Violent and troubling bible passage

[JValentinus]

The following is a passage that troubles me greatly. Some boys make fun of a prophet’s bald head, and as a consequence two she-bears rip 42 of them limb-from-limb. This is quite an overreaction, and doesn’t seem consistent with “God is Love.”

2 Kings 2:23-24 [NIV]

Elisha left Jericho to go to Bethel and on the way some boys came out of a town and made fun of him. “Get out of here, Baldy!” they shouted. Elisha turned around, glared at them, and cursed them in the name of the Lord. Then two she-bears came out of the woods and tore forty-two of the boys to pieces.

Any takers?

 

[littlequestion]

Have you ever read stories of what often happens to hikers in grizzly country? And they are not even making fun of old prophets. Where is God’s love, there?

I think you have to understand that God lets things happen, not necessarily makes things happen. A curse would mean that the prophet removed the boys from God’s protection, whereas if they were respectful and remained under God’s protection, the same two bears who were there anyway would not have attacked them. So by cursing them he placed them in the position all people are in, which is Original Sin, going to Hell, being in Hell.

The story shows us that when we are removed from our state of Grace we are essentially in Hell. What those two bears did is nothing compared to actual Hell.

God doesn’t show hatred by sending us to Hell. We are already on the way to getting there, anyway.

He shows love by sending us the way out of Hell, which is His son, to whom all Old Testament prophets point. The boys were mocking the path out of Hell that exists through the prophets and eventually Jesus.

 

[JValentinus]

A curse would mean that the prophet removed the boys from God’s protection, whereas if they were respectful and remained under God’s protection, the same two bears who were there anyway would not have attacked them.

This explanation doesn’t really get at my objection to this passage: is allowing death by bear-mauling a proportionate response for kids making fun of someone? If so, how is that consistent with a loving, forgiving God?

Also, the passage said nothing about the boys mocking the “path out of Hell that exists though the prophets.” They were simply making fun of this man’s chrome dome. Oops! I did it. Better carry my bear repellent!

 

[Luke_K]

I’ve read that the translation doesn’t necessarily mean “little boys” as if these were children who were just teasing him. The words Naarim ketanaim could mean any age from 12-30. (I’m no expert in Hebrew though- I’m just reciting what I’ve read). These same words were used to describe David when Samuel came to anoint him, and David was a young man at that time. So I don’t think it’s fair to blindly interpret this passage as divine wrath on little kid’s teasing.

Also, “baldhead” meant more than someone who was prematurely balding. In the East, it was an epithet of utter contempt. Read Isaiah 3:17 (God will judge the sinful people and bare their heads as a mark of social disgrace.) Additionally, I read that Elisha would probably have had his head covered as the usual dress of the prophet of God. Either way, Elisha would have been wearing the mantle of Elijah, the foremost prophet of God at the time, and as such he required respect. The young lads were deeply insulting God’s prophet, and it seems like they may have been mocking him in his journey to Bethel, a major city of sin at the time, or to go up to heaven like Elijah had.

Anyway you look at it, you have to remember that in the Old Covenant, God was having a handful preparing Israel for his Son’s coming. He had to get them in a state where Jesus’ message would have some effect on them, otherwise his Son’s Gospel and sacrifice would be pointless. Humanity had rebelled against the Author of Life, and God had to bring them back to him all the while respecting their free will. Israel had to become holy as God is holy.

The Israelites turned away from God to worshiping pagan gods again and again. Sometimes he felt it necessary to have the Israelites themselves kill the pagans in order to strengthen their resolve against false gods and prevent the pagans from leading them astray from God. Any righteous men that died before Jesus were sent to the “bosom of Abraham” from where they were led to heaven when Jesus descended into hell.

I urge you to not be turned off by what you may think are lengthy and “reaching” explanations for difficult Bible passages. Just because you interpret a passage in one way, the first time, from your 21st century worldview, does not mean that it is the correct interpretation. Mature faith involves trusting that God will lead you to the truth even when great difficulties present themselves. The proper response is not “This is unbelievable. It is impossible for me to have faith anymore.” It is “Dear God, help my struggle to understand and grant me faith. Let the light of your truth penetrate the darkness of my soul.”

