This is a part of a selection of readings I gathered to reflect on what a healthy approach to masculine identity would look like. I navigated my own journey into a version of manhood in my late teens and early twenties successfully, but now in middle age I see a lot of young men struggling to navigate this journey and for a variety of reasons failing to launch into life. I come to this with humility and curiosity seeking those who may be able to articulate more clearly the journeys that may lead young men to discover a fulfilling life of work and relationships and to help those moving into the space of elders to support and guide them in this journey.
David Gilmore is an anthropologist who taught at the State University of New York whose book Manhood in the Making examines manhood as it is expressed through a number of representative cultures which have been studied by anthropologists. The groups included in the collection of studies are primarily from tribal and traditional societies which are geographically separate from larger cultural influences. With a couple of exceptions, there are expectations of a passage into manhood in these cultures and the possibility of a male child failing to navigate the expectations of manhood and being “unmanly” and unreliable in their society. As Gilmore states,
there is a constantly recurring notion that real manhood is different from simple anatomical maleness, that it is not a natural condition that comes about spontaneously through biological maturation but rather it is a precarious or artificial state that boys must win against powerful odds. This recurrent notion that manhood is a problematic, a critical threshold that boys must pass through testing, is found at all levels of sociocultural development regardless of what other alternative roles are recognized. (11)
Or more simply, boys through culturally appropriate preparation and testing must be made into men. Simply being physically mature is not enough for the mantle of manhood. Men are made, not born. And although “being a good man” may have less focus than “being good at being a man” (30) there is in most cultures an expectation that “being good at being a man” involves providing for both kin and the larger society. “If a man rejects this provider’s role, he is said to be useless and to be dependent like a woman or like a child (Caughey 1970:69).” (73)
There are two exceptions listed in this study where the men are passive, the Tahiti and Semai. These societies with men who are conditioned to be more passive and peaceful are highlighted by some readers as an ideal for a modern society, but I don’t think these men would function well in modern society. As David Gilmore surmises as he wraps up the study, “When men are conditioned to fight, manhood is important; where men are conditioned to flight, the opposite is true.” (221) He concludes with two long statements which I will quote in their entirety because I find them very helpful:
When I started researching this book, I was prepared to rediscover the old saw that masculinity is self-serving, egotistical, and uncaring. But I did not find this. One of my findings here is that manhood ideologies always include a criterion of selfless generosity, even to the point of sacrifice. Again and again we find that “real” men are those who give more than they take; they serve others. Real men are generous, even to a fault, like the Mehinaku fisherman, the Samburu cattle-herder, or the Sambia or Dodoth Big Man. Non-men are often those stigmatized as stingy and unproductive. (229)
Men adopting the provider role provide more for their society than they take, and they will often do without so that others may have enough. One final quote from Manhood in the Making on the sacrifices men are expected to make for kin and society:
Men nurture their society by shedding their blood, their sweat, and their semen, by bringing home food for both child and mother, by producing children, and by dying if necessary in faraway places to provide safe haven for their people. This too, is nurturing in the sense of endowing or increasing. However, the necessary personal qualities for this male contribution are paradoxically the exact opposite of what we Westerners normally consider the nurturing personality. To support his family, the man has to be distant, away hunting or fighting wars; to be tender, he must be tough enough to fend off enemies. To be generous, he must be selfish enough to amass goods, often by defeating other men; to be gentle, he must first be strong, even ruthless in confronting enemies; to love he must be aggressive enough to court, seduce, and “win” a wife. (230)
I found Gilmore’s work to be helpful. At times he and his fellow anthropologists were a little overdependent on a Freudian framework, but the highlighting of the processes in these cultures to transform boys into men, something missing in any formal way in our society, and the expectation of a competent but generous masculinity in culture was helpful.
Gilmore, D. D. (1990). Masculinity in the Making: Cultural and Concepts of Masculinity. New Haven: Yale University Press.
John Liston Byram Shaw, Jezebel. Museum: Russell-Cotes Art Gallery and Museum, Bournemouth, UK
2 Kings 9: 1-13 The Anointing of Jehu
1Then the prophet Elisha called a member of the company of prophets and said to him, “Gird up your loins; take this flask of oil in your hand, and go to Ramoth-gilead. 2When you arrive, look there for Jehu son of Jehoshaphat son of Nimshi; go in and get him to leave his companions, and take him into an inner chamber. 3Then take the flask of oil, pour it on his head, and say, ‘Thus says the Lord: I anoint you king over Israel.’ Then open the door and flee; do not linger.” 4So the young man, the young prophet, went to Ramoth-gilead. 5He arrived while the commanders of the army were in council, and he announced, “I have a message for you, commander.” “For which one of us?” asked Jehu. “For you, commander.” 6So Jehu got up and went inside; the young man poured the oil on his head, saying to him, “Thus says the LORD the God of Israel: I anoint you king over the people of the LORD, over Israel. 7You shall strike down the house of your master Ahab, so that I may avenge on Jezebel the blood of my servants the prophets and the blood of all the servants of the Lord. 8For the whole house of Ahab shall perish; I will cut off from Ahab every male, bond or free, in Israel. 9I will make the house of Ahab like the house of Jeroboam son of Nebat and like the house of Baasha son of Ahijah. 10The dogs shall eat Jezebel in the territory of Jezreel, and no one shall bury her.” Then he opened the door and fled. 11When Jehu came back to his master’s officers, they said to him, “Is everything all right? Why did that madman come to you?” He answered them, “You know the sort and how they babble.” 12They said, “Liar! Come on, tell us!” So he said, “This is just what he said to me: ‘Thus says the LORD, I anoint you king over Israel.’ ” 13Then hurriedly they all took their cloaks and spread them for him on the bare steps, and they blew the trumpet and proclaimed, “Jehu is king.”
In the previous chapter the long-delayed mission given to Elijah in 1 Kings 19: 15-18 to bring about the end of the Omri dynasty begins in earnest with the prophet Elisha acting as a catalyst in the rise of Hazael “son of nobody” to kill his master Ben-hadad and become the king of Aram. Now Elisha sets in motion God’s second instrument in the destruction of the Omri dynasty, Jehu. The prophet sends another member of the sons of the prophets (NRSVue company of prophets) to carry out this task of anointing Jehu, one of the commanders of the army, as the new king of Israel. Elisha may have been too well known to enter into the camp at Ramoth-gilead without creating whispers, but this young prophet goes in his stead to set Jehu in motion.
Choon Leong-Seow makes an educated assumption that these officers may be already plotting a coup based on how quickly they fall in line behind Jehu. (NIB III:217) Ultimately the narrative of 2 Kings does not give us any indication of this as the young prophet approaches, but a wounded and beaten leader recovering away from his military leaders is often viewed as vulnerable. It is also possible that some of these leaders may have viewed Elijah and Elisha favorably, and Jehu in particular is very aware of the words of Elijah and may even have a relationship with the sons of the prophets. This is all speculative, but it makes Jehu’s quick following of the young prophet to a place where he is anointed plausible.
The commissioning of Jehu as king is instrumental in his fulfilling of Elijah’s earlier condemnation of King Ahab’s line and Jezebel in the aftermath of the murder of Naboth in Jezreel to allow the king to take possession of his vineyard. (1 Kings 21) Jehu is named as the son of Jehoshaphat and the grandson of Nimshi, and while the inclusion of the grandfather in the patronym is unusual and may indicate the grandfather’s greater stature in the memory of the people than the father, it is likely that the inclusion of the grandfather’s name is to differentiate his line from Jehoshaphat son of Asa, the former king of Judah. Jehu is not coming from a royal bloodline, yet he is not a nobody. He is a commander of the army who the other commanders quickly acknowledge publicly as their leader.
In the aftermath of the prophet’s dangerous action and rapid departure, Jehu is questioned by his fellow officers about the message of ‘that madman.’ Prophets may have been viewed as mad because they were known to have ecstatic experiences, but they also were frequently (during the Omri dynasty) people who challenged the royal power. The anointing of Jehu is a dangerous action for Jehu if his colleagues view him as a traitor and he initially downplays the prophet’s purpose and message. After being convinced by his fellow officers to speak, these fellow officers join in this public act of declaring Jehu king. This act echoes the coming together of religious leaders and military leaders who anoint and blow the trumpet to declare Solomon king at the instructions of David. (1 Kings 1: 32-40) Jehu anointed by both the prophets and the military leaders moves quickly to become God’s instrument (in the view of 2 Kings) to remove the descendants of Ahab and his former wife Jezebel from their positions of power in Israel.
