okay, was reading 2 King, when this passage troubled me:
"From there Elisha went up to Bethel. As he was walking along the road, some youths came out of the town and jeered at him. "Go on up, you baldhead!" they said. "Go on up, you baldhead!" He turned around, looked at them and called down a curse on them in the name of the LORD. Then two bears came out of the woods and mauled forty-two of the youths. And he went on to Mount Carmel and from there returned to Samaria."
Taken from 2 Kings 2:23-25, The Bible, THe New International Version (NIV).
Now, why did Elisha called out the bears and set them loose on the youths? Did being jeered at really warrants a punishment as being torn by wild beasts?
Also, interestingly, different translations gave different words on the people that were mauled. In the NIV it reports as "youths". Other versions uses slightly different words, like "young lads" (New American Standard Bible, or NASB), "little kids" (the Message Bible), "young [maturing and accountable] boys" (the Amplified Bible), "a group of boys" (New Living Translation), "little children" (King James' Version, KJV), "some small boys" (English Standard Version). Whatever the description, it just points out the offenders are just very young. Was Elisha "correct" in calling down a curse upon the little ones?
Cool polar bear picture but I bet it's not from the Sgp Zoological Gdns... too skinny...
ReplyDeleteWould it have anything to do with him healing the water and bringing life to the the land in the town he just left? Wonder how likely are the youths to have heard about / be blessed by that. And don't have a map to check locations of the places, maybe it'll give clues?
Jericho (where waters were healed) and Bethel are relatively quite near, about a day or two walking journey.
ReplyDeleteA personal take, I believe the reason why the youths were mauled is not because they mocked Elisha. They were mocking God and that was why God allowed the youths to be killed in such a way. In the OT, the prophets represented God before the people. To treat prophets with contempt is equivalent to treating God the same way... that was why it seems a little harsh...
Nah, not a polar bear. Taken from Wiki's entry on Elisha (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Elisha). The picture shows a Syrian Brown Bear in Jerusalem Biblical Zoo. It is suggested that this is the species of bear mentioned in the story.
ReplyDeletehaha, not a little, but very harsh. :D
ReplyDeleteI guess I'm just disturbed how God can allow little boys to be mauled to death, just because they poked fun at an adult. I mean we did all kind of things when we were little, calling names is but just one of the things we do to irrate the adults. ;p
I'm inclined to read this another way, that this shows that prophets are just human too. Elisha called out the bears, because he was angry at being made fun at. Of course, prophets are to be respected, but to kill someone over insult of hair is just plain too much for me...
Of course, if I read it this way, then I have to question why God allowed Elisha to call out the bears...
Ok, my once perceptive eyesight is failing... Now I see the reflection of the leafy trees in the water. And feel like taking out my brown colour pencil too.
ReplyDeleteVa Va Phoonies. Yeh, you have saved me a bit of research time, though it's always GOOD to look up maps and commentaries (we are starting to sound quite opinionated...). Quite like the inductive method though - do you think the political context and the significance of the handing over from Elijah to Elisha would add to the interpretation as well?
The application of Phoonies' interpretation for me is good food for thought...
And all the little name-calling boys out there better WATCH OUT...