Don't Mess with the Man of God: 2 Kings 2:23-25
11/13/2005 14:22 Filed in: Faith & Reason
A brief exposition delivered seventeen years late...
Okay, here's a passage that I bet you've never heard preached on, unless your pastor was desperately fearful of losing his position:
“Then he [Elisha] went up from there to Bethel; and as he was going up by the way, young lads came out from the city and mocked him and said to him, “Go up, you baldhead; go up, you baldhead!” When he looked behind him and saw them, he cursed them in the name of the LORD. Then two female bears came out of the woods and tore up forty-two lads of their number. He went from there to Mount Carmel, and from there he returned to Samaria.”
(2Kings 2:23-25, NASB)
I say I'm delivering this exposition seventeen years late because it goes back to my junior year in college at Louisiana Tech University. I was taking an adolescent literature class (my major was English Education) taught by a professor whom I liked quite well, Dr. J__ L___. You didn't expect me to call her by name did you?
One day in the midst of her lecture--and I don't remember how any of this related to the subject at hand--she announces that she grew up going to a Baptist church, but as she got older decided she didn't like the fact that Baptists tended to interpret the Bible so literally. She gave as an example the above passage and said she just couldn't read that passage literally; that is, she couldn't see God sending two bears to maul those poor little boys. Therefore, she proudly announced that as an adult, she had joined the Methodist Church because they often took such passages figuratively.
I heard her make this proclamation on one other occasion. During that same year, I was in charge of scheduling speakers for the daily chapel service at the Baptist Student Center. I had begun trying to regularly schedule some of the professors on campus who were also Christians. I encouraged them to tell about their journey of faith and how their beliefs made a difference in their vocation. Of course, I also asked Dr. L___, even though she had so proudly proclaimed why she was no longer Baptist. I guess I should have expected it, but she proclaimed again why she was no longer a Baptist (hey, this time AT the Baptist Student Center--thank you very much), because she preferred to interpret such passages as 2 Kings 2:23-25 figuratively and the Methodists evidently let her do this.
Now, don't get me wrong. I really liked Dr. L___. She was a great teacher. If anything, it's my fault for not addressing this subject with her, and pressing her a little bit further.
I would want to ask her a couple of questions. First, since 2 Kings is historiographic literature, where exactly are the textual markers to indicate that we're moving from what is being written as history to something like a parable? See, in 2 Samuel 12 when the prophet Nathan comes to confront David over his sin with Bathsheba, he tells a story that begins in a common parabolic introduction by using unnamed characters, "There were two men in one city, the one rich and the other poor... ." Things like these are textual markers that indicates when a narrative is transitioning between something literal and something figurative.
By the way, a good Baptist (or any denominational affiliate) Bible reader does not interpret everything literal in the Bible, but makes the judgement based upon the type of literature being read and whether or not symbolic language is being used. As it has often been pointed out, when Jesus says, "I am the door" in John 10:9, the reader should not take that literally and start thinking of Jesus as a flat piece of square wood with a knob! The reader should know that symbolic language is being used and that language should influence interpretation. Poetic books such as the Psalms also used symbolic language that was not meant to be interpreted literally. Jesus often used hyperbole, or exaggeration to get his point across. The reader must let the text dictate how one reads and interprets Scripture.
Having said all that, I realize that there are those who do not believe that the stories of Elisha and Elijah are historical, but they hold them to be myth. Although I would disagree with that position, that is beyond the bounds of our subject at hand and would have to be addressed elsewhere. But for Dr. L___, even though I haven't asked her, I could almost guarantee that she believes that there is at least some actual history in the stories of 1 & 2 Kings. Rather, I think she had difficulty with a very unusual passage and opted just to reject its literalism. But as I have suggested here, the literature itself does not contain any clue that the writer is not presenting what he believes to be actual events.
