Why were 42 children slayed by the bears for saying Elisha was bald?

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anhphan

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How do we understand the Bible verse 2 Kings 2:23-25.
 
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anhphan said:
How do we understand the Bible verse 2 Kings 2:23-25.
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They were not killed simply for saying that someone was without hair. These children ran out and insulted Elisha, yelling, “Go up, bald head,” implying that he was a fool and that his journey to Bethel (the sacred place of God) was pointless. In doing so, they insulted our Creator who made an example of them.

“Blessed is the one who acknowledges our Creator and His wonders, and who confesses that He is not to be questioned about what He does.”
Mirzah Husayn Ali
 
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I really don’t have the definite answer, just some thoughts, as I have wondered about this too.

Elijah was a very powerful man of God and his words carried a lot of weight. It seems he also had a temper and was prideful as well.

I don’t think the scripture is condoning his actions, rather it reminds me of Jesus’ words when he cautions us to bless others, not to curse them. I don’t think we realize the power of our words. Jesus said that if we had true faith we could move mountains with our words. He also said we’d be judged by every word we speak.

Elijah had great faith, but here, it seems, he used it for the wrong purpose.
 
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anhphan said:
How do we understand the Bible verse 2 Kings 2:23-25.
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I think the hidden meaning behind this bible verse is to respect the prophet sent by god.
Just want to remind you of this story.
Miriam and Aaron Oppose Moses
12 Miriam and Aaron began to talk against Moses because of his Cushite wife, for he had married a Cushite. 2 “Has the Lord spoken only through Moses?” they asked. “Hasn’t he also spoken through us?” And the Lord heard this.

3 (Now Moses was a very humble man, more humble than anyone else on the face of the earth.)

4 At once the Lord said to Moses, Aaron and Miriam, “Come out to the tent of meeting, all three of you.” So the three of them went out. 5 Then the Lord came down in a pillar of cloud; he stood at the entrance to the tent and summoned Aaron and Miriam. When the two of them stepped forward, 6 he said, “Listen to my words:

“When there is a prophet among you,
I, the Lord, reveal myself to them in visions,
I speak to them in dreams.
7 But this is not true of my servant Moses;
he is faithful in all my house.
8 With him I speak face to face,
clearly and not in riddles;
he sees the form of the Lord.
Why then were you not afraid
to speak against my servant Moses?”

9 The anger of the Lord burned against them, and he left them.

10 When the cloud lifted from above the tent, Miriam’s skin was leprous[a]—it became as white as snow. Aaron turned toward her and saw that she had a defiling skin disease, 11 and he said to Moses, “Please, my lord, I ask you not to hold against us the sin we have so foolishly committed. 12 Do not let her be like a stillborn infant coming from its mother’s womb with its flesh half eaten away.”
 
The passage is sometimes translated “young men.” A group of young men coming from a city full of Elisha’s rivals start ganging up on an old man with no one else around…

That paints a different picture
 
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A gang of young thugs began to mock and taunt and threaten the prophet of God.
 
They were threatening his life.

Elijah, his predecessor, had just left Earth by “going up to heaven.”

The youth gang that was taunting and threatening Elisha were saying “go on up, baldy!” In other words, they were telling Elisha - “begone from the earth like your Master, we no longer want to see your ugly bald face anymore!”

So, in self defense he called on the Power and Judgment of God to fall upon this sinful gang, and it did in a spectacular way.
 
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Or its a theologumen, a story. The author is exploiting some basic facts historical for his own theological purposes.
Much like we say its raining because Mary is crying (or worse).
 
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anhphan said:
How do we understand the Bible verse 2 Kings 2:23-25.
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The word נערים, negnarim, here rendered children as young men. (Gen 22:5; Gen 22:12; Gen 41:12; Gen 43:8; 2 Chro 13:7), even when the epithet קשׂנים, ketannim, little, is added to it. (see 1 Kings 3:7, and Isa 11:6).

Thus they were old enough to discern between good and evil. They came out of Beth-el, city of idolatry, where the prophets had planted themselves to bear witness against it, to dissuade the people from it, though with small success.

These youths, it appears, did not meet with Elisha by accident, but went out with a design to insult him, knowing him to be a prophet of the true God, an advocate for his worship, and an enemy to the idolatry of the place; and having imbibed the prejudices of their parents against the true religion.

