CRITICAL AND EXPLANATORY NOTES.—
2 Kings 13:14. Elisha was fallen sick—The prophet’s presence was felt by Joash to be a guarantee of the safety of his kingdom, and he dreaded to lose him, fearing that after the prophet’s death he must again confront the destructive Syrians, and therefore cries, My father! my father! the chariot of Israel and the horsemen thereof! It implies the king’s conviction that this man of God had been, by his counsels and prayers, the secret of Israel’s valour and victories.
2 Kings 13:17. The arrow of the Lord’s deliverance, &c.—War was then significantly proclaimed by an arrow or war-missel being shot into the enemy’s country. By the prophet’s putting his hands upon the king’s hands (2 Kings 13:16) he indicated the supernatural power which would go with the king in his invasion of Syria. The Syrians had established themselves in the East, therefore the arrow was shot Eastward (2 Kings 13:17).
2 Kings 13:18. Smite upon the ground—As a symbolic act of subjugation. The king did not use up all the arrows in the quiver. Why? Perhaps because he obeyed the theory that what was done thrice was done efficiently and absolutely; or, possibly, because he lacked in persistency. The latter; for Elisha’s command, “Take the arrow; smite!” implies with all the arrows; but he stopped on his own accord. A bad omen.
2 Kings 13:19. The man of God was wroth with him—For the king thereby predicted his incomplete conquest.
HOMILETICS OF 2 Kings 13:14-19
SALVATION THE ALL-ABSORBING THEME OF A TRUE PROPHET
I. It is a theme on which he delights to dwell in his dying moments. The ministry of Elisha was one of peace and good will. He sought to build up rather than to destroy. He loved to speak of mercy and deliverance rather than of wrath and destruction. He had witnessed the sins of Israel, and had faithfully denounced them. He saw and grieved over the sufferings that had come upon the nation. And now, worn down with age and disease, and rapidly approaching the end of his career, his last message is one of hope and salvation. The theme of his youth had lost none of its freshness and power in his old age. The herald of salvation cannot close his career more grandly than in proclaiming his loved message with his dying lips:
“Happy, if with my latest breath
I may but gasp His name;
Preach Him to all, and cry in death,
Behold, behold the Lamb!”
II. It is a theme which raises his own character into dignity and power. “The chariot of Israel and the horsemen thereof.” This seemed to mean that Elisha was regarded as the strength and protection of Israel. “What use there was of chariots and horsemen in those wars of the ancients all history tells us. All the strength of the battle stood in these; there could be neither defence nor offence but by them. Such was Elisha unto Israel. The greatest safeguard to any nation is the sanctity and faithfulness of their prophets, without which the church and state lie open to utter desolation.” And there is that in the truths which a faithful minister declares which re-acts upon and elevates his own character. The diligent student becomes great by the greatness of the truths he studies. He becomes familiar with great ideas, and is purified and strengthened by the Divine spirit that lives and breathes in them. The grand elements of greatness and power are found in closest communion with God and truth.
III. It is a theme illustrated by suggestive symbols. (2 Kings 13:15-19). In these symbols we are taught:
1. That salvation is from the Lord. Elisha directed Joash to take bow and arrows as a symbolical act designed to intimate more fully and significantly the victories promised to the king of Israel over the Syrians. His laying his hands upon the king’s hands was to represent the power imparted to the bow-shot as coming from the Lord through the medium of the prophet. Salvation is not by armies, or by the subtlety of human diplomacy, but of God, who can save by many or by few. “Salvation is the confluence of every attribute in Deity, extinguishing by contrast whatever else was splendid, while God himself effused the sparkles of heaven upon the question of despair, and dissolved the darkness of human destiny in a flood of everlasting light!”
2. That the measure of salvation is limited by our faith. Joash’s shooting the other arrows into the ground was in token of the number of victories he was to gain; but his stopping at the third betrayed the weakness of his faith; for as the discharged arrow signified a victory over the Syrians, it is evident that the more arrows he shot, the more victories he would gain; and as he stopped so soon, his conquest would be incomplete. Faith in God is the measure, and unbelief the limit, of His blessings. “According to your faith be it unto you.”