I read this link for an explanation of the context of the passage (pages 16-19): gts.grace.edu/documents/Messner-ElishaBears-GTJ.pdf

 

[prodigalson12]

I’ve read that the translation doesn’t necessarily mean “little boys” as if these were children who were just teasing him. The words Naarim ketanaim could mean any age from 12-30. (I’m no expert in Hebrew though- I’m just reciting what I’ve read). These same words were used to describe David when Samuel came to anoint him, and David was a young man at that time. So I don’t think it’s fair to blindly interpret this passage as divine wrath on little kid’s teasing.

Also, “baldhead” meant more than someone who was prematurely balding. In the East, it was an epithet of utter contempt. Read Isaiah 3:17 (God will judge the sinful people and bare their heads as a mark of social disgrace.) Additionally, I read that Elisha would probably have had his head covered as the usual dress of the prophet of God. Either way, Elisha would have been wearing the mantle of Elijah, the foremost prophet of God at the time, and as such he required respect. The young lads were deeply insulting God’s prophet, and it seems like they may have been mocking him in his journey to Bethel, a major city of sin at the time, or to go up to heaven like Elijah had.

Anyway you look at it, you have to remember that in the Old Covenant, God was having a handful preparing Israel for his Son’s coming. He had to get them in a state where Jesus’ message would have some effect on them, otherwise his Son’s Gospel and sacrifice would be pointless. Humanity had rebelled against the Author of Life, and God had to bring them back to him all the while respecting their free will. Israel had to become holy as God is holy.

The Israelites turned away from God to worshiping pagan gods again and again. Sometimes he felt it necessary to have the Israelites themselves kill the pagans in order to strengthen their resolve against false gods and prevent the pagans from leading them astray from God. Any righteous men that died before Jesus were sent to the “bosom of Abraham” from where they were led to heaven when Jesus descended into hell.

I urge you to not be turned off by what you may think are lengthy and “reaching” explanations for difficult Bible passages. Just because you interpret a passage in one way, the first time, from your 21st century worldview, does not mean that it is the correct interpretation. Mature faith involves trusting that God will lead you to the truth even when great difficulties present themselves. The proper response is not “This is unbelievable. It is impossible for me to have faith anymore.” It is “Dear God, help my struggle to understand and grant me faith. Let the light of your truth penetrate the darkness of my soul.”

I read this link for an explanation of the context of the passage (pages 16-19): gts.grace.edu/documents/Messner-ElishaBears-GTJ.pdf

 

[patrick457]

The passage is also dealt with here.

 

[Moscati]

How about Psalm 137?

8 O Daughter of Babylon, doomed to destruction,
happy is he who repays you
for what you have done to us-

9 he who seizes your infants
and dashes them against the rocks.

I personally interpret it as the Israelites poetically expressing their anger at being captive slaves in Babylon–no doubt it was terrible, and they’d lost plenty of their own children along the way. The Psalms express all the extremes of human emotion.

Still, it takes readers aback, especially us Catholics, I would think, believing what we do about the good of children.

 

[Petergee]

How about Psalm 137?

8 O Daughter of Babylon, doomed to destruction,
happy is he who repays you
for what you have done to us-

9 he who seizes your infants
and dashes them against the rocks.

I personally interpret it as the Israelites poetically expressing their anger at being captive slaves in Babylon–no doubt it was terrible, and they’d lost plenty of their own children along the way. The Psalms express all the extremes of human emotion.

Still, it takes readers aback, especially us Catholics, I would think, believing what we do about the good of children.

Also it refers to the fact that those who have done wrong in this world will be repaid accordingly in the next - metaphorically, they will be as anguished as a parent would be to see his children casually murdered. The Psalmist says “blessed” (“happy” is a poor translation IMO) is He who carries out this just punishment. There is no historical evidence of the Jews murdering Babylonian babies.

Being prematurely “follicularly challenged” myself, the story about Elisha is one of my favourite passages.

In addition to the explanations mentioned, also note:

1. Not many men in those days lived long enough to go bald.
2. In ancient Israel as in nearly all cultures except the modern West, respect for elders was a VERY big deal.

(Even today in many Asian cultures, almost the first thing a person will ask on meeting you is “How old are you?” which seems rude to Westerners, but in fact it’s so that the person will know how much deference he has a duty to pay to you. Even if you are just one year older than him, he must honour you as an “elder”.)