2 Kings 9: 14-29 Jehu Kills Joram and Ahaziah
14Thus Jehu son of Jehoshaphat son of Nimshi conspired against Joram. Joram with all Israel had been on guard at Ramoth-gilead against King Hazael of Aram, 15but King Joram had returned to be healed in Jezreel of the wounds that the Arameans had inflicted on him when he fought against King Hazael of Aram. So Jehu said, “If this is your wish, then let no one slip out of the city to go and tell the news in Jezreel.” 16Then Jehu mounted his chariot and went to Jezreel, where Joram was lying ill. King Ahaziah of Judah had come down to visit Joram. 17In Jezreel, the sentinel standing on the tower spied the company of Jehu arriving and said, “I see a company.” Joram said, “Take a horseman; send him to meet them, and let him say, ‘Is it peace?’ ” 18So the horseman went to meet him; he said, “Thus says the king, ‘Is it peace?’ ” Jehu responded, “What have you to do with peace? Fall in behind me.” The sentinel reported, saying, “The messenger reached them, but he is not coming back.” 19Then he sent out a second horseman, who came to them and said, “Thus says the king, ‘Is it peace?’ ” Jehu answered, “What have you to do with peace? Fall in behind me.” 20Again the sentinel reported, “He reached them, but he is not coming back. It looks like the driving of Jehu son of Nimshi, for he drives like a maniac.” 21Joram said, “Get ready.” And they got his chariot ready. Then King Joram of Israel and King Ahaziah of Judah set out, each in his chariot, and went to meet Jehu; they met him at the property of Naboth the Jezreelite. 22When Joram saw Jehu, he said, “Is it peace, Jehu?” He answered, “What peace can there be, so long as the many prostitutions and sorceries of your mother Jezebel continue?” 23Then Joram reined about and fled, saying to Ahaziah, “Treason, Ahaziah!” 24Jehu drew his bow with all his strength and shot Joram between the shoulders, so that the arrow pierced his heart, and he sank in his chariot. 25Jehu said to his aide Bidkar, “Lift him out and throw him on the plot of ground belonging to Naboth the Jezreelite, for remember when you and I rode side by side behind his father Ahab how the Lord uttered this oracle against him: 26‘For the blood of Naboth and for the blood of his children that I saw yesterday, says the LORD, I swear I will repay you on this very plot of ground.’ Now, therefore, lift him out and throw him on the plot of ground in accordance with the word of the LORD.”
27When King Ahaziah of Judah saw this, he fled in the direction of Beth-haggan. Jehu pursued him, saying, “Shoot him also!” And they shot him in the chariot at the ascent to Gur, which is by Ibleam. Then he fled to Megiddo and died there. 28His officers carried him in a chariot to Jerusalem and buried him in his tomb with his ancestors in the city of David. 29In the eleventh year of Joram son of Ahab, Ahaziah began to reign over Judah.
Both King Joram of Samaria and King Ahaziah of Judah are at Jezreel and Joram lies ill after the battle with the Arameans. With the rest of the military remaining at Ramoth-gilead, Jehu acts quickly with his co-conspirators, preventing word from reaching Jezreel in advance of Jehu’s plot. Jehu mounts his chariot and heads west from Ramoth-gilead, across the Jordan river to Jezreel. Jehu is not traveling alone and is, in the later words of the sentinel driving his company like a madman[1] which is something Jehu is apparently known for. The sentinel dispatches a first horsemen who asks on behalf of the king, “Is it shalom (peace)” to which Jehu responds “What have you to do with shalom? Fall in behind me.” The first and later the second horseman, which echoes these words, obediently fall in behind Jehu rather than return to their post in Jezreel. Jehu is apparently a commander who the men respect and follow even in the violation of their king’s orders.
Finally, both Kings Joram and Ahaziah each mount up in their chariots to meet this approaching company under Jehu, and they meet at the property that once belonged to Naboth the Jezreelite. King Joram once again asks Jehu, ”Is it shalom?” Jehu’s response leaves no doubt his intentions are not peaceful, and King Joram is able to cry to Ahaziah “treason” before he is shot with a single arrow, similar to his father Ahab’s death in 1 Kings 22: 34. Unlike his father he is likely shot in the back while fleeing (the shot is literally between the arms so technically could be from the front but it is less likely to pierce the heart if the king is wearing a breastplate) and unlike his father who receives a royal burial in Samaria he is cast in the field taken from the murdered Naboth.
King Ahaziah of Judah also married into the family of King Ahab, and we learned that he was practicing the ways of the Omri dynasty as well. He is also mortally wounded in the conflagration, but he is taken to Jerusalem for a royal burial. In this moment of treachery, in the view of Joram and Ahaziah, or judgment, in the view of Jehu and Elisha, the leaders of both Samaria and Jerusalem are gone. Now Jehu turns his attention Jezebel who the texts views as the force behind the corruption of the leaders in both Israel and Judah.
2 Kings 9: 30-37 The Death of Jezebel
30When Jehu came to Jezreel, Jezebel heard of it; she painted her eyes and adorned her head and looked out of the window. 31As Jehu entered the gate, she said, “Is it peace, Zimri, murderer of your master?” 32He looked up to the window and said, “Who is on my side? Who?” Two or three eunuchs looked out at him. 33He said, “Throw her down.” So they threw her down; some of her blood spattered on the wall and on the horses, which trampled on her. 34Then he went in and ate and drank; he said, “See to that cursed woman and bury her, for she is a king’s daughter.” 35But when they went to bury her, they found no more of her than the skull and the feet and the palms of her hands. 36When they came back and told him, he said, “This is the word of the LORD, which he spoke by his servant Elijah the Tishbite: In the territory of Jezreel the dogs shall eat the flesh of Jezebel; 37the corpse of Jezebel shall be like dung on the field in the territory of Jezreel, so that no one can say, ‘This is Jezebel.’ ”
Jezebel is viewed by 1&2 Kings as a corrupting influence on Israel and recently Judah through the marriage of her daughter Athaliah to Jehoram, who is the mother of the current king Ahaziah. Jezebel had brought the practices of royalty in Tyre to Samaria. Yet, in the midst of Jehu’s uprising she puts on makeup and dresses in a way that denotes her position as the queen mother. Most modern readers discount Jehu’s accusation of Jezebel’s prostitutions and sorceries (v. 22) as reflecting her worship of other gods and practices outside the laws and statues of Israel, but it is entirely possible that Jehu believes that she practices magic of some type. She mocks Jehu from her tower with the memory of Zimri (1 Kings 16: 9-16) another army officer who reigned briefly after striking down his king. Ironically Zimri was defeated by an army led by Omri, the father of Ahab-Jezebel’s late husband.
Two or three eunuchs throw Jezebel from her tower which in a moment, “transformed the narcissistic queen to a piece of rubbish in the streets.” (Brueggemann, 2000, p. 388) Jehu is unbothered by this gory site and enters the tower to eat and drink after his chariot ride and bloody work. He sends men to see to her body, although his remark that she is a king’s daughter may be ironic since he has already cast a king’s son out on the land of Naboth. Ultimately, there is not enough of Jezebel to bury which fulfills Elijah’s words in 1 Kings 21:23. The assassination of Jezebel does end a half-century alliance between Samaria and Tyre (Cogan, 1988, p. 120) but the writer of 2 Kings ultimately views this as a positive. The prophet Hosea would later criticize Jehu (Hosea 1:4) but the author of 2 Kings views his actions in this time as a necessary violence to bring about the needed end of the Omri dynasty which had corrupted northern Israel as well as Judah.
[1] This is the same Hebrew word, shuggah, used to refer to the young prophet in the previous section.
For me a five-star book is something that either I want to read again or something that is so profound it makes an immediate impact. There are lots of ways that books can be compelling: a unique idea, an interesting set of characters, a complex plot, an artistic use of the English language and more. Reading is also a subjective experience, so what appeals to me as a reader may be very different for you. I read a lot for both pleasure and work, but these short reviews are a way for me to show my appreciation for the work and the craft of the author of the reviewed work.