LESSONS:—
1. The chief joy of a true prophet is to proclaim deliverance to the oppressed.
2. That a true prophet is ennobled by the spirit of his message.
3. That Jehovah carries on His work of salvation by human agencies.
GERM NOTES ON THE VERSES
2 Kings 13:14. A touching death-bed scene. I. A young, healthy, vigorous king weeping in the presence of an aged, venerable, and dying saint. II. The tears of the monarch bore eloquent testimony to the worth and power of the dying prophet. III. Counsels given under such circumstances carry with them a weight and solemnity that cannot be forgotten.
—The longest day must have its evening. Good Elisha, who had lived some ninety years, a wonder of prophets, and had out-worn many successions in the thrones of Israel and Judah, is now cast upon the bed of his sickness, yea, of his death. That very age might seem a disease, which yet is seconded with a languishing distemper. It is not in the power of any holiness to privilege us from infirmity of body, from final dissolution. He saw his master Elijah rapt up suddenly from the earth and fetched by a fiery chariot from this vale of mortality—himself must leisurely wait for his last pangs in a lingering passage to the same glory. There is not one way appointed to us by the Divine Providence unto one common blessedness; one hath more pain, another hath more speed; violence snatcheth away one, another by an insensible pace draws every day nearer to his term. The wisdom and goodness of God magnifies itself in both. Happy is he, who, after due preparation, is passed through the gates of death ere he be aware! Happy is he, who, by the holy use of long sickness, is taught to see the gates of death afar off and addressed for a resolute passage. The one dies like Elijah, the other like Elisha—both blessedly.—Bp. Hall.
—O, thou, who canst do more by thy prayers than all the soldiers can with their weapons of war! Elisha’s piety and prayers were the strength of the state, as this wicked king could now acknowledge with tears, though before he had slighted him. Stapleton says that he called Elisha “the horsemen” of Israel, because by his holy life and doctrine he led all Israel; and “the chariot,” because by his virtue and prayers he preserved the people, that God destroyed them not for their sins. The death of such is very ominous, a forerunner of great calamities.—Trapp.
—The death of godly ministers a subject for lamentation.—Death reduces all things to their proper level. Circumstances and characters never find their just estimate until the shadows of mortality have abated the glare of life, and its chills have tempered the fluctuating state of life. On this occasion, what is the crown of Israel to the dying prophet? Death brought the purple of the monarch into contact with the coarse garment of the prophet. The prophet under that dispensation was what the minister is now to the church. There is a difference in some respects; but in origin and design the office is one. Times and modes change; but principles are eternal. And thus we may adopt the lamentation of Joash over the expiring Elisha,—“Oh my father, my father, &c.” We may be instructed by it in the following particulars.
I. The importance of a faithful minister to the church and the world in his life and in his death.
1. The importance of his ministry. What is there in the world to compete with it? It is to show the ruins of the fall repaired and paradise restored. It is to save souls from death.
2. The importance of fidelity in it. Woe unto those who conceal, or deny, or alter, or add to the truth.
3. The importance of the life of a faithful minister to the church and to the world. The life will preach when the tongue is silent. Renders his preaching singularly impressive.
4. The importance of the death of a faithful minister. Though it does not determine character, what consolation does it afford to the survivors! What a savour of Christianity does it leave behind. The faithful minister is a strong bulwark to those around him.
II. The attention awakened by his removal and the respect due to his memory.
1. Israel’s chariot and horsemen are departed. They are immortal till their work is done. Some fall newly green, and others newly grey; and how swiftly are they removed.
2. Attention is awakened by events like these. An attention that too often sleeps before. We do not find the attention of Joash awakened before. O! if we were aware we were hearing the last sermon, with what attention should we listen.
3. There is respect due to the memory of a faithful minister. This is claimed on every principle of reason and gratitude.
III. The tender recollections of those more immediately connected with him, and the special duties devolving upon them. The king wept. Such intimacies stand connected with every man and with every minister. All the charities of human nature are connected in the sacred office, and called into contact with all its parts.
IV. Anticipate the day when all the ravages of death shall be repaired and all the fruits of ministerial usefulness gathered.
