Estimated reading time: 5 minute(s)
This is one of my favorite stories. I read it again today, and this time I noticed something different; a piece of the puzzle I had forgotten, if I’d ever even noticed it at all.
Israel was at war with Aram. Modern-day Syria. There were frequent raids of border towns. Imagine that. Where I am living, it is hard to do. But to always be on edge, wondering if there might be a raid today and all your things, your food, maybe even your people could be taken from you. Or you could be killed. Any day. Every day.
That’s how it was.
There were prophets. God communicated with his people through these prophets. You’ve certainly heard of a few of them. I’d say almost definitely you know the name of Elijah (he was called Elijah the Tishbite, being from Tishbe) and likely you are also familiar with his successor, Elisha.
These prophets also frequently had audience with the kings. Often this did not go well because God was usually telling the kings, through these prophets, that they were way off track, and as a result, they, their families, and sometimes all of Israel would soon face mild-to-severe calamities as a result.
But despite the doom-and-gloom, the kings usually at least listened to what these prophets told them.
That was about to get Elisha into hot water with the king of Aram, Israel’s next-door neighbors.
Ben-Hadad was his name. He was at war with Israel, and so, he was planning strategic ambushes to get the upper hand. The problem is, God knows everything.1 And often he would tell his prophets, who would tell everyone (or someone) else.
Ben-Hadad told his army officials, “Let’s set an ambush here, at such and such a time.” And Elisha would tell the king of Israel, “Hey, you are going to want to avoid ‘Here’ when it’s ‘such and such’ time, because Aram is going to be waiting to attack you there.”
This happened multiple times until Ben-Hadad wondered, “Who is the snitch?!” He confronted his top officials and someone said, “It’s none of us, it’s that guy Elisha!” So the king of Aram decided “that guy” needed to be dealt with. He discovered where Elisha was and sent a large contingent of his army to go deal with him.
Stories from Elisha’s life often include his young servant. His name is Gehazi. He was also Elisha’s scribe. The story in 2 Kings chapter 6 does not include his name, it just says “the servant”, but I think I just always guess that it was Gehazi. So, as the army surrounds them, Gehazi sees them and, being a younger man, with less experience, was very worried. Knowing they were here for them, or at least Elisha, he asked, “What are we going to do?!”
This is the part of the story that I love.
Elisha said, “O God, open his eyes, and let him see!”
And he did! Here’s how Peterson tells it in The Message:
The eyes of the young man were opened and he saw. A wonder! The whole mountainside full of horses and chariots of fire surrounding Elisha!
In the darkest, bleakest, scariest moment… God is there. In full force. Able to deal with things we most certainly can not handle on our own. We just don’t usually see it. But this time, when Elisha asked, God revealed the truth to Gehazi.
And that is where I usually stop remembering the story. It’s so great, what more could you want?
But wait… there’s more!
Aram, not seeing the scary fire horses, decides to attack. When they do, Elisha asks God to blind them, which of course, he does. Blinded, Elisha gets the entire force of Aramean soldiers to follow his lead, right into the capital city of Israel: Samaria. Where resides the leader of their enemy, the king of Israel.
Again, The Message:
Then Elisha called out to them, “Not that way! Not this city! Follow me and I’ll lead you to the man you’re looking for.” And he led them into Samaria.
Once they reached Samaria, Elisha asked God to open their eyes, and again God does so, and they see they are in Samaria, trapped! Gotcha!
But that was not Elisha’s plan.
This is the next cool part of the story.
The king of Israel asks Elisha whether he intends for them to all be put to death. (Note: I like that the king is asking Elisha what he should do.) But Elisha says, “No way! You didn’t do a thing to capture these people, you’re not going to kill them. Instead, make a feast for them and send them on their way.”
The Bible says in a few places2 that we should love our enemies, and I think that is exactly what God, through Elisha, was demonstrating here this day. A feast? They were just trying to kill Elisha, so they could steal, kill, and destroy more Israelites. A feast?
But the king knew enough to listen to a prophet. Especially this one.
So he prepared a huge feast for them. After they ate and drank their fill he dismissed them. Then they returned home to their master. The raiding bands of Aram didn’t bother Israel anymore.
It worked. Not only was this one attack thwarted, Elisha (and Gehazi) did not die, all the raiding stopped. (At least for a while.)
Because they chose generous kindness over (deserved) punishment.
Did you remember that part of this story? I did not.
But it is something I needed to hear today.