The Girl in the Tower is the middle book of the Winternight Trilogy, and it picks up in the aftermath of The Bear and the Nightingale. Vasya and her magnificent horse Solovey now set off to travel away from her home of Lesnaya Zemla where her father can no longer protect her from being viewed as a witch. She sets off on a journey as a traveler but quickly finds herself rescuing girls stolen by bandits and reunited with her brother Sasha who is a monk, a renowned warrior, and a trusted advisor of the crown prince of Moscow. She disguises herself as a boy and her brother, and later her sister Olya in Moscow, are caught up in this deception. From pursuing bandits raiding small villages in the woods to the world of court in Moscow and the appearance of the strange noble Kasyan this is a story with an even richer world than The Bear and the Nightingale. One of the things I appreciate about this story is that it is honest about the danger of Vasya as a woman attempting to navigate a different path where the only two options available for women are marriage and the convent.
Katherine Arden does a remarkable job of portraying the world of this story. A time where Russia still owed allegiance to the Tatars but is beginning to yearn for independence, when the Russian Orthodox church reigns supreme in Moscow but the old practices and myths still have a hold in the rural areas. It is a winter story, but it is also a story of winter losing its hold to spring. For Vasya it is also a coming-of-age story and I appreciate the tension in the relationship between Vasya and the Winter King Morosko, but that there is an acknowledgement that this cannot be a simple love story. In the words of the characters:
“Love?” he (Mososko) retorted. “How? I am a demon and a nightmare; I die every spring, and I will live forever.”
She waited.
“But yes,” he said wearily. “As I could, I loved you. Now will you go? Live.”
“I, too,” she said. “In a childish way, as girls love heroes that come in the night, I loved you.” (336)
Even in a world that still has a little magic in it, maidens do not easily surrender their hearts to myths nor do inhuman ‘gods’ warm quickly to the maiden. Yet, Katherine Arden does a remarkable job of creating the tension which is formed by their bond. I really enjoy this mixture of fantasy with historical fiction and myths and folk stories of medieval Russia. I wrote in my review of The Bear and the Nightingale that the story felt like returning to a home I never knew, and the characters and environment made me feel at home with them once again in this second book of the Winternight trilogy. I look forward to returning to The Winter of the Witch later this year.
Ivory carving found at Arslan Tash, Syria. A cache of ivories found at the Assyrian outpost of Arslan Tash was undoubtedly booty taken from Hazael’s palace in Damascus. The regal figure depicted on this piece is probably Hazael himself. (Louvre Museum, Paris)
2 Kings 8: 1-6
1Now Elisha had said to the woman whose son he had restored to life, “Get up and go with your household and settle wherever you can, for the LORD has called for a famine, and it will come on the land for seven years.” 2So the woman got up and did according to the word of the man of God; she went with her household and settled in the land of the Philistines seven years. 3At the end of the seven years, when the woman returned from the land of the Philistines, she set out to appeal to the king for her house and her land. 4Now the king was talking with Gehazi the servant of the man of God, saying, “Tell me all the great things that Elisha has done.” 5While he was telling the king how Elisha had restored a dead person to life, the woman whose son he had restored to life appealed to the king for her house and her land. Gehazi said, “My lord king, here is the woman, and here is her son whom Elisha restored to life.” 6When the king questioned the woman, she told him. So the king appointed an official for her, saying, “Restore all that was hers, together with all the revenue of the fields from the day that she left the land until now.”
Elisha continues to provide for this woman who showed him hospitality and warns her and her child to flee the coming famine. The husband is not mentioned and is likely dead at this point in their story and this woman acts as a head of household. The seven years of famine matches the seven-year cycle of Genesis 41: 25-30 which causes the sons of Israel to seek food in Egypt, but here the famine is far more localized. Seven is a common biblical number of completion or a long time, and so the actual span of the drought may be longer or shorter than this commonly used number to designate a completed time. The woman makes her temporary home in Philistia, roughly 100 miles away, and avoids the impact of the famine. The famine is not explicitly stated as God’s judgment on the Omri dynasty in Samaria and is likely linked to the famine mentioned in the previous chapter during the siege of Samaria, but the famine as a part of God’s judgment against the Omri dynasty can be implied in the story. The stories of the last several chapters which chronicle the works of Elisha probably exist beyond the twelve years of King Jehoram of Judah (even though Jehoram’s reign brackets these stories). The king who is interested in the works of Elisha is the king of Israel, but likely not Jehoram or any other king of the Omri line.
Gehazi reemerges in the story, and this may either precede his affliction with leprosy/skin disease,[1] after some unmentioned healing of his disease, or he may remain afflicted. Whatever his condition he is able to converse with the king of Israel about the acts of Elisha. As he describes Elisha’s raising of the woman’s son, he points to this woman who has come to “cry out” (NRSVue appeal)[2] for the return of her property. The Torah imagines a world where the property of a family would be held by that family in perpetuity, but the narrative of scripture points to a different reality. It is possible that in her absence a relative or even squatters have come in and taken over her land, or that in her absence it became crown land, but this once well-connected woman now comes to appeal for her property. Her connection to Elisha allows her appeal to be heard by this king who is interested in the acts of Elisha, and her “crying out” is heard by the king who appoints an official[3] to restore not only her land but also the revenue from the land in the time of her absence.
2 Kings 8: 7-15
7Elisha went to Damascus while King Ben-hadad of Aram was ill. When it was told him, “The man of God has come here,” 8the king said to Hazael, “Take a present with you and go to meet the man of God. Inquire of the LORD through him, whether I shall recover from this illness.” 9So Hazael went to meet him, taking a present with him, all kinds of goods of Damascus, forty camel loads. When he entered and stood before him, he said, “Your son King Ben-hadad of Aram has sent me to you, saying, ‘Shall I recover from this illness?’ ” 10Elisha said to him, “Go, say to him, ‘You shall certainly recover,’ but the LORD has shown me that he shall certainly die.” 11He fixed his gaze and stared at him to the point of embarrassment. Then the man of God wept. 12Hazael asked, “Why does my lord weep?” He answered, “Because I know the evil that you will do to the people of Israel; you will set their fortresses on fire; you will kill their young men with the sword, dash in pieces their little ones, and rip up their pregnant women.” 13Hazael said, “What is your servant, who is a mere dog, that he should do this great thing?” Elisha answered, “The LORD has shown me that you are to be king over Aram.” 14Then he left Elisha and went to his master Ben-hadad, who said to him, “What did Elisha say to you?” And he answered, “He told me that you would certainly recover.” 15But the next day he took the bedcover and dipped it in water and spread it over the king’s face, until he died. And Hazael succeeded him.
The prophet Elijah when he was instructed to anoint Elisha to be prophet in his place was also commanded to appoint Hazael as king over Aram and Jehu as king over Israel (1 Kings 19: 15-17). Elijah did call Elisha, but now it is Elisha who is engaged in Hazael’s ascension to power in Damascus. The story is an inversion of the story in 2 Kings 1 where King Ahaziah, king in Samaria, sends to inquire of Baal-zebub, the god of Ekron. While the king of Israel appeals to the god of Ekron, now a foreign king appeals to the prophet of Israel to inquire of the LORD his God. Yet, this inquiry of Ben-hadad sets in motion his demise despite the affirmative answer of the prophet. The prophetic messenger appoints Hazael to do the work that prophets do not do. The involvement of the prophet in both a lie and the politics of a foreign power has caused discomfort for some readers.
In the scriptures God often works through foreign powers, even if these powers are unaware of their participation in God’s action of judgment or deliverance. Hazael, the servant of Ben-hadad approaches the prophet with a large gift for this emissary of the God of Israel, but unlike Naaman’s large gift we never learn the disposition of the forty camel loads of gifts offered to the prophet. Hazael is informed of his role even though the prophet regrets the damage he will do to the people of Israel. Although Elisha gives Hazael the message that the king will recover from the illness, he also sets in motion a chain of events that lead to King Ben-hadad’s death at the hands of his servant. The prophet Amos views Hazael’s ascension as God’s act as well, but as a judgment on Ben-hadad (Amos 1: 3-4) but in Elisha’s view what is important is Hazael’s actions towards Israel. Following the original commissioning of Elijah to set Hazael over Aram and Jehu over Israel, both Aram and Jehu (and Elisha) are the swords that shall kill many. Many modern readers recoil at the violence of the actions attributed to Hazael in the prophet’s words, but war in the ancient world was violent. War of all times is violent, and innocent people often pay a heavy cost but armies in the ancient world did not act with the same restraint that modern militaries do in attempting to limit the destructiveness of the soldiers unleashed to practice violence on the enemy land and people. Hazael acknowledges that the violence the prophet describes would be a “great thing” and his only protest is that he is too insignificant to be able to accomplish this great thing. God has designated Hazael as a part of God’s plan for Israel, but Hazael is a blunt instrument that will incur a lot of damage in the removal of the Omri dynasty.
