"And tore 42 children to pieces" –What do you make of this passage?

[Tiny_Montgomery]

In 2 Kings 2:23-24, we read of the prophet Elisha going on a journey:

1. From there Elisha went up to Bethel. While he was on the way, some small boys came out of the city and jeered at him. “Go up, baldhead,” they shouted, “go up, baldhead!”
2. The prophet turned and saw them, and he cursed them in the name of the LORD. Then two she-bears came out of the woods and tore forty-two of the children to pieces.

That seems like pretty stiff punishment for calling him bald.

What do you make of this passage?

 

[Magicsilence]

From: answers.yahoo.com/question/index?qid=20060922102954AAhzkLc

First, it was Elisha, not Elijah. Important to understanding what happened.

One slight ajustment to make in your mind. The Hebrew word translated “little children” in that scripture refers to people who were in the “apprenticeship” part of their lives, meaning between the ages of 18 and 30. Most modern tranlation use the word “youth”, not children These were not a group of 9 and 10 year olds just being silly. These were young adults who knew exactly who they were mocking and what they were doing.

If you look at where and when the incident happened, Elisha had just spend several years following, servicing, and learning from Elijah. The time had come for Elijah to go to heaven. Elisha refused to allow his master to go off alone to die. Instead he kept following him. Finally, when the time came, a fiery chariot came down and picked up Elijah and took him off to heaven. The chariot was visible to more than just Elisha, because immediately the others in the area wanted to go searching for Elijah, considered that the charoit whould drop him somewhere.

Al Elijah is leaving, up comes this gang of young men (at least 42 of them) and begin mocking and abusing Elisha, yelling “Go up, bald man”. These young men must have also witnessed the miracle of Elijah going up in the chariot, or what did they mean by telling Elisah to also “Go up.”

This was no innocent group of kids. It was a large gang of 40+ young adults, surrounding, mocking, and probably endangering the life of Elisha. Laughting at the miracle of God they had just witnessed. Elisha spoke against them, and God sent the two bears. Elisha walked away unharmed. 42 of the youth did not. Note that it says the youth were “torn apart” in the KJ. Most other translation use “rend”, “torn” or “injured”. The original Hebrew word does NOT mean killed.

Peace and God Bless.

 

[Tiny_Montgomery]

That provides some helpful perspective. Thanks.

I wonder if there is any significance to them calling him “baldhead”?

 

[Magicsilence]

That provides some helpful perspective. Thanks.

I wonder if there is any significance to them calling him “baldhead”?

Not really.

As far as I can tell he was bald, so they used it to jeer at him.

Nothing to it.

 

[Thal59]

While the strict Hebrew text may indicate injury, it most likely does mean killed. It is not a question of an overly severe punishment being given for the simple sin of insulting Elisha.

The sin is that they had insulted God through the person of His ambassador.

If a king sends his ambassador to your country and you kill or insult him, it is deemd as if you did it to the king himself. Wars have started that way. An ambassador is sent “in the person of” the king; in other words, as if the king himself were there. Any act that is lacking diginity that is directed to the ambassador becomes a direct insult to the king whom he represents.

Insult Elisha, and God is insulted.

Thal59

 

[Liberian]

I have heard that Elisha may have sported a tonsure that the youths in question were also mocking.

• Liberian

 

[Todd_Easton]

Here’s what Haydock’s 1859 Catholic Bible commentary says:
Ver 23. Bald-head. It is not known whether Eliseus [Elisha] was really bald, or only wore his hair short, like the priests of the Lord, and the monks at present. It may also be a term of reproach, of which the emperors Julius Cæsar, Domitian, and Otho, were very sensible. Cæsar wore a crown of laurel, and Otho a sort of false hair, to hide this deformity. (Suetonius)
Quod summum formæ decus est, periere capilli. (Petronius) (Calmet)
Ver. 24. Cursed them. This curse, which was followed by so visible a judgment of God, was not the effect of passion, or of a desire of revenging himself; but of zeal for religion, which was insulted by these boys, in the person of the prophet, and of a divine inspiration; God being determined to punish in this manner the inhabitants of Bethel, (the chief seat of the calf-worship) who had trained up their children in a prejudice against the true religion and its ministers. (Challoner) — The boys themselves were not so little as not to be aware of the insult they were offering to a minister of the God of Juda; and probably they acted thus out of hatred to him, at the instigation of their idolatrous parents. (Sanchez) (Calmet) — Lord. He called on him (Menochius) to revenge his own cause (Haydock), “that the people might learn to take care of their souls, by the fear of death.” (St. Augustine) (Du Hamel)

 

[Zooey]

I have heard that Elisha may have sported a tonsure that the youths in question were also mocking.

• Liberian

I have read somewhere, that this was a very rude name in that time. It was more like they were swearing at him, & calling him off-color names would be, in our society.
They were being more than just ill mannered; they were acting like a bunch of toughs, sneering & insulting God’s prophet, & posssibley even threatening him. The word does not sound bad to us, but if we think of some of the names that get thrown around today (none of which are printable here), you get a better idea of what was occuring…