel some of the cities his late father had captured. If Ahab had done what he should have done, the Israelites would not now be suffering oppression from the Arameans. But the kings of the Jehu Dynasty have an opportunity to finish the job that Ahab should have finished. Finishing the job, however, is going to take faith. Sadly, it takes more faith than King Jehoash will demonstrate in today's text.
The prophet Elisha instructs Jehoash to perform another action intended to symbolize Israel's victory over Aram. "Then he said, 'Take the arrows,' and the king took them. Elisha told him, 'Strike the ground.' He struck it three times and stopped. The man of God was angry with him and said, 'You should have struck the ground five or six times; then you would have defeated Aram and completely destroyed it. But now you will defeat it only three times.'" (2 Kings 13:18-19) The words "strike the ground" create the mental picture of Jehoash taking an arrow in his hand and hitting the ground with the pointed end three times. But according to most of the background material I studied for our session today, scholars believe the prophet was telling Jehoash to shoot the arrows into the ground with the bow. This is intended to represent the Israelites militarily driving the Arameans into the ground. The prophet's frustration toward the king indicates that Jehoash is well aware of what the shooting of the arrows represents and that by only shooting three times Jehoash has failed to display the amount of emotion he should be feeling when performing an action that symbolizes defeating a powerful enemy. Jehoash is lacking in passion. Jehoash is lacking in faith. His desire to defeat the oppressor of his people should have been so great that to indicate this desire he would have kept shooting arrows until he ran out of arrows.
Elisha is indignant because he knows unbelief blocks blessings. The king's low level of faith will prevent him from receiving all the blessings the Lord wants to give him. The nation won't receive the full deliverance the Lord would like to provide because the king and many of the people are living mediocre spiritual lives. Jehoash and the people have been only partially obedient to the Lord and as a result they will receive only a portion of all that could have been theirs.
I am certain I have missed out on the full measure of the Lord's blessing at times. Even right now I'm having trouble looking ahead with hope. I've been praying the prayer of a man who wanted to believe the Lord would answer his prayer but who, at the same time, was struggling to believe it: "I do believe; help me overcome my unbelief!" (Mark 9:24) It's possible to believe and to harbor unbelief at the same time. It's possible to believe that the Lord is able to do great things while at the same time not being certain He will. It's possible to feel confident that He will answer the prayers of others while not feeling assured He will answer our prayers. It's at those times that we must pray, "Lord, I want to believe and I do believe but at the same time I'm struggling with unbelief. Please heal me of my unbelief! Please increase my faith so I can receive all the beautiful blessings You want to give me!"
The author of 2 Kings concludes today's segment by saying, "Elisha died and was buried." (2 Kings 13:20a) In tomorrow's study we will study a miracle involving the bones of Elisha and then we will conclude our study of King Jehoash when he passes away and is laid to rest.
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