Elisha may weep for the future that he sees but he remains faithful to God’s vision. The ways of the Omri dynasty have led the people of Israel away to following other gods and unjust practices. Elisha may have wrestled with his role in being a part of the (ultimately) violent solution to the wicked (in the view of 2 Kings) kings of Israel who have now corrupted even the line of kings in Judah (see below). Many of the stories of Elisha have shown him working with individuals and groups in miraculous ways to help them navigate this world of famines and sieges. Yet, the narrative of 2 Kings attempts to understand how God is at work in the collapse of both Israel and Judah working through Aram, Assyria, and Babylon. Hazael, son of a nobody, as a large basalt statue of Shalmaneser refers to him derogatorily, (Cogan, 1988, p. 90) may not be anointed by Elisha in this story, but Elisha gives him the vision that leads to the suffocation of his ailing master and allows the son of a nobody to grasp power in Aram and to become God’s blunt instrument utilized in the judgment of Israel.
2 Kings 8: 16-29
16In the fifth year of King Joram son of Ahab of Israel, Jehoram son of King Jehoshaphat of Judah began to reign. 17He was thirty-two years old when he became king, and he reigned eight years in Jerusalem. 18He walked in the way of the kings of Israel, as the house of Ahab had done, for the daughter of Ahab was his wife. He did what was evil in the sight of the LORD. 19Yet the LORD would not destroy Judah, for the sake of his servant David, since he had promised to give a lamp to him and to his descendants forever. 20In his days Edom revolted against the rule of Judah and set up a king of their own. 21Then Joram crossed over to Zair with all his chariots. He set out by night and attacked the Edomites and their chariot commanders who had surrounded him, but his army fled home. 22So Edom has been in revolt against the rule of Judah to this day. Libnah also revolted at the same time. 23Now the rest of the acts of Joram and all that he did, are they not written in the Book of the Annals of the Kings of Judah? 24So Joram slept with his ancestors and was buried with them in the city of David; his son Ahaziah succeeded him.
25In the twelfth year of King Joram son of Ahab of Israel, Ahaziah son of King Jehoram of Judah began to reign. 26Ahaziah was twenty-two years old when he began to reign; he reigned one year in Jerusalem. His mother’s name was Athaliah, a granddaughter of King Omri of Israel. 27He also walked in the way of the house of Ahab, doing what was evil in the sight of the LORD, as the house of Ahab had done, for he was son-in-law to the house of Ahab. 28He went with Joram son of Ahab to wage war against King Hazael of Aram at Ramoth-gilead, where the Arameans wounded Joram. 29King Joram returned to be healed in Jezreel of the wounds that the Arameans had inflicted on him at Ramah, when he fought against King Hazael of Aram. King Ahaziah son of Jehoram of Judah went down to see Joram son of Ahab in Jezreel because he was wounded.
The bulk of the first eight chapters of 2 Kings have broken from the typical construction of the story around the reigns of kings and has focused instead on the end of the prophet Elijah’s story and then multiple stories centered on the prophet Elisha. We will return to Elisha for a few final stories, but the narrator of 2 Kings returns us to the timeline of kings, particularly the kings in Judah. The narration of the book of kings has focused almost entirely on the northern kingdom of Samaria or Israel since the reign of Jehoshaphat in Judah in 1 Kings 22: 41-51. In contrast to his father and grandfather who followed the ways of the LORD, Jehoram[4] the new king of Judah follows the ways of the kings of Israel and is allied with these kings by marriage to Athaliah, a sister of king Joram of Israel. Like Jezebel, king Ahab’s wife, Athaliah is viewed as a corrupting influence upon both Jehoram and her son Ahaziah.
2 Chronicles reports a letter from Elijah to Jehoram:
12A letter came to him from the prophet Elijah, saying, “Thus says the LORD, the God of your father David: Because you have not walked in the ways of your father Jehoshaphat or in the ways of King Asa of Judah 13but have walked in the way of the kings of Israel and have led Judah and the inhabitants of Jerusalem into unfaithfulness, as the house of Ahab led Israel into unfaithfulness, and because you also have killed your brothers, members of your father’s house, who were better than you, 14see, the LORD will bring a great plague on your people, your children, your wives, and all your possessions,15and you yourself will have a severe sickness with a disease of your bowels until your bowels come out, day after day, because of the disease.” 2 Chronicles 21:12-14
Both 2 Chronicles and 2 Kings view the time of Jehoram as a time which corrupted the house of David and jeopardized the enduring line promised to David. God restrains the judgement on these two unfaithful kings of Judah because of God’s loyalty to David, but Judah is in danger of becoming like the north.
Kings in the ancient world[5] are judged by their ability to maintain power and here we see the beginning of a deterioration of Judah’s control of Edom as well as one of its own cities. The narrative sets the infidelity toward the LORD of these two kings of Judah alongside their loss of power over their vassals. Readers can make a judgement about the connection between their inability to project power over their vassals and their unfaithfulness to the LORD (Brueggemann, 2000, p. 375) but the theological perspective of the narrator of 2 Kings would probably view them as connected. Alex Israel suggests that Libnah, as a Levite city, may have been demonstrating against the idolatrous religious orientation of Jehoram (Israel, 2019, p. 159) and while there were likely Levites and other people faithful to the LORD who were distressed about the direction of Judah under Jehoram and Ahaziah it is probably unlikely that one city would simply separate itself from Judah without the intervention of other powers. However, Alex Israel’s description of Judah under Jehoram is pointed and accurate:
we may certainly summarize his dismal eight-year reign as a period of national disintegration: religious deviation, internecine royal infighting, a collapse of regional influence, and failure to defend his country’s borders. Judah is in decline on all fronts. (Israel, 2019, p. 159)
The introduction of Ahaziah’s brief reign over Judah sets the stage for the violent transitions in Samaria and Jerusalem in the next three chapters. King Joram is wounded in battle like his father Ahab (1 Kings 22: 29-40) and Ahaziah goes to visit him at this critical moment where Elisha anoints Jehu which brings about the ending of the Omri dynasty and the violent transition in Jerusalem.
[1] See the discussion on skin disease/leprosy in chapter five.
[2] The Hebrew za’aq as Brueggemann notes is frequently used of those who are abused or oppressed “crying out” to God or someone who can intervene on their behalf. (Brueggemann, 2000, p. 366)
[3] Mordechai Cogan and Hayim Tadmor note that saris means ‘eunuch’ based on linguistic evidence. (Cogan, 1988, p. 112)
[4] Both Jehoram and Joram have the same name, they are differentiated in translations to make it easier to refer to these kings in Samaria and Judah which reign concurrently.
[5] The bible, particularly 1&2 Kings, evaluates kings on a completely different set of values, but in general kings in the ancient world were supposed to maintain or increase their territory and wealth. Wealth was primarily generated through land as a producer of agriculture, livestock, and mineral resources.
Review of Exclusion and Embrace: A Theological Exploration of Identity, Otherness, and Reconciliation (1996) by Miroslav Volf.
This is the volume that introduced me to the work of Miroslav Volf and from the first page of the preface, where he lays out what is at stake in this theological exploration, through the final chapter on Violence and Peace it is a passionate and articulate formulation of a theology of the cross for our time. Volf is both honest about the challenges of reconciliation while holding before the reader the dream and hope of embrace as the end for which we are called to work. He powerfully weaves together theology, scripture, philosophy, and personal experience into a work that I have gone back to multiple times in my own ministry. Re-reading this work over twenty years after my initial reading Exclusion and Embrace is still a powerful work, but it also highlights my own evolution as a reader and scholar in the years between readings.