 

[azerty]

the"daughters" of Babylon is a symbol for “sins” and the rock is a symbol for Jesus Christ .
That’s how St Augustin intepreted this psalm

“What are the little ones of Babylon? Evil desires at their birth. For there are, who have to fight with inveterate lusts. When lust is born, before evil habit giveth it strength against thee, when lust is little, by no means let it gain the strength of evil habit; when it is little, dash it. But thou fearest, lest though dashed it die not; “Dash it against the Rock; and that Rock is Christ.”(2)”
clerus.org/bibliaclerusonline/en/index.htm

Reading Origen and St Augustin is helpful to interpret the Old Testament.

ps: forgive my bad english

 

[mfj]

Thanks for the post and replies.
The articles referenced fortified my feelings on the subject.
It’s hard for folk to see this as a merciful act!

 

[cheeto1]

Then two she-bears came out of the woods and tore forty-two of the boys to pieces.

42 “of them”? How many were there? This hardly sounds like child’s play, but
a vicious mob attacking a poor old man, and one they should know better to
respect!

This reminds me of a story of some young men teasing a tiger at a zoo in recent
years. Surprisingly, the tiger came out and attacked them. One of them, bleeding
badly, tried to run inside the cafeteria for safety, but those inside wouldn’t let him
in. They didn’t know he was attacked by the tiger, and they wouldn’t help him, because he was being so bad that they were afraid of him, and didn’t trust him.

Littlequestion, your post was right on target, and expressed perfectly. I don’t know
why JValentinus doesn’t understand. And JValentinus, I don’t understand your
“bear repellant” comment and the big smilie, because what will you use as
“repellant” for the Lord?

 

[JValentinus]

I was joking about needing bear repellant for the she-bears that might come after me. It was a joke.

I read the Messner article. Thanks for sharing that. It seems like other people are disturbed by this as well, so I’m not alone.

It doesn’t really change things if the victims were not “little children.” A God that would inflict such a disproportionate response on anyone, of any age, is one that I cannot worship. The justifications presented here make my stomach turn.

This is just one of many violent passages in the OT. There are many others where God lays waste to cities, encourages or demands mass murder, rape, and incest. God comes off as more like Saddam Hussein than “God is Love.” Another passage that has troubled me for years is:

“Now kill all the boys. And kill every woman who has slept with a man, but save for yourself every girl who has never slept with a man.” (Numbers 31:17-18)

Yikes. My mind cannot get past this brutality and I cannot reconcile this with my own feelings about morality.

 

[CHRISTINE77]

I think the brats had it coming to them. Just kidding, but really it is awful to mock people. Very hurtful, very sinful.

 

[Major_Tom]

Yikes. My mind cannot get past this brutality and I cannot reconcile this with my own feelings about morality.

I concur.

With respect, when I read some of these apologetics, they seem like a real stretch. Like a political spokesman who can deflect awful news. How many priests of Baal did Elijah kill…? Was there NO ONE is Sodom and Gomorrah that was decent…? Joshua leveled the entire town…?

I do try and take to heart some of these Catholic apologetics. But I also can’t help but ponder another explanation while I’m doing that: it’s a classic, reflexive instinct by a people to rewrite stories to show their own preeminece and importance.

 

[cheeto1]

Yikes. My mind cannot get past this brutality and I cannot reconcile this with my own feelings about morality.

Why should we get past it? Are we cruel and inhuman? With the understanding
we have today, there is no way to reconcile it, especially after Jesus came and
showed everbody the right way.

We just have to accept that God is God. Do you think maybe there is some other
God who is kinder and gentler than the One who created us?

There is an explanation for all this tragedy, I just don’t know what it is, but I suspect
it has something to do with God coming down to the level of understanding of the
people and working from there.

It’s awful isn’t it? I feel just as bad as you to read these kind of things.

 

[patrick457]

How about Psalm 137?

8 O Daughter of Babylon, doomed to destruction,
happy is he who repays you
for what you have done to us-

9 he who seizes your infants
and dashes them against the rocks.