They went in a group, which showed that their motive was malice, and being planned. It is probable that they went out, not only to deride the prophet but to prevent him entering the city. They feared he would be as zealous against their idolatries as Elijah had been, and thus by this insult they intended to defend themselves from his preaching.

And so they mocked him, as the word יתקלסו, jithkallesu, here signifies; deriding both his person and ministry, to profane contempt of the true religion; their love of idolatry which they knew he opposed.

Their insult, “Go up, thou bald-head,” mocked his natural infirmity, which was a great sin, and repeating the words to show their earnestness, and that their scoff was no sudden slip of the tongue, but proceeded from a rooted impiety, and hatred of God and his prophets: and very probably it was their usual practice to jeer the prophets as they went along the streets, that they might expose them to contempt, and, if possible, drive them out of the town.

Many commentators think the expression, עלה, gnalee, Go up, ascend, which they repeat, they intended to make a jest of the ascension of Elijah, which no doubt they had heard of: as if they had said, “Go up, ascend into heaven, whither thou pretendest Elijah is gone. Why didst thou not accompany thy friend and master to heaven?” thus shutting their eyes against an astonishing miracle, namely, of both Elijah and Elisha’s dividing the waters of Jordan, and passing through on dry ground.

Even if it might not allude to Elijah’s ascension, their abuse of a prophet whom God had so evidently accredited, and marked out as the successor of Elijah, whose miracles had been so many and so wonderful, was a most heinous sin, and a manifest insult offered to the true God, and was accordingly punished as such by him.
 
A group came out to mock Elisha. They were mocking him and Elijah in a way.

Now, I want you to consider the types of bears we are talking about. They were not huge grizzly bears but likely the Syrian brown bear. I believe they may be the only native species of bear to the area of the world we are talking about.

This is a relatively small species. You think the children died for some reason, but it is likely they were more scared off by the bears and scattered. There is a difficulty in believing that a group as large as that would be killed by the small bears, anyhow.

God can make evils flee.
 
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If we’re just going to add to scripture to say that this was a gang of young men threatening the life of Elisha, why not just add that they had machines guns too? 😃
 
It is not adding.
It is an understanding of language and context painting a picture.
 
BlackFriar said:
Or its a theologumen, a story. The author is exploiting some basic facts historical for his own theological purposes.

Much like we say its raining because Mary is crying (or worse).
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Can you point to any Church Fathers or precedence for that interpretation anywhere in our Holy Tradition? As far as I know this passage has always been interpreted mainly in its historical sense. You could extract some tropological meaning from it too, but I see absolutely no way of interpreting it as a mere “theological opinion.”

Or is that simply your modern interpretative opinion?

@BlackFriar let’s be frank for a second, simple yes or no answers please. Do you believe in God’s Justice? Do you believe in Divine Judgment? Do you believe in eternal punishment in hell for those God judges as condemned sinners after death? Do you believe in God’s Vengeance and Wrath as expressed in Scripture and the Fathers?
 
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Spyridon said:
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BlackFriar:
Or its a theologumen, a story. The author is exploiting some basic facts historical for his own theological purposes.

Much like we say its raining because Mary is crying (or worse).
Click to expand...
@BlackFriar let’s be frank for a second, simple yes or no answers please. Do you believe in God’s Justice? Do you believe in Divine Judgment? Do you believe in eternal punishment in hell for those God judges as condemned sinners after death? Do you believe in God’s Vengeance and Wrath as expressed in Scripture and the Fathers?
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For children mocking an old man and calling him baldy… or rigid, or authoritarian or literalist or gullible or even lacking common sense…no.
 
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Ok, that’s what I thought.

So, It’s simply your modern interpretation due to modern sensibilities - it’s not patristic.
 
I remember when I first read it. I believed it.
You think of Noah’s Ark - and that calamity!
I looked up Syrian bear - 550 pounds. No Teddy Bear.
That’s a lot of dead bodies on the ground, afterwards, for sure.

Anyone ever see the movie “The Edge” starring Anthony Hopkins !
Small aircraft crashes in Alaska -
They swim to safety, but there’s a bear …,
And they have no guns or weapons…
 
Galileo was not patristicly interpretting the Bible. The Church admitted this rigid approach to the Bible was wrong.
 
It’s really not if you understand God’s Justice.

It’s only an issue if you don’t understand Divine Justice.
 
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