I first saw Exclusion and Embrace at the bookstore at Wartburg Seminary, and I felt drawn to it. I integrated it into an independent study attempting to flesh out Luther’s theology of the cross for our time in my senior year of seminary. At that point I was a young scholar reading everything I could get my hands on, and Volf’s work combined a deeply personal search for a Christian practice that was authentic with an academic rigor that was inspiring. This was the type of scholar I hoped to be. I was still attempting to integrate the diverse voices I had encountered in the previous two years of seminary into something that I could carry beyond the seminary walls. I was still wrestling with postmodernism as a way of thinking, knowing enough to be attracted and repelled by this alien way of encountering the world I was introduced to tangentially (although rarely under the name postmodernism) in academics. In Volf I found someone who was far more versed in authors like Nietzsche, Foucault, Deleuze, Said, and many other authors from a variety of perspectives who still took the scriptures, theology, and Christian practice seriously.
One of the major differences between my original and this reading is I have engaged enough with postmodern, feminist, and other voices to have developed my own perspective. I understand the influence of postmodern voices and perspectives, but in my own journey I have walked away from these perspectives because at their root I find them nihilistic. They serve as good critiques which fail to provide a viable alternative to the modernity they critique. Exclusion and Embrace is still an incredibly valuable work, but I found the central chapters speaking to dialogue partners who have little interest in a constructive dialogue with Christianity. I still believe the first two chapters and final chapter are incredibly important and make this a book that deserves wide reading. These are the places I have found myself referencing over the past twenty years and have caused me to read most of what Volf has written before and after Exclusion and Embrace.
One of the things I am most thankful for in Volf’s work is the way he bridges the divide between the academic world and the world which the academy often neglects. Like the three cities which form the concrete background of the reflection of the initial chapter (Los Angeles where Volf taught at the time, Berlin where he was giving the presentation that formed the chapter, and Sarajevo the war torn city from the land of Volf’s background as a Croatian) this is deals with the broken stories in need of forgiveness. Volf’s critique of the “pleasant captivities of the liberal mind” when he critiques the ‘God of perfect non-coercive love’ (Volf, 1996, p. 304) has stuck with me for the life of my ministry and resonates with my engagement with scriptures. This is a work that helped form my theology and gave me tools that would help me continue to grow as a pastor who engaged the scriptures and the questions of the surrounding world.
24Some time later King Ben-hadad of Aram mustered his entire army; he marched against Samaria and laid siege to it. 25As the siege continued, famine in Samaria became so great that a donkey’s head was sold for eighty shekels of silver and one-fourth of a kab of dove’s dung for five shekels of silver. 26Now as the king of Israel was walking on the city wall, a woman cried out to him, “Help, my lord king!” 27He said, “If the LORD does not help you, where would my help come from? From the threshing floor or from the winepress?” 28But then the king asked her, “What is your complaint?” She answered, “This woman said to me, ‘Give up your son; we will eat him today, and we will eat my son tomorrow.’ 29So we cooked my son and ate him. The next day I said to her, ‘Give up your son, and we will eat him.’ But she has hidden her son.” 30When the king heard the words of the woman he tore his clothes—now since he was walking on the city wall, the people could see that he had sackcloth on his body underneath 31and he said, “So may God do to me and more, if the head of Elisha son of Shaphat stays on his shoulders today.” 32So he dispatched a man from his presence. Now Elisha was sitting in his house, and the elders were sitting with him. Before the messenger arrived, Elisha said to the elders, “Are you aware that this murderer has sent someone to take off my head? When the messenger comes, see that you shut the door and hold it closed against him. Is not the sound of his master’s feet behind him?” 33While he was still speaking with them, the king came down to him and said, “This trouble is from the LORD! Why should I hope in the LORD any longer?”
71But Elisha said, “Hear the word of the LORD: Thus says the Lord: Tomorrow about this time a measure of choice meal shall be sold for a shekel and two measures of barley for a shekel, at the gate of Samaria.” 2Then the captain on whose hand the king leaned said to the man of God, “Even if the LORD were to make windows in the sky, could such a thing happen?” But he said, “You shall see it with your own eyes, but you shall not eat from it.”
The final seven verses of chapter six are connected to the story that continues through the seventh chapter of 2 Kings. The verses and chapters were added at a later point, and the chapter division highlights the prophecy of Elisha by bookending the seventh chapter, but the narrative which evokes the word of the LORD begins at verse twenty-four. One of the Aramean kings named Ben-hadad[1] lays siege to Samaria creating the severe crisis of the story.
Siege warfare works by denying the encircled city the resources it needs to survive while the surrounding army has access to food from the land and if necessary, brought in from the besieging country. The first to feel the impact of the food shortages are the poor and the vulnerable as the cost of the food necessary to survive climbs as the supply dwindles. In our story the cost of once unpalatable foods has reached a point unreachable to all but the wealthiest households. The ‘dove’s dung’ has a couple possible interpretations. It may be the droppings from birds who are able to eat from the grain fields that the population no longer has access to, and this may form a disgusting but necessary source of nutrition for the captured population. Some translations like the NEB and NJPS follow a linguistic trail to translate this as the “seeds of the (false) carob” which is a plant of limited nutritional value. However one translates the ‘dove’s dung,’ the situation in the city has become desperate to the point where hunger is creating an inhumane situation.
The woman at the wall who calls upon the king of Israel for help is met with a pious sounding answer, “If the LORD does not help you, where would my help come from.” To me this resonates like the empty ‘thoughts and prayers’ of a politician who has no interest in resolving the crisis of the individual who comes to them for help. Yet, in Israel there is a tradition of people coming to their kings to judge difficult and life changing matters and the kings of Israel are supposed to be guardians of the vulnerable. This story resonates with Solomon’s judging between the two women fighting over a child in 1 Kings 3: 16-28, but in this story of famine now the women are fighting over children to be eaten in their starvation. The situation echoes the darkest warnings against disobedience in Deuteronomy 28: 52-57:
52 It shall besiege you in all your towns until your high and fortified walls, in which you trusted, come down throughout your land; it shall besiege you in all your towns throughout the land that the LORD your God has given you. 53 In the desperate straits to which the enemy siege reduces you, you will eat the fruit of your womb, the flesh of your own sons and daughters whom the LORD your God has given you. 54 Even the most refined and gentle of men among you will begrudge food to his own brother, to the wife whom he embraces, and to the last of his remaining children, 55 giving to none of them any of the flesh of his children whom he is eating, because nothing else remains to him, in the desperate straits to which the enemy siege will reduce you in all your towns. 56 She who is the most refined and gentle among you, so gentle and refined that she does not venture to set the sole of her foot on the ground, will begrudge food to the husband whom she embraces, to her own son, and to her own daughter, 57 begrudging even the afterbirth that comes out from between her thighs, and the children that she bears, because she is eating them in secret for lack of anything else, in the desperate straits to which the enemy siege will reduce you in your towns.
The woman’s situation in this siege echoes the narration of the later siege of Jerusalem by Babylon in Ezekiel 5:10 and Lamentations 2:20 and 4:10. It is a world where the bond between mother and child has been broken by hunger and people lose their humanity in the horror of the siege. The king who has been sheltered from the worst aspects of the deprivation of the siege is horrified by the woman’s situation and yet still claims no power to alleviate her condition. The stores of grain and wine even for the king are likely depleted and we learn that he is wearing sackcloth, a sign of mourning and repentance, under his clothes which he tears on hearing the woman’s story. In response he rashly declares that he will kill Elisha.
Elisha may be the target of the king’s rage as the representative of the LORD who the king of Israel blames for this unbroken siege, or he may simply be a scapegoat in the king’s powerlessness. Elisha did in the previous chapter deliver into Samaria an Aramean army who he instructed the king to feed and allow them to depart in peace. The peace which Elisha brokered did not endure and the king of Israel may blame the prophet for the situation. It is also possible that the king feels that the prophet, who has provided food miraculously, has not performed a miracle to provide food for the suffering city. If this unnamed king of Israel is Jehoram, as the order of the stories implies, there is a long animosity between the Omri dynasty that Jehoram is a member of and Elijah as well as Elisha. It is possible that the king has never approached the prophet until this point in the siege although it is worth noting that the elders are with the prophet during this scene.