1. Such a day shall come. A day when the harvest shall be reaped.
2. The anticipation of this day is solemn, delightful, important.—The Pulpit.
—It is rarely recognised how great and irreparable is the loss of a true man of God, a great benefactor and a faithful servant, until he is gone. King Joash was not ashamed to come to the dying prophet, and to confess with tears his own helplessness; but how many shun such holy men, and are glad if they need never have anything to do with them.—Lange.
2 Kings 13:15. Here we see Elisha’s patriotism. If we would know what true love of one’s fatherland is, let us ask the prophet. In his case it received a Divine consecration. It is truly touching to see with what tenderness the prophets enfold in their hearts their country and people, even when they see in them little but spiritual death, decay, and corruption, and experience from their fellow-countrymen little but bitterness, hate, and persecution.—Krummacher.
2 Kings 13:17. The arrows of the Lord’s deliverance. That death-bed scene speaks volumes for the power of holiness. Elisha was the prophet of God—a man of no honourable station, except that he is always honourable whom God calls to serve him. Joash, the king of Israel, who has often rejected Elisha’s admonitions, and continued to worship in the groves of Baal, though Elisha had denounced them, now that the prophet is about to die at the good old age of ninety, comes to weep at his bed-side. It was something remarkable for the king to come there at all. Kings do not often visit death-bed scenes, especially the death-beds of God’s servants. But it was something more remarkable for that king to stand and look upon the decaying form of the aged prophet, and to weep over his face. More notable still was the language in which the king expressed his sense of the value of the prophet to the state. “O my father! my father! the chariot of Israel, and the horsemen thereof!” He felt as if now all his strength was cut off. The king had trusted in his cavalry, though he had but a slender force, and he compares the prophet to that which he looked upon as being the strongest arm of his military service; or he looks upon the state now as being a chariot with wild horses, and no stately prophet to stand erect and hold the reins. Now have the reins dropped, and whither will the chariot go? It will soon be overturned, and the mad coursers will drag it hither and hither. So the king, out of a sort of selfish respect for the prophet—for it was respect, and yet it was selfishness—stands and weeps over the prophet’s dying bed.
I. Let us consider the significant sign. Israel was at that time engaged in warfare against Syria. As a sign that God intended to give victory to his people, the king is bidden to take the bow and arrows; Elisha, as God’s representative, puts his hand upon the king’s hands; forth with the window is opened, and the arrow is shot. As it flies through the air, the prophet says that that arrow is the arrow of the Lord’s deliverance of his people out of the hand of Syria. The interpretation of this symbolical act is simple enough. God will save. Deliverance is of the Lord; but it must be accomplished by human instrumentality. Joash must take the bow and arrows; but the hands of Joash cannot make the arrow speed, save as Elisha, the representative of God, puts his hands there. So the man, divinely strengthened by God, shoots the arrow, and the deliverance comes. We grant you that God can work without means, and even when he uses means, he still takes the glory to himself, for it is all his own; yet it has been the rule, and will be the rule till the day of means shall come to an end, that just as God saved man by taking upon himself man’s flesh, so everywhere in the world he calls men by speaking to them through men of their own flesh and blood. We are not to let the arrows lie still, and say, “God will do his own work, Elisha will shoot the arrows.” This is idleness; we have had enough of this. Look at those churches which say, “God will do his own work.” You will find that the more these people talk about God’s doing his own work, the more they sink into a fatal apathy. And when they have entangled brethren whose conversion was effected under other ministry than their own, they talk as if they had been re-converted, and did not know the truth till they had heard the particular, excellent, hot-pressed gospel which they deliver. On the other hand it is an equally dangerous error to suppose that we are to take the arrows and shoot without God. This is, in fact, the more dangerous of the two; although, if I have to compare two devils together, I know not which is the worst of these evil spirits—the spirit which idly says, “Leave it to God,” or the spirit which goes about God’s work without dependence on him.
II. Let us censure the slack-handed king. The prophet gave him the bow and arrows, and bade him shoot down upon the ground. It was left to him. He is bidden to shoot, and he shoots once; he draws his bow and he shoots again; a third time he draws the bow, and then throws it down slack upon the ground. The prophet is angry with him, for he will only have three victories. If he had smitten the ground six times he would have had six victories. The king is to be censured, and censured severely; but as he is dead and gone, and our censure cannot affect him, let us censure those who now imitate him.
