I. This story teaches that the faults of our youth, and those which are most natural to us at that age, are not considered by God as trifling, but are punished by Him after the same measure as the sins of men. Men measure faults by the harm which they do in this world, and not by the harm which they do in unfitting us for the kingdom of God, by making us unlike God and Christ.
II. What is it that Jesus Christ means when He tells us that "he who is unjust in the least is unjust also in much," and that "if we have not been faithful in the unrighteous mammon, who will commit to our trust the true riches"? He means that when we talk of the consequences of our actions, we forget that as in one point of view the consequences of the greatest crimes that the most powerful tyrant ever committed are as the least thing in the sight of God, so in another the consequences of the common school faults of the youngest boy are infinitely great. That is important to God, and that He wills His creatures to regard as important, which is an offence against His laws, a departure from His likeness. And of this, even of sin, He has willed the consequences to be infinite, not confined to the happiness and misery of a few years, but of all eternity. Here is the reason why the faults of boyhood are so serious: because they show a temper that does not love God and a heart unrenewed by His Holy Spirit.
T. Arnold, Sermons,vol. ii., p. 42.
References: 2 Kings 2 Spurgeon, Sermons,vol. xxxi., No. 1826. 2 Kings 2 W. M. Taylor, Elijah the Prophet,p. 203. 2 Kings 3:1-12 and 2 Kings 3:13-27. A. Edersheim, Elisha the Prophet,pp. 60, 71.