Secondly, I don't think that Dr. L___'s alternative really helps her. What I want to ask her is, "Dr. L___, if you don't take this passage literally, then what the heck is it supposed to mean if taken figuratively? Although I never asked her, I really don't know if she ever got around to interpreting the passage with her new method. It's a difficult passage no matter what. I would speculate that it was enough for her to say, "Well, I'm not going to take that literally" and just go on.
But what does the passage mean? My former teacher is not the first to dismiss this passage as unbearable (pun intended) and write it off as irrelevant and unhistorical. One commentator, J. Gray, has said that this passage is "in every aspect a puerile [childishly silly or trivial] tale... There is no serious point in the incident, and it does not reflect much to the credit of the prophet... at best the memory of some catastrophe which happened to coincide with Elisha's visit to Bethel."
I agree that the passage is difficult, and I admit that because of its brevity, there is a temptation to simply move past it. However, I believe that would be a mistake. If for nothing else, from strictly a literary aspect, the biblical writers did not waste valuable scroll space on irrelevant and unnecessary information. Everything that you find in the biblical record, even if it at first glance seems of little importance or uninteresting, serves some purpose in the overall account.
As for such distaste for this passage, we should probably first read it as undoubtedly Dr. L___ would have read this when she was young--out of the King James Version. There is a crucial mistranslation in the Authorized Version that presents to the reader these words, "And he went up thence unto Bethel: and as he was going up by the way, there came forth little children out of the city, and mocked him... ." Generations have read this story and thought, "Why that cruel prophet, Elisha, sending out those bears to kills those poor little children!"
But "little children" is a tragic mistranslation of the Hebrew word, ne'arim or in the singular, na'ar. For the record, like the NASB quoted above, "young lads" is also used by the ASV. The NIV uses "youths"; the Message has "little kids"; the NLT, TNIV and CEV have "boys"; and the ESV, NRSV, and HCSB uses "small boys." No doubt people come to this passage and wonder why God would allow bears to maul these poor little, mischievous boys?
But is a boy, let alone a small boy a good translation of na'ar? Well, it is possible, but that's not the only way this word is used. According to the Koehler/Baumgartner Hebrew lexicon, na'ar can be defined as "a male who is available for marriage and not yet betrothed." How old were these "boys" in 2 Kings 2? I would suggest they were teenagers. Further, to use modern terminology, these were punks.
But before I get back to the punks taunting Elisha, let me first demonstrate that na'ar is used for more than just "little boys" in the Old Testament. The word occurs over 230 times, and although sometimes it does refer to young boys and even infants (1 Sam 1:22; 2 Sam 12:16), it can also be used for young men, perhaps what we would think of as teenagers and even older.The following few examples should demonstrate its variety of usage.
Gen 19:4 - the younger men who surrounded Lot's house along with older men so that they might abuse his angelic visitors. Definitely not little boys!
Gen 22:3 - the two young men who accompanied Abraham when he was commanded to sacrifice Isaac.
Gen 34:19 - Shechem a Hivite who raped Jacob's daughter Dinah in Gen 34:2 is described as na'ar," young man" in this verse.
Gen 41:12 - Joseph is described with this word at the time when he is in prison.
Ex 33:11 - Joshua, who is already in service to Moses is described as na'ar. He is clearly not a child in this passage, but perhaps in his late teens or twenties.
Josh 6:23 - The two spies who were sent into Jericho and later rescued the harlot, Rahab, and her family are described as "young men" (na'ar), but these are definitely not children.
1 Sam 17:33 - David is described as a na'ar in this verse, in spite of the earlier description in 1 Sam 16:18 as a "mighty man of valor, a warrior...and a handsome man [ish]."
1 Sam 21:4 - When David and his "young men" are on the run from Saul, Ahimelech the priest is willing to give them consecreted bread to eat on the condition that the young men (ne'arim) have "kept themselves from women." I think we can safely assume these are not young boys. In fact David's band of young men in these stories are generally always referred to with our same word in question.
2 Sam 18:5 - Absalom, who is obviously not a boy by this point in the narrative as he has already led a rebellion against his father, King David, is here referred to as na'ar by David himself.