**I personally interpret it as the Israelites poetically expressing their anger at being captive slaves in Babylon–no doubt it was terrible, and they’d lost plenty of their own children along the way. The Psalms express all the extremes of human emotion. **

Still, it takes readers aback, especially us Catholics, I would think, believing what we do about the good of children.

You’re correct here. This psalm actually reflects an idea that is common in the Near East: that of imprecation and vengeance. In Near Eastern quarrels and fights, it is normal to curse each other with words and expressions that might sound repulsive to a Westerner, such as wishing divine wrath to fall upon the opposing party, the idea being that one’s personal enemies is also the enemy of God.

Abraham Mitrie Rihbany, a Lebanese Christian and author of The Syrian Christ (1916) - where he reviews the gospel accounts and parallels them to the customs of his native land - once devoted a chapter to imprecations, which I shall quote here:

Again, the Oriental’s consideration of life as being essentially religious makes him as pious in his imprecations and curses as he is in his aspirational prayer. Beyond all human intrigue, passion, and force, the great avenger is God. “Vengeance is mine; I will repay, saith the Lord.” “See now that I, even I, am he, and there is no God with me: I kill and I make alive; I wound and I heal: neither is there any that can deliver out of my hand.”
By priests and parents these precepts have been transmitted from generation to generation in the Orient, from time immemorial. We all were instructed in them by our elders with scrupulous care. Of course as weak mortals we always tried to avenge ourselves, and the idea of thar (revenge) lies deep in the Oriental nature. But to us our vengeance was nothing compared with what God did to our “ungodly” enemies and oppressors.
The Oriental’s impetuosity and effusiveness make his imprecatory prayers, especially to the “unaccustomed ears” of Americans, blood-curdling. And I confess that on my last visit to Syria, my countrymen’s (and especially my countrywomen’s) bursts of pious wrath jarred heavily upon me. In his oral bombardment of his enemy the Oriental hurls such missiles as, “May God burn the bones of your fathers”; “May God exterminate your seed from the earth”; “May God cut off your supply of bread (yakta rizkak)”; “May you have nothing but the ground for a bed and the sky for covering”; “May your children be orphaned and your wife widowed”; and similar expressions.
Does not this sound exactly like the one hundred and ninth Psalm? Speaking of his enemy, the writer of that psalm says, “Let his days be few, and let another take his office. Let his children be fatherless, and his wife a widow. Let his children be continually vagabonds, and beg; let them seek their bread also out of their desolate places. Let there be none to extend mercy unto him; neither let there be any to favour his fatherless children. Let his posterity be cut off; and in the generation following let their name be blotted out.”
The sad fact is that the Oriental has always considered his personal enemies to be the enemies of God also, and as such their end was destruction. Such sentiments mar the beauty of many of the Psalms. The enemies of the Israelites were considered the enemies of the God of Israel, and the enemies of a Syrian family are also the enemies of the patron saint of that family. In that most wonderful Scriptural passage - the one hundred and thirty-ninth Psalm - the singer cries, “Surely thou wilt slay the wicked, O God: depart from me, ye bloody men. For they speak against thee wickedly, and thine enemies take thy name in vain. Do not I hate them, O Lord, that hate thee? and am not I grieved with those that rise against thee? I hate them with perfect hatred: I count them mine enemies.” Yet this ardent hater of his enemies most innocently turns to God and says in the next verse, “Search me, O God, and know my heart: try me and know my thoughts: and see if there be any wicked way in me, and lead me in the way everlasting.”

 

[patrick457]

Rihbany continues:

This mixture of piety and hatred, uttered so naively and in good faith, is characteristically Syrian. Such were the mutual wishes I so often heard expressed in our neighborhood and clan fights and quarrels in Syria. When so praying, upon their breasts and uncover their heads, as signs of the total surrender of their cause to an avenging Omnipotence. Of course the Syrians are not so cruel and heartless as such imprecations, especially when cast in cold type, would lead one to believe. I am certain that if the little children of his enemy should become fatherless, the imprecator himself would be among the first to “favor” them. If you will keep in mind the juvenile temperament of the Oriental, already mentioned, and his habit of turning to God in all circumstances, as unreservedly as a child turns to his father, your judgment of the son of Palestine will be greatly tempered with mercy.
The one redeeming feature in these imprecatory petitions is that they have always served the Oriental as a safety-valve. Much of his wrath is vented in this manner. He is much more cruel in his word than in his deeds. As a rule the Orientals quarrel much, but fight little. By the time the two antagonists have cursed and reviled each other so profusely they cool off, and thus graver consequences are averted. The Anglo-Saxon has outgrown such habits. In the first place the highly complex social order in which he lives calls for much more effective methods for the settling of disputes, and, in the second place, he has no time to waste on mere words. And just as the Anglo-Saxon smiles at the wordy fights of the Oriental, the Oriental shudders at the swiftness of the Anglo-Saxon in using his fists and his pistol. Both are needy of the grace of God.

