Bears mauling 42 children
Here is the short passage about Elisha the prophet and then I will explain it.
He went up from there to Bethel; and while he was going up on the way, some small boys came out of the city and jeered at him, saying, “Go up, you baldhead! Go up, you baldhead!” And he turned around, and when he saw them, he cursed them in the name of the LORD. And two she-bears came out of the woods and tore forty-two of the boys. (2 Kings 2:23-24)
First we have to understand the context of where Elisha was and what his message was.
Solomon was king of the twelve tribes of Israel. While he was very wise, his wealth and power came at a price. He was a harsh ruler who levied heavy taxation on his subjects and forced people to labor in his service. When Solomon died his son Rehoboam took the throne. The people asked Rehoboam to lighten the burden but Rehoboam refused and threatened them with even harsher rule.
And the king answered the people harshly, and forsaking the counsel which the old men had given him, he spoke to them according to the counsel of the young men, saying, "My father made your yoke heavy, but I will add to your yoke; my father chastised you with whips, but I will chastise you with scorpions." So the king did not hearken to the people; for it was a turn of affairs brought about by the LORD that he might fulfil his word, which the LORD spoke by Ahi’jah the Shi’lonite to Jerobo’am the son of Nebat. And when all Israel saw that the king did not hearken to them, the people answered the king,
“What portion have we in David?
We have no inheritance in the son of Jesse.
To your tents, O Israel!
Look now to your own house, David.”
So Israel departed to their tents.
(1 Kings 12:13-16)
The ten northern tribes fled. They literally seceded and formed their own nation - the nation of Israel. Only the two southern tribes of Judah and Benjamin stayed faithful to Rehoboam - this was the southern nation of Judah. This era in the history of the Jews is called the
Divided Kingdom.
Judah was where Jerusalem was and where the Temple was. Since the northern nation of Israel didn’t have a temple, they set up not one, but two golden calves - one in the city of Dan and the other in the city of Bethel.
So the king took counsel, and made two calves of gold. And he said to the people, “You have gone up to Jerusalem long enough. Behold your gods, O Israel, who brought you up out of the land of Egypt.” And he set one in Bethel, and the other he put in Dan. And this thing became a sin, for the people went to the one at Bethel and to the other as far as Dan. (1 Kings 12:28-30)
The fact that there were two golden calves shows that they were twice as bad as those who had worshipped the one golden calf at Mt. Sinai. They then set up all kinds of pagan temples, engaged in child sacrifice, bestiality, incest, etc.
This is the context. Elisha was a prophet who was sent from Judah to preach repentance to the ten apostate northern tribes of the nation of Israel. He was a man sent by God to bring a message of repentance right into the heart of pagan worship in the city of Bethel. And God’s message was clear. God had been crystal clear way back in the book of Leviticus.
Then if you walk contrary to me, and will not hearken to me, I will bring more plagues upon you, sevenfold as many as your sins. And I will let loose the wild beasts among you, which shall rob you of your children, and destroy your cattle, and make you few in number, so that your ways shall become desolate. (Leviticus 26:21-22)
God promised to destroy their children if they did not obey his commandments, and that is exactly what happened. Elisha was a man of the God of the Hebrew people. He was bald because he had taken a nazarite vow and so had shaved his head. This clearly identified him as a man of God. The children represent the ten northern tribes - apostates who rejected God’s message over and over and over.
God had warned them previously that this would happen, that wild beasts would rip their children apart. This would have been headline news, yet they still didn’t repent.
-Tim-
Could not his boldness just be old age
That is why I want to see the quote.
You are a woman after my heart. 