And there are more examples, but I think this demonstrates the point that na'ar has a wide variety of uses that fits within the definition of "a male who is available for marriage and not yet betrothed." Context has to determine whether na'ar is referring to infants, children, adolescents, or young adults. Clearly, the context of 2 Kings 2:23-25 dictates that "young boys," "children," etc. is mistranslation. Let me tell you why.
First, the taunt itself. "Go up, you baldhead" in the NASB is pretty literal. What does it mean? Well, obviously, these hoodlums were, at the very least, mocking the appearance of Elisha. In some cultures of the Ancient Near East, baldness was considered a sign of a lack of integrity. But such prejudice is not bound by culture or time (and I say this with a full head of hair!). I remember seeing an altercation at a movie theater a few years ago when a manager was trying to evict a teenager, probably not too much unlike those that Elisha encountered. Rather than respond with any amount of reasonableness, the young punk continually screamed at the manager referring to him as "You BALD _________ __________. I remember thinking at the time that the manager's lack of hair really had no bearing on the incident at hand.
I've often wondered if "go up" is some kind of Hebrew idiom that has become lost in translation to us over time. Some of the newer translations have tried to smooth out the meaning. The NLT has "Go away, you baldhead!" and the TNIV reads "Get out of here baldy!" In the Message, Eugene Peterson paraphrases, "What's up old baldhead! Our of our way, skinhead!" However, Paul House has speculated that "go up" may refer to the manner of the departure of Elisha's mentor, Elijah, in which he was carried off to heaven in a chariot of fire. This event had just taken place earlier in the chapter. Thus, he was being told to go away just like Elijah.
In response to the taunts, Elisha "curses" them in the name of Yahweh. According to House, the Hebrew word for "curse," qalal, "means 'punishment' or 'consequence' in the [Old Testament], not 'foul language' or 'magical incantation' as it often does in current common English usage." Immediately--and this is the part that makes people so uncomfortable--two bears (we're told they were female bears) came out of the woods and mauled 42 of the young men.
That last piece of information, to me, is the crucial clue that we're not dealing with little children. If 42 were mauled, there may very well have been more involved in the incident. Regardless, we're dealing with a mob situation. Elisha, God's prophet, is being harassed by a large gang of unruly punks. From a modern perspective, think of the people in France who have been rioting for two weeks straight. Had something dramatic not happened when it did, Elisha's very life might have been at risk. Yes, from a certain perspective it's certainly tragic that 42 young men had to lose their lives, but we need to be careful not to misplace sympathy for the instigators in this situation instead of for the victim--Elisha.
The discomfort this story brings to the modern reader equates it with the story of Achan in Josh 7 and Ananias and Sapphira in Acts 5. In all three of these circumstances, judgement came fairly swiftly and was final in that the antagonizers all lost their lives. But what all three of these incidents have in common is that they were turning points in the history of the people of God. A strong example had to be set as a warning to current and future generations that such behavior would not be tolerated. Any good school teacher knows this principle--that one must be severely strict at the beginning of a school year, and perhaps even make an example out of one or two students to prevent further trespasses from taking place.
For Elisha, he had just become successor to Elijah's ministry as prophet to the one true God. Both had served a nation that for the most part was hostile to them. The gang of young punks who antagonized Elisha had intentions for him that were not good. They did not respect him, but ultimately, their rebellion was against God. Therefore a dramatic example had to be made that demonstrated that this man operated under the power and the authority of the Creator God. My feeling is that from this point forward, Elisha never had this kind of trouble again. People would have stayed out of his way.
Now whether a person takes this story as literal history (as I do) or as a symbolic parable, the point is still pretty much the same. To oppose the person God has assigned to a task is essentially the same as opposing God himself. Therefore, the safest thing to do is don't mess with the man of God.
Sources referenced:
House, Paul R. 1, 2 Kings. New American Commentary, vol. 8. Nashville: Broadman & Holman Publishers, 2003.
Koehler, Ludwig et al. The Hebrew and Aramaic Lexicon of the Old Testament. Leiden: Brill Academic Publishers, 2002.