The story becomes a bit confused in verses 32-33 where a messenger arrives and later the king. Mordechai Cogan and Hayim Tadmor point to Josephus’ reconstruction of the events as being as sensible as any:
“But you,” (Elisha) said, “when the man arrives who has been given this order be on guard as he is about to enter, and press him back against the door and hold him there, for the king will follow him and come to me, having changed his mind.” So, when the man came who had been sent by the king to make away with Elisha, they did as he had ordered. But Joram, repenting of his wrath against the prophet and fearing that the man who had been ordered to kill him might already be doing so, hastened to prevent the murder and even save the prophet. Antiquities ix, 69-70. (Cogan, 1988, pp. 80-81)
Despite the king’s earlier murderous words, the king, the prophet, and the elders all share in hearing the word of the LORD that Elisha receives declaring that the crisis will end suddenly in roughly twenty-four hours. The immediate availability of cheap food prophesied is unbelievable to the captain of the king, and Elisha adds a final note that this captain will see the prophecy fulfilled but be unable to partake in it.
2 Kings 7:3-20
3Now there were four men with a defiling skin disease outside the city gate who said to one another, “Why should we sit here until we die? 4If we say, ‘Let us enter the city,’ the famine is in the city, and we shall die there, but if we sit here, we shall also die. Therefore, let us desert to the Aramean camp; if they spare our lives, we shall live, and if they kill us, we shall but die.” 5So they arose at twilight to go to the Aramean camp, but when they came to the edge of the Aramean camp there was no one there at all. 6For the Lord had caused the Aramean army to hear the sound of chariots and of horses, the sound of a great army, so that they said to one another, “The king of Israel has hired the kings of the Hittites and the kings of Egypt to fight against us.” 7So they fled away in the twilight and abandoned their tents, their horses, and their donkeys, leaving the camp just as it was, and fled for their lives. 8When these diseased men had come to the edge of the camp, they went into a tent, ate and drank, carried off silver, gold, and clothing, and went and hid them. Then they came back, entered another tent, carried off things from it and went and hid them. 9Then they said to one another, “What we are doing is wrong. This is a day of good news; if we are silent and wait until the morning light, we will be found guilty; therefore let us go and tell the king’s household.” 10So they came and called to the gatekeepers of the city and told them, “We went to the Aramean camp, but there was no one to be seen or heard there, nothing but the horses tied, the donkeys tied, and the tents as they were.” 11Then the gatekeepers called out and proclaimed it to the king’s household. 12The king got up in the night and said to his servants, “I will tell you what the Arameans have prepared against us. They know that we are starving, so they left the camp to hide themselves in the open country, thinking, ‘When they come out of the city, we shall take them alive and get into the city.’ ” 13One of his servants said, “Let some men take five of the remaining horses, since those left here will suffer the fate of the whole multitude of Israel that have perished already; let us send and find out.” 14So they took two mounted men, and the king sent them after the Aramean army, saying, “Go and find out.” 15So they went after them as far as the Jordan; the whole way was littered with garments and equipment that the Arameans had thrown away in their haste. So the messengers returned and told the king. 16Then the people went out and plundered the camp of the Arameans. So a measure of choice meal was sold for a shekel and two measures of barley for a shekel, according to the word of the LORD. 17Now the king had appointed the captain on whose hand he leaned to have charge of the gate; the people trampled him to death in the gate, just as the man of God had said when the king came down to him. 18For when the man of God had said to the king, “Two measures of barley shall be sold for a shekel and a measure of choice meal for a shekel, about this time tomorrow in the gate of Samaria,” 19the captain had answered the man of God, “Even if the LORD were to make windows in the sky, could such a thing happen?” And he had answered, “You shall see it with your own eyes, but you shall not eat from it.” 20It did indeed happen to him; the people trampled him to death in the gate.
The resolution to the crisis begins in the desperation of four men who are unclean and left outside the city. As mentioned above it is the vulnerable, and these four men with an affliction traditionally translated as leprosy would be vulnerable as they are excluded outside the city’s protective walls. In a situation where staying where they are would lead to death and entering the city would lead to death, they make the choice to surrender to the Arameans because the worst they can do is kill them. This decision to give up to the besieging forces sets in motion the deliverance of Samaria.
I have mixed feelings about the NRSVue decision throughout these texts to translate what is traditionally rendered ‘leprosy’ as a ‘defiling skin disease’ or ‘skin disease.’ On the one hand, what we now categorize as leprosy or Hansen’s disease is probably not what is referred to throughout the bible. But I wonder if the more generic skin disease disconnects the average reader from the severity of this diagnosis in the ancient world of Judaism. It is telling that Leviticus thirteen and fourteen are dedicated to the identification, the exclusion of the infected individuals from the community, and the necessary examination to allow their re-inclusion if the skin disorder clears up. These lepers are ‘unclean’ and unable to participate in the life of the community. Yet these outsiders will provide deliverance for the people trapped inside the city.
Before the four men approach the camp, the Arameans flee in panic because they hear the sound of horses and chariots approaching and fear that the king of Israel has paid Egypt and the Hittites to come and break the siege for them. The horses and chariots echo the appearance of the ‘horses and chariots of Israel’ in the previous story (2 Kings 6:15) and now instead of opening the eyes of the servant the LORD in a different manner opens the ears of the Arameans. The panic of the Arameans in the story is enough that they abandon not only their encampment but also their horses and donkey and leave a trail of discarded items in the path of their retreat. There are resources and wealth to feed and equip an army surrounding the city, much of the food likely taken from Israel’s fields, and there waiting to be discovered by the starving city.
The Jewish sages identified the four men with Gehazi and his sons (Israel, 2019, p. 129) which makes sense with this story being between Gehazi having Naaman’s leprosy cling to him and his family (2 Kings 5:27) and Gehazi’s reemergence talking with the king in the upcoming chapter (2 Kings 8: 4-5). This identification while interesting is not necessary for the story as these four men proceed to the camp, find it empty, ate and drank, pillaged some of the wealth they found, and eventually notify the gatekeepers of the situation. These men excluded as outsiders because of their skin condition still consider themselves a part of the people and have an obligation to those suffering inside the city. They appeal through the gatekeeper to the king’s household.
The king initially views this report from the four men as a trap set by the Aramean army to draw him out, but eventually one of his servants convinces the king to send out scouts with horses to examine the situation, lest the remaining horses perish with the people inside the city. Once the messengers return to the king it sets in motion the availability of food promised by the prophecy of Elisha as well as the death of the captain of the king. As mentioned in the previous section, the current chapter divisions highlight the words of Elisha at the beginning and ending of the chapter to demonstrate their fulfillment. A siege which reduced men and women to inhuman actions is now ended by four men whose humanity is compromised by the unclean disease carried on their skin. The God of Israel’s unseen host is now heard by the Aramean causing them to abandon their siege and to provide the food the city needs. The prophet once blamed by the king for the situation inside the city has now accurately predicted the cities deliverance by the LORD the God of Israel.
[1] Mordechai Cogan and Hayim Tadmor note there are at least two and possibly three kings name Ben-Hadad, whose name means the son of (the God) Hadad, “At least two, if not three persons by this name are known: Ben-hadad, contemporary of Baasha (1 Kgs 15:18); Ben-hadad, foe of Abab (1 Kgs 20: 1; he is identical with mAdad-idri of Assyrian inscriptions…and Ben-hadad, son of Hazael (2 Kgs 13:3).” (Cogan, 1988, p. 78)
‘Elisha makes the Axe Head Swim’ illustration from The story of the Bible from Genesis to Revelation (1873)
2 Kings 6: 1-7
1Now the company of prophets said to Elisha, “As you see, the place where we live under your charge is too small for us. 2Let us go to the Jordan, and let us collect logs there, one for each of us, and build a place there for us to live.” He answered, “Do so.” 3Then one of them said, “Please come with your servants.” And he answered, “I will.” 4So he went with them. When they came to the Jordan, they cut down trees. 5But as one was felling a log, his ax head fell into the water; he cried out, “Alas, master! It was borrowed.” 6Then the man of God said, “Where did it fall?” When he showed him the place, he cut off a stick and threw it in there and made the iron float. 7He said, “Pick it up.” So he reached out his hand and took it.