Interestingly, the next chapter after this is devoted to an analysis of Jesus’ saying to love one’s enemies, or more specifically, what “love” means in the light of the Middle Eastern language and context.

 

[JValentinus]

I think the brats had it coming to them. Just kidding, but really it is awful to mock people. Very hurtful, very sinful.

And a sin that God deems punishable by death? The same God who later said to “turn the other cheek” and “go the extra mile” can’t stand someone mocking his prophet’s bald head? What about practice what you preach?

 

[patrick457]

And he goes up from there to Beit-El, and he is going up in the way, and young youths have come out from the city, and mock him, and say to him, “Go up, baldy! Go up, baldy!” And he looks behind him and sees them, and curses them in the name of YHWH, and two she-bears come out of the woods and tore up of them forty-and-two youths.

First of all, someone already talked about yeled, literally ‘offspring’; here rendered as ‘youth’. The word is used to refer to Ishmael when he was 14 or 15 years old (Genesis 21), of all 11 of Jacob’s sons at their varying ages (Genesis 32:22), of boys born to the Hebrews (Exodus 1:17). So it’s hardly an indicator that these are indeed little children - on the contrary, they seem to be old enough to recognize a prophet of God and insult him.

Also, as mentioned, saying somebody is “bald” is a very grave insult - either an allusion to lepers (social outcasts) who shave their heads or simply a form of scorn, since (1) natural baldness was rare, and (2) shaving one’s head on purpose is a sign of shame (cf. Is. 3:17) or mourning (cf. Job 1:20). If Elisha was actually bald here, he was likely have shaved his head due to mourning - but since it is also the custom for men to cover their heads, it could also be probable that these youths were using it purely as an insult. Now, let’s focus on “go up” ('alah ‘to ascend’, ‘to climb’, ‘to go up’). If Elisha was in Jericho, it would have been just natural since Bethel was reached by an ascending roadway. But no such construction can be put upon their words as we hear them uttered in Bethel. So more likely, they’re referencing the ‘going up’ of Elijah on a chariot and whirlwind, a suggestion that either the event is doubted and that it is a charge that Elisha actually done in his master and took his clothes or something like “We don’t need you here! You follow your master up into the clouds!”

Finally, what were these guys up to in the first place, coming up and taunting - probably a more better word than ‘teasing’ - Elijah? One suggestion is that these youths were actually such, gangs of young men who banded together and survived or ‘had fun’ by robbing others of their lives and property, which might lead to the starvation and death of a family, especially in the time period.

If we transpose this story to a modern-day setting, we would probably see a guy getting picked upon by something like biker gangs. (Come on, who wouldn’t want some wild bears handy in that situation? )

 

[JValentinus]

OK, so let’s make these kids 30-50 year old bikers, most of them murderers and ex-cons, shouting the gravest insults in our culture at nobody other than the Pope. Actually, let’s make it one better: they’re Romans soldiers crucifying Christ.

Did or would the Christian God cause she-bears to appear to inflict divine retribution? That’s not recorded. The best evidence, which was recorded, is from the mouth of God himself:

“Father, forgive them, for they do not know what they are doing.”

Jews and Romans mocked him as he was dying, and he never uttered a word, or asked for his Father’s retribution. No she-bears in sight. Very consistent with Christ’s message of forgiveness.

How can anyone reconcile the great disparities between these two reactions from the same God? I haven’t seen anyone try that yet here. Just a lot of reading into the text nothing that actually is in it, that is somehow meant to justify God causing she-bears to tear some whipper-snappers limb-from-limb for making insults. I haven’t yet seen anyone take on the morality of God’s disproportionate action in doing so, just justifications for what might have set him off.