Wiseman, Donald J. 1 & 2 Kings: An Introduction and Commentary. Tyndale Old Testament Commentaries, vol. 9. Downers Grove: Intervarsity Press, 1993. [The quote from Gray came from this source].
Okay, here's a passage that I bet you've never heard preached on, unless your pastor was desperately fearful of losing his position:
(2Kings 2:23-25, NASB)
I say I'm delivering this exposition seventeen years late because it goes back to my junior year in college at Louisiana Tech University. I was taking an adolescent literature class (my major was English Education) taught by a professor whom I liked quite well, Dr. J__ L___. You didn't expect me to call her by name did you?
One day in the midst of her lecture--and I don't remember how any of this related to the subject at hand--she announces that she grew up going to a Baptist church, but as she got older decided she didn't like the fact that Baptists tended to interpret the Bible so literally. She gave as an example the above passage and said she just couldn't read that passage literally; that is, she couldn't see God sending two bears to maul those poor little boys. Therefore, she proudly announced that as an adult, she had joined the Methodist Church because they often took such passages figuratively.
I heard her make this proclamation on one other occasion. During that same year, I was in charge of scheduling speakers for the daily chapel service at the Baptist Student Center. I had begun trying to regularly schedule some of the professors on campus who were also Christians. I encouraged them to tell about their journey of faith and how their beliefs made a difference in their vocation. Of course, I also asked Dr. L___, even though she had so proudly proclaimed why she was no longer Baptist. I guess I should have expected it, but she proclaimed again why she was no longer a Baptist (hey, this time AT the Baptist Student Center--thank you very much), because she preferred to interpret such passages as 2 Kings 2:23-25 figuratively and the Methodists evidently let her do this.
Now, don't get me wrong. I really liked Dr. L___. She was a great teacher. If anything, it's my fault for not addressing this subject with her, and pressing her a little bit further.
I would want to ask her a couple of questions. First, since 2 Kings is historiographic literature, where exactly are the textual markers to indicate that we're moving from what is being written as history to something like a parable? See, in 2 Samuel 12 when the prophet Nathan comes to confront David over his sin with Bathsheba, he tells a story that begins in a common parabolic introduction by using unnamed characters, "There were two men in one city, the one rich and the other poor... ." Things like these are textual markers that indicates when a narrative is transitioning between something literal and something figurative.
By the way, a good Baptist (or any denominational affiliate) Bible reader does not interpret everything literal in the Bible, but makes the judgement based upon the type of literature being read and whether or not symbolic language is being used. As it has often been pointed out, when Jesus says, "I am the door" in John 10:9, the reader should not take that literally and start thinking of Jesus as a flat piece of square wood with a knob! The reader should know that symbolic language is being used and that language should influence interpretation. Poetic books such as the Psalms also used symbolic language that was not meant to be interpreted literally. Jesus often used hyperbole, or exaggeration to get his point across. The reader must let the text dictate how one reads and interprets Scripture.
Having said all that, I realize that there are those who do not believe that the stories of Elisha and Elijah are historical, but they hold them to be myth. Although I would disagree with that position, that is beyond the bounds of our subject at hand and would have to be addressed elsewhere. But for Dr. L___, even though I haven't asked her, I could almost guarantee that she believes that there is at least some actual history in the stories of 1 & 2 Kings. Rather, I think she had difficulty with a very unusual passage and opted just to reject its literalism. But as I have suggested here, the literature itself does not contain any clue that the writer is not presenting what he believes to be actual events.
Secondly, I don't think that Dr. L___'s alternative really helps her. What I want to ask her is, "Dr. L___, if you don't take this passage literally, then what the heck is it supposed to mean if taken figuratively? Although I never asked her, I really don't know if she ever got around to interpreting the passage with her new method. It's a difficult passage no matter what. I would speculate that it was enough for her to say, "Well, I'm not going to take that literally" and just go on.