To the modern reader this may seem like a strange story to include among the miracles that are handed on about Elisha. In a world where an ax is a relatively inexpensive tool the loss of an ax head seems like a trivial matter to trouble the prophet Elisha with. But the world of Elisha’s time was very different from our world. At this time iron is a precious resource and smiths in ancient Israel would be rare. This was also a time when Israel is at war with Aram so most iron would be going to create weapons for the military of Israel. Much as the story of Elisha and the widow’s oil (2 Kings 4:1-7), the prophet’s action likely saved this member of the company of prophets from a debt they could not hope to repay. (NIB III: 199) Many of the stories in the previous two chapters have the company of prophets relying on the prophet Elisha to provide food in their want and Gehazi’s foolish (in the eyes of 2 Kings) request for recompense from Naaman (2 Kings 5: 19b-27) is also informed by the group’s poverty. Even if the neighbor who loaned the unfortunate man the ax would not attempt to collect the value of the lost tool, there is a strong concern for neighborly rights among the world envisioned in the Torah.
The story takes place at the Jordan geographically linking it to the previous healing of Naaman. At the Jordan Elisha provided healing for Naaman from his skin disease and relief for this fellow member of the company of prophets with the sunken ax head. Some scholars, both Jewish and Christians, have taken this story and attempted to create a non-miraculous version: the stick was cut to be able to fit into the aperture of the ax head or to have a flat surface for the ax head to rest on as the prophet lifts it out are two examples. Yet, to tell these stories the commenters in their desire to make the story more reasonable have missed the point that the man of God is able to do what others cannot. Elisha who can heal disease or provide adequate food can also through his connection with God make metal float and make an army captive.
2 Kings 6: 8-23
8Once when the king of Aram was at war with Israel, he took counsel with his officers. He said, “At such and such a place shall be my camp.” 9But the man of God sent word to the king of Israel, “Take care not to pass this place, for the Arameans are going down there.” 10The king of Israel sent word to the place of which the man of God spoke. More than once or twice he warned a place so that it was on the alert. 11The mind of the king of Aram was greatly perturbed because of this; he called his officers and said to them, “Now tell me: Who among us is betraying us to the king of Israel?” 12Then one of his officers said, “No one, my lord king. It is Elisha, the prophet in Israel, who tells the king of Israel the words that you speak in your bedchamber.” 13He said, “Go and find where he is; I will send and seize him.” He was told, “He is in Dothan.” 14So he sent horses and chariots there and a great army; they came by night and surrounded the city. 15When an attendant of the man of God rose early in the morning and went out, an army with horses and chariots was all around the city. His servant said, “Alas, master! What shall we do?” 16He replied, “Do not be afraid, for there are more with us than there are with them.” 17Then Elisha prayed, “O LORD, please open his eyes that he may see.” So the LORD opened the eyes of the servant, and he saw; the mountain was full of horses and chariots of fire all around Elisha. 18When the Arameans came down against him, Elisha prayed to the Lord and said, “Strike this people, please, with blindness.” So he struck them with blindness as Elisha had asked. 19Elisha said to them, “This is not the way, and this is not the city; follow me, and I will bring you to the man whom you seek.” And he led them to Samaria. 20As soon as they entered Samaria, Elisha said, “O LORD, open the eyes of these men so that they may see.” The Lord opened their eyes, and they saw that they were inside Samaria. 21When the king of Israel saw them he said to Elisha, “Father, shall I strike them? Shall I strike them?” 22He answered, “No! Would you strike those whom you have taken captive with your sword and with your bow? Set food and water before them so that they may eat and drink, and let them go to their master.” 23So he prepared for them a great feast; after they ate and drank, he sent them on their way, and they went to their master. And the Arameans no longer came raiding into the land of Israel.
The Arameans are a continual danger to the people of Israel throughout the end of 1 Kings and the beginning of 2 Kings. Yet, Elisha through the previous and following chapter will play a pivotal role in the conflict between the king of Aram and the king of Samaria. Through Naaman, these soldiers who are brought captive by the prophet to Samaria, and the eventual defeat of the siege of Samaria the Arameans will come to know that there is a prophet in Samaria who king Ben-hadad of Aram will eventually consult (2 Kings 8: 7-15). Also reappearing in this story are the ‘horsemen and chariots of Israel’ which are the host of Israel’s God which Elisha first saw at Elijah’s ascension.
The conflict between the king of Aram and the prophet is precipitated by the prophet’s repeated warning of the king of Israel of the movements of Aram’s armies. Convinced that one of his leaders is betraying him, he summons them and asks how this is occurring. One of his officers knows that it is Elisha that is handing on this information, and the king of Aram orders a force sent to seize the prophet from his current location at Dothan. What the king’s men and the prophet’s men are blind to is the ‘horsemen and chariots of Israel’ which are surrounding the prophet and are more numerous than the forces sent by the king of Aram. Apparently, one’s eyes must be opened to be able to see the host of the LORD and that is exactly what Elisha prays for his servant to receive.
Throughout the narrative the movement between blindness and sight plays a critical role. Elisha’s servant may be able to see the forces of Aram, but he is blind to the forces of the LORD who Elisha serves until his eyes are opened. The prophet was able to provide vision for the king of Israel to elude the maneuvers of the king of Aram’s army and so the king of Aram attempts to remove the eyes of Israel by eliminating the prophet. The armies of Aram are struck with blindness by the LORD and led by the prophet to Samaria where the prophet asks for their sight to be restored.
The story ends with the king of Israel asking whether he should strike down this army that has been delivered by the prophet into his city and the prophet opening his eyes to another way. The king of Israel did not capture the Arameans, and their lives are in the prophet’s hands, and the prophet shows a way of peace. The book of Proverbs states, “If your enemies are hungry, give them bread to eat; and if they are thirsty, give them water to drink.” Proverbs 25:21 The prophet models this way of wisdom for the king who prepares a great feast for his enemies, and this brings at least a pause to the conflicts between Israel and Aram. The story moved from blindness to sight and from conflict to peace. Just like Naaman would discover that there is a prophet in Samaria, now these soldiers of Aram would also know both the power of the prophet’s God and the rescue provided in their desperate situation.
1Naaman, commander of the army of the king of Aram, was a great man and in high favor with his master because by him the Lord had given victory to Aram. The man, though a mighty warrior, suffered from a skin disease. 2Now the Arameans on one of their raids had taken a young girl captive from the land of Israel, and she served Naaman’s wife. 3She said to her mistress, “If only my lord were with the prophet who is in Samaria! He would cure him of his skin disease.” 4So Naaman went in and told his lord just what the girl from the land of Israel had said. 5And the king of Aram said, “Go, then, and I will send along a letter to the king of Israel.” He went, taking with him ten talents of silver, six thousand shekels of gold, and ten sets of garments. 6He brought the letter to the king of Israel, which read, “When this letter reaches you, know that I have sent to you my servant Naaman, that you may cure him of his skin disease.” 7When the king of Israel read the letter, he tore his clothes and said, “Am I God, to give death or life, that this man sends word to me to cure a man of his skin disease? Just look and see how he is trying to pick a quarrel with me.” 8But when Elisha the man of God heard that the king of Israel had torn his clothes, he sent a message to the king, “Why have you torn your clothes? Let him come to me, that he may learn that there is a prophet in Israel.” 9So Naaman came with his horses and chariots and halted at the entrance of Elisha’s house. 10Elisha sent a messenger to him, saying, “Go, wash in the Jordan seven times, and your flesh shall be restored, and you shall be clean.” 11But Naaman became angry and went away, saying, “I thought that for me he would surely come out and stand and call on the name of the LORD his God and would wave his hand over the spot and cure the skin disease! 12Are not Abana and Pharpar, the rivers of Damascus, better than all the waters of Israel? Could I not wash in them and be clean?” He turned and went away in a rage. 13But his servants approached and said to him, “Father, if the prophet had commanded you to do something difficult, would you not have done it? How much more, when all he said to you was, ‘Wash, and be clean’?” 14So he went down and immersed himself seven times in the Jordan, according to the word of the man of God; his flesh was restored like the flesh of a young boy, and he was clean. 15Then he returned to the man of God, he and all his company; he came and stood before him and said, “Now I know that there is no God in all the earth except in Israel; please accept a present from your servant.” 16But he said, “As the LORD lives, whom I serve, I will accept nothing!” He urged him to accept, but he refused. 17Then Naaman said, “If not, please let two mule loads of earth be given to your servant, for your servant will no longer offer burnt offering or sacrifice to any god except the Lord. 18But may the LORD pardon your servant on one count: when my master goes into the house of Rimmon to worship there, leaning on my arm, and I bow down in the house of Rimmon, when I do bow down in the house of Rimmon, may the LORD pardon your servant on this one count.” 19He said to him, “Go in peace.”
