Following on from my previous posts around items I have found to be interesting to me, this is another one I think is just brazer, see what you think.
This is a passage that I would have like to have seen and quoted some 20 years ago now. Actually, with teenagers and grandchildren around now, I may be able to scare a few of them now with it.
See what you think.
23 From there Elisha went up to Bethel. As he was walking along the road, some boys came out of the town and jeered at him. “Get out of here, baldy!” they said. “Get out of here, baldy!” 24 He turned around, looked at them and called down a curse on them in the name of the Lord. Then two bears came out of the woods and mauled forty-two of the boys.
2 Kings 2:23-24
Now, was Elisha having a bad day, did he get out of bed the wrong side. Well if you read back a bit you will see that is mentor Elijah was just been taken up to heaven (which heaven? there are 3, an investigation for another day maybe). The people did not listen to him, they wished to go looking for Elijah, so he caved in and allowed them to go looking for him. We can hear a “I told you so” tone at the end of verse 18, “Didn’t I tell you not to go?”
I feel with Elijah moving on, the people not respecting him or listening to him and wishing for Elijah’s return. He must not have felt too good about himself. I know I would be down cast and despondent.
Elisha moves on from Jericho, head down and wondering what to do now, with Elijah gone and the people are not really listening to him. Has he left the city folk complained about their water supply. Elisha intercedes for the city’s people and God provides new fresh water where once there was bad. Surely, having preformed such a great miracle, that would have lifted is spirits.
He walks on to Bethel and that is where we pick up the above passage.
Wouldn’t you have loved God stepping in for you when those kids at school use to call you names, picked on you, bulling you or maybe when you were a little older and folliclely challenged (like me) a bunch of kids started calling you “baldly” or “baldlylocks and the three hairs”. A helping hand from God would have been nice. But here, the response does seem a bit over the top – “Then two bears came out of the woods and mauled forty-two of the boys”. Wow,
Question: Why was Gods action so so great? (I must say I do not know)
Footnote: Notice that it doesn’t say if the boys were killed or not. A mailing from a bear, Hmmm. I wouldn’t image that was much fun, but you will have a story to tell your grandchildren..