1. How many believers have but little faith, and seem quite content to have but that little. They cannot grasp the promise of God and believingly expect to have it fulfilled. They cannot take God at his word, and therefore their temporal troubles and their spiritual cares press very heavily upon them. Oh, that they had grace to smite the ground six times! Oh, that they knew how to cast all their burden on Him who careth for them!
2. Then you see another class of people who are just the same as to their knowledge. They do not understand the deep things of God; they are content to know that which saves the soul from ruin, and the remedy which is provided by Christ, but they let the deep things of God lie still for strong men, but they themselves are content to be babes.
3. You will see these same people, or others like them, who are content about their daily walk and conversation. They are not drunkards; they do not swear; they are scrupulously truthful; they commit no breach of the Sabbath day; but when you have said this, you have said about as much as you can say of them. Their religion seems to have made them moral, but it would be difficult to perceive that it has made them holy. These brethren have, in fact, shot three times, and they have smitten the ground once or twice, but they have not made a clean sweep of their besetting sins; they still tolerate some of them; they have not reached to a high point of holiness.
4. So, too, there are many Christians who do not shoot more than three times, inasmuch as they are content with very low enjoyments. Shame on us that we are content to be such dwarfs, when we might grow into giants; that we are here frittering away our time, when we might immortalize ourselves and glorify our Lord. How is it we are content to bring forth a lean ear, and then a scanty ear, when there should be seven ears upon one stalk, like the plenty of Egypt. Consider some of the reasons why the king did not shoot more.
(1). Perhap he felt rather tender towards the Syrians. It is just possible that he felt he did not want to hurt them too much. He would be victorious; he would get his enemy under his feet; but, if he did more, he would crush him outright, and he hardly wanted to do that. So some professors do not want to be too hard upon their sins; they have a sort of hidden tenderness towards their own corruptions.
(2). Again, perhaps the king did not go on to shoot because he thought it was hardly his business to be employed as a bowman. “Why should I stay here for ever,” saith he, “shooting arrows? I did not object when the prophet’s hand was upon me, to shoot; but to stand here and keep smiting the ground is hardly the occupation for a king.”
(3). And then the thought, perhaps, that he should have three victories, and that would be enough. You do not want to be made good; you do not want to be made Christ-like; you do not want to be able to triumph over your sins; you mistake your high calling; you think you are called to be a slave, when you are called to reign; you fancy you are called to wear sackcloth, when you are bidden to put on scarlet and fine linen; you think that God has called you to a dunghill, whereas He has called you to a throne; you imagine you are to be but here and there the skirmishers in the battle, when He has called you to stand in the front rank and to fight constantly for his cause.
(4). The king may have begun to doubt whether the victories would really come. He knew very well that he had not many soldiers, and that Syria was very strong, so he thought: “Well, it takes some faith to think that I shall beat them three times; but it is not likely I shall do it in the fourth.” He doubted the Divine power and the Divine promise, because of his own weakness; and many Christians do that.
(5). And it is very likely the king despised the prophet’s plan. Why, he seemed to say, this was absurd, smiting the ground in this way! If there were any men to be shot at, he would not spare the arrows; but to smite the ground in this way—absurd! ridiculous! So, too often we miss a blessing because we do not like God’s plans.
III. Let us justify the righteous wrath of the prophet. We do not like to see either an old man or a dying man angry; but the prophet here did well to be angry, even though at the hour of death. He loved the people, and wept to think that their king was standing in their light, and robbing them of precious privileges.
1. How much Israel suffers from the slack-handedness of the king. Oh, Christians! you suffer yourselves; you miss a thousand comforts. What you might do for God you are unable to do. What you might sit down and feed upon yourselves, you utterly miss, because you will not go on farther, and seek higher attainments: and all your brethren suffer too.
2. How easy the triumph that might have been achieved! Why, if this king had shot more arrows, Syria would have been quite overcome, and cut in pieces; but because he was slack in this, Syria waves her proud banner over captive maids and sorrowing widows whose husbands have been slain in battle, and weep in the streets of Samaria. The devil rejoices when he sees slumbering Christians. The world laughs in its sleeve at professors now-a-days.