The healing of Naaman, along with Elijah’s ascent in the whirlwind, are probably the two best-known and most frequently used stories from 2 Kings in the life of the church. This story, along with Elijah’s provision of meal and oil for the widow of Zarephath, is utilized in Luke 4:27 as an explanation for the expansiveness of Jesus’ ministry, but it is also paired with Jesus’ healing of lepers in the gospels. Naaman is both the victorious mighty warrior who occupies a privileged position with the king of Aram and has servants and slaves along with the access to considerable wealth and power, but in Israel he is also a Gentile, an unclean one, and an oppressor. The story illustrates the fundamental differences between the world envisioned by the king of Aram and Naaman at the beginning of the story and the prophet Elisha when he enters in the middle of the story.
The position of Naaman, in the view of 2 Kings, is a result of the LORD the God of Israel granting him victory leading the Arameans. On the one hand this provides an explanation for the defeat of Israel by a foreign power, the defeat is a judgment on the unfaithfulness of Samaria. On the other hand, it makes the mighty warrior subject, unknowingly at the beginning of the story, to the LORD the God of Israel. Even a captive young woman from Israel knows what this mighty warrior cannot, that the hope for healing resides in Samaria. This young woman who is a captive and the mighty man who is a leader of armies may be on opposite sides of the power differential but in the story they are linked. Captured slaves often have an unfavorable view of their masters, yet in Naaman throughout the story we see that this mighty man is both respected enough by his servants for them to speak truthfully and compassionately to him and Naaman as their master listens. The commander of warriors who can deliver victories depends upon the knowledge willingly shared by a captured young woman residing in his household.
The skin disease which has been traditionally translated as leprosy is probably not what we today categorize as leprosy (or Hansen’s disease) but it was something that ancient cultures took very seriously. Leviticus 13-14 deals with the priestly role in the diagnosis, the social implications for a person diagnosed with this skin disorder and the method that they can also be reintegrated into the community once they are healed. The seriousness of the disease can be demonstrated by the incredible amount of wealth (ten talents of silver, six thousand shekels of gold, and ten sets of garments)[1] which the king of Aram sends to the king of Israel to bring about the healing of his favored commander.
In the ancient world there was no concept of separation of religious and state powers. For most ancient kings, even in Israel, there are religious figures including prophets in the royal court. The prophet Nathan was involved in the court of king David, and earlier in the Omri dynasty we saw the conflict between the prophets who spoke favorably to king Ahab and Micaiah who was a faithful prophet of the LORD but not in royal favor. As Alex Israel notes about the contrasting views of prophets between the kings of Aram and Israel:
The king of Aram was incapable of imagining a scenario in which the prophet would not be fundamentally subordinate to the king, and so he sought the prophet by means of the latter. By contrast, the king of Israel couldn’t conceive a situation in which the prophet would be responsive to his control, and so he failed to entertain the prospect of appealing to Elisha! (Israel, 2019, p. 98)
The king of Aram views the king of Israel as his subordinate who he can command, but Elisha does not answer to the king of Israel. Yet, Elisha does hear of the king’s distress and instructs him to send Naaman to him.
Naaman has probably encountered other healers and prophets in Damascus who attempted to heal his skin disease, and he has ideas of how that process should look for a person of his station. As a person of high status, he anticipated personal attention from the prophet. His status as a mighty warrior and commander of the armies of Aram have allowed him to be a person who is able to fulfill their request, but now he finds that this status means nothing before the prophet, and he is reduced to a “supplicant who comes to the healer as a leper.” (Brueggemann, 2000, p. 334) Yet, as previously we saw with the young woman from Israel, Naaman is a master who his servants are willing to speak to in an honest and compassionate way. Once Naaman has completed his complaint about the command delivered by an emissary to wash in the Jordan, his servants are able to convince him that the prophet has not asked a hard thing, and it is in Naaman’s interest to attempt this novel cure.
The washing in the Jordan results in Naaman’s skin becoming like a young boy. The description of Naaman’s skin utilizing the masculine form of the words used to describe the young girl at the beginning of the story now link the two together. In some way Naaman is now like this enslaved young woman even though they occupy vastly different places in the social hierarchy. Both stand in a place of dependency before God and Naaman has not only learned that there is a prophet in Samaria, but that there is no God in all the earth except in Israel.
After the healing Naaman stands, with all his company before the prophet Elisha. Naaman attempts to offer payment, but Elisha swears that he will take no payment.[2] Naaman then makes two requests when payment continues to be refused. First Naaman requests to take two mule loads of earth. Naaman likely believes that the God of Israel is tied to the land of Israel and bringing the earth will allow him to build an altar or worship space where he can access this God whom he has discovered. Secondly, he requests that in his state functions that God would not hold it against him when he escorts his master into the worship space of Rimmon, the god of Damascus. Elisha does not judge Naaman for these requests and instructs him to depart in shalom.
2 Kings 5: 19b-27
But when Naaman had gone from him a short distance, 20Gehazi, the servant of Elisha the man of God, thought, “My master has let that Aramean Naaman off too lightly by not accepting from him what he offered. As the LORD lives, I will run after him and get something from him.” 21So Gehazi went after Naaman. When Naaman saw someone running after him, he jumped down from the chariot to meet him and said, “Is everything all right?” 22He replied, “Yes, but my master has sent me to say, ‘Two members of a company of prophets have just come to me from the hill country of Ephraim; please give them a talent of silver and two changes of clothing.’ ” 23Naaman said, “Please accept two talents.” He urged him and tied up two talents of silver in two bags, with two changes of clothing, and gave them to two of his servants, who carried them in front of Gehazi. 24When he came to the citadel, he took the bags from them and stored them inside; he dismissed the men, and they left. 25He went in and stood before his master, and Elisha said to him, “Where have you been, Gehazi?” He answered, “Your servant has not gone anywhere at all.” 26But he said to him, “Did I not go with you in spirit when someone left his chariot to meet you? Is this a time to accept silver and to accept clothing, olive orchards and vineyards, sheep and oxen, and male and female slaves? 27Therefore the skin disease of Naaman shall cling to you and to your descendants forever.” So he left his presence diseased, as white as snow.
The stories of the previous chapter seem to indicate that the company of prophets (or sons of the prophets) continually struggle with poverty and this may inform Gehazi’s action contrary to his master Elisha. As Choon-Leong Seow remarks, “the faithfulness of Naaman’s slave girl at the beginning of the story stands in stark contrast to the treachery of Elisha’s servant at the end of the chapter.” (NIB III:192) While Elisha swore an oath (“as the LORD lives”) that he would accept no gift (literally blessing) from Naaman his servant Gehazi swears an oath that he will take something from this Gentile. Gehazi runs after Naaman’s party and Naaman, after dismounting his chariot asks, “Is all shalom?” Gehazi gives a reason for wanting a blessing/payment from Naaman, which Naaman is eager to grant giving double the initial request. For Naaman this is far less than the ten talents of silver he was willing to pay as payment for healing, but the roughly one hundred fifty pounds of silver with two sets of garments[3] which two of Naaman’s servants carry back to the citadel would be an incredible amount of wealth among the company of prophets. Yet, Gehazi’s secret is known by Elisha and the Hebrew indicates that Elisha’s heart went with Gehazi (NRSV ‘spirit’). Silver and clothing, land and livestock, servants and slaves for the company of the prophets is not where their security comes from. Gehazi has trusted in the same things that the king of Aram and Naaman trusted, and Elisha indicates that now Naaman’s skin disease will cling to Gehazi and his descendants.
The healing of Naaman does not end the conflict between Aram and Samaria which will continue in the narrative of the next two chapters. It is also not the end of Gehazi’s role in the story who will reappear in chapter eight. It is possible that the healing of Naaman is brought forward in the story to be a part of an Elisha cycle of miracles which reaches its peak with the thwarting of the king of Aram’s invasion of Israel. The king of Israel’s inability to heal his servant did not provide the provocation for a continued war, but ultimately the healing of Naaman did not end the conflict between Samaria and Damascus.
[1] The NIV notes that 10 shekels of silver is about 750 lbs (340 kg) of silver and 6,000 shekels of gold is about 150 lbs (70 kg).
[2] Numbers 22:18 and Daniel 5:17 are both times where two very different prophets (Balaam and Daniel) indicate that gold