But what does the passage mean? My former teacher is not the first to dismiss this passage as unbearable (pun intended) and write it off as irrelevant and unhistorical. One commentator, J. Gray, has said that this passage is "in every aspect a puerile [childishly silly or trivial] tale... There is no serious point in the incident, and it does not reflect much to the credit of the prophet... at best the memory of some catastrophe which happened to coincide with Elisha's visit to Bethel."
I agree that the passage is difficult, and I admit that because of its brevity, there is a temptation to simply move past it. However, I believe that would be a mistake. If for nothing else, from strictly a literary aspect, the biblical writers did not waste valuable scroll space on irrelevant and unnecessary information. Everything that you find in the biblical record, even if it at first glance seems of little importance or uninteresting, serves some purpose in the overall account.
As for such distaste for this passage, we should probably first read it as undoubtedly Dr. L___ would have read this when she was young--out of the King James Version. There is a crucial mistranslation in the Authorized Version that presents to the reader these words, "And he went up thence unto Bethel: and as he was going up by the way, there came forth little children out of the city, and mocked him... ." Generations have read this story and thought, "Why that cruel prophet, Elisha, sending out those bears to kills those poor little children!"
But "little children" is a tragic mistranslation of the Hebrew word, ne'arim or in the singular, na'ar. For the record, like the NASB quoted above, "young lads" is also used by the ASV. The NIV uses "youths"; the Message has "little kids"; the NLT, TNIV and CEV have "boys"; and the ESV, NRSV, and HCSB uses "small boys." No doubt people come to this passage and wonder why God would allow bears to maul these poor little, mischievous boys?
But is a boy, let alone a small boy a good translation of na'ar? Well, it is possible, but that's not the only way this word is used. According to the Koehler/Baumgartner Hebrew lexicon, na'ar can be defined as "a male who is available for marriage and not yet betrothed." How old were these "boys" in 2 Kings 2? I would suggest they were teenagers. Further, to use modern terminology, these were punks.
But before I get back to the punks taunting Elisha, let me first demonstrate that na'ar is used for more than just "little boys" in the Old Testament. The word occurs over 230 times, and although sometimes it does refer to young boys and even infants (1 Sam 1:22; 2 Sam 12:16), it can also be used for young men, perhaps what we would think of as teenagers and even older.The following few examples should demonstrate its variety of usage.
Gen 19:4 - the younger men who surrounded Lot's house along with older men so that they might abuse his angelic visitors. Definitely not little boys!
Gen 22:3 - the two young men who accompanied Abraham when he was commanded to sacrifice Isaac.
Gen 34:19 - Shechem a Hivite who raped Jacob's daughter Dinah in Gen 34:2 is described as na'ar," young man" in this verse.
Gen 41:12 - Joseph is described with this word at the time when he is in prison.
Ex 33:11 - Joshua, who is already in service to Moses is described as na'ar. He is clearly not a child in this passage, but perhaps in his late teens or twenties.
Josh 6:23 - The two spies who were sent into Jericho and later rescued the harlot, Rahab, and her family are described as "young men" (na'ar), but these are definitely not children.
1 Sam 17:33 - David is described as a na'ar in this verse, in spite of the earlier description in 1 Sam 16:18 as a "mighty man of valor, a warrior...and a handsome man [ish]."
1 Sam 21:4 - When David and his "young men" are on the run from Saul, Ahimelech the priest is willing to give them consecreted bread to eat on the condition that the young men (ne'arim) have "kept themselves from women." I think we can safely assume these are not young boys. In fact David's band of young men in these stories are generally always referred to with our same word in question.
2 Sam 18:5 - Absalom, who is obviously not a boy by this point in the narrative as he has already led a rebellion against his father, King David, is here referred to as na'ar by David himself.
And there are more examples, but I think this demonstrates the point that na'ar has a wide variety of uses that fits within the definition of "a male who is available for marriage and not yet betrothed." Context has to determine whether na'ar is referring to infants, children, adolescents, or young adults. Clearly, the context of 2 Kings 2:23-25 dictates that "young boys," "children," etc. is mistranslation. Let me tell you why.