3. How Jehovah’s name was dishonoured! In Assyria’s streets they laughed at Jehovah; they said that their gods were greater than He. Oh, what a shame it is that you and I should ever put Christ to more shame than he endured for our sakes! Let us bethink ourselves whether we have not been shooting too few arrows; whether we have not thought too much of the little we have been doing; whether we might not have done more. I am sure there is room for great improvement in the best of us. O Lord, what a spark is my love to thee! Oh, that thou wouldest blow it into a flame till it were as coals of juniper!—C. H. Spurgeon.
—The arrow shot towards the enemy’s country signifies the deliverance which the Lord will soon grant Israel from the Syrian yoke. The casting of a spear, or shooting of an arrow into an enemy’s country was a common signal for the beginning of hostilities. Thus Alexander the Great is said to have hurled a dart into his enemy’s land when he came to the borders of the Persian territory.—Whedon.
—After the Scythians had laid waste their country before the legions of Darius, and thus reduced the invading army to the greatest distress for want of provisions, they sent an ambassador to the Persian king to present him a bird, a mouse, a frog, and five arrows. The ambassador was asked what these presents meant. He answers that he had nothing else in charge but to deliver them, and return with all speed; but that the Persians, if they were ingenious, would discover what interpretation to put upon them. Darius, judging according to his wishes, gave it as his opinion that they were tokens of submission. “The mouse,” said he, “being bred in the earth, indicates that they yield up their lands; the frog, living in water, that they yield up also their lakes, rivers, &c.; the bird, represented all the wild and tame fowl; and the delivering up the five arrows was the same with the Scythians as delivering up arms is with other nations.” “Alas!” said Gobryas, one of the seven princes who had ejected the magi, “it is far otherwise. For O, Persians! unless as birds ye fly in the air, or as mice ye retreat under the earth, or as frogs ye swim in the water, ye shall never return whence ye came, but shall perish by these arrows.” And so in fact it turned out; for it was only by the merest accident that Darius and the whole of the army were not cut off by the Scythians.—Peroy Anecdotes.
—How readily doth Elisha now make good the words of Joash! How truly is he the chariots and horsemen of Israel! Israel had not fought without him—much less had been victorious. If theirs be the endeavour, the success is his. Even the dying prophet puts life and speed into the forces of Israel; and while he is digging his own grave, is raising trophies to God’s people.—Bp. Hall.
—Many an “arrow of the Lord” is shot from the lips or looks of a dying saint—e.g., a mother’s last appeal, a father’s farewell counsel, a friend’s request.
2 Kings 13:18-19. Elisha’s reproof to Joash. Consider:
I. What messages of mercy God has sent to us.
1. By significant emblems.
2. By express promises.
3. By the declarations and examples of dying saints.
II. Whence it is that we profit so little by them. The fault is in ourselves alone, just as it was in the king of Israel.
1. Our desires are faint.
2. Our expectations low.
3. Our exertions languid. Conclusion:
1. Improve the opportunities God affords you by his ministers.
2. Trifle not with the impressions which are at any time upon your mind.—Simeon.
—Cease not to shoot arrows of love into the heart of God, so shall one arrow of deliverance after another come back from the Lord, and be given to thee in the word of truth. So shalt thou smite thy spiritual foes and tread them under foot, even more completely than Joash did the Syrians. He who is called to execute work for God may not stop and desist according to his own good judgment, but must go on in it tirelessly and faithfully till the Lord commands him to cease. Faith must hold firm until the end. When one battle is won, the conflict is not over. How much is it to be regretted when one only half believes—half obeys; or when one, after a good beginning, desists.—Lange.
2 Kings 13:19. The conflict with evil. I. Should be carried on under the direction of those competent to advise. II. Complete victory can be achieved only by resolute and persevering effort. III. To stop short of complete victory is to entail greater calamity in the future.
—The prophet himself did not yet know how many victories Joash should obtain against the Syrians; but God had signified to him that he should learn that by the number of the king’s strokes; and he was angry with him, not simply because he smote only thrice, but because, by his unbelief and idolatry, he provoked God so to over-rule his heart and hand that he should smite but thrice, which was a token that God would assist him no further, although his smiting but thrice might proceed either from his unbelief or negligence. For, by the former sign, and the prophet’s comment upon it, he might clearly perceive that this also was intended as a sign of his success, and, therefore, he ought to have done it frequently and vehemently.—Pool.