First, the taunt itself. "Go up, you baldhead" in the NASB is pretty literal. What does it mean? Well, obviously, these hoodlums were, at the very least, mocking the appearance of Elisha. In some cultures of the Ancient Near East, baldness was considered a sign of a lack of integrity. But such prejudice is not bound by culture or time (and I say this with a full head of hair!). I remember seeing an altercation at a movie theater a few years ago when a manager was trying to evict a teenager, probably not too much unlike those that Elisha encountered. Rather than respond with any amount of reasonableness, the young punk continually screamed at the manager referring to him as "You BALD _________ __________. I remember thinking at the time that the manager's lack of hair really had no bearing on the incident at hand.
I've often wondered if "go up" is some kind of Hebrew idiom that has become lost in translation to us over time. Some of the newer translations have tried to smooth out the meaning. The NLT has "Go away, you baldhead!" and the TNIV reads "Get out of here baldy!" In the Message, Eugene Peterson paraphrases, "What's up old baldhead! Our of our way, skinhead!" However, Paul House has speculated that "go up" may refer to the manner of the departure of Elisha's mentor, Elijah, in which he was carried off to heaven in a chariot of fire. This event had just taken place earlier in the chapter. Thus, he was being told to go away just like Elijah.
In response to the taunts, Elisha "curses" them in the name of Yahweh. According to House, the Hebrew word for "curse," qalal, "means 'punishment' or 'consequence' in the [Old Testament], not 'foul language' or 'magical incantation' as it often does in current common English usage." Immediately--and this is the part that makes people so uncomfortable--two bears (we're told they were female bears) came out of the woods and mauled 42 of the young men.
That last piece of information, to me, is the crucial clue that we're not dealing with little children. If 42 were mauled, there may very well have been more involved in the incident. Regardless, we're dealing with a mob situation. Elisha, God's prophet, is being harassed by a large gang of unruly punks. From a modern perspective, think of the people in France who have been rioting for two weeks straight. Had something dramatic not happened when it did, Elisha's very life might have been at risk. Yes, from a certain perspective it's certainly tragic that 42 young men had to lose their lives, but we need to be careful not to misplace sympathy for the instigators in this situation instead of for the victim--Elisha.
The discomfort this story brings to the modern reader equates it with the story of Achan in Josh 7 and Ananias and Sapphira in Acts 5. In all three of these circumstances, judgement came fairly swiftly and was final in that the antagonizers all lost their lives. But what all three of these incidents have in common is that they were turning points in the history of the people of God. A strong example had to be set as a warning to current and future generations that such behavior would not be tolerated. Any good school teacher knows this principle--that one must be severely strict at the beginning of a school year, and perhaps even make an example out of one or two students to prevent further trespasses from taking place.
For Elisha, he had just become successor to Elijah's ministry as prophet to the one true God. Both had served a nation that for the most part was hostile to them. The gang of young punks who antagonized Elisha had intentions for him that were not good. They did not respect him, but ultimately, their rebellion was against God. Therefore a dramatic example had to be made that demonstrated that this man operated under the power and the authority of the Creator God. My feeling is that from this point forward, Elisha never had this kind of trouble again. People would have stayed out of his way.
Now whether a person takes this story as literal history (as I do) or as a symbolic parable, the point is still pretty much the same. To oppose the person God has assigned to a task is essentially the same as opposing God himself. Therefore, the safest thing to do is don't mess with the man of God.
Sources referenced:
House, Paul R. 1, 2 Kings. New American Commentary, vol. 8. Nashville: Broadman & Holman Publishers, 2003.
Koehler, Ludwig et al. The Hebrew and Aramaic Lexicon of the Old Testament. Leiden: Brill Academic Publishers, 2002.
Wiseman, Donald J. 1 & 2 Kings: An Introduction and Commentary. Tyndale Old Testament Commentaries, vol. 9. Downers Grove: Intervarsity Press, 1993. [The quote from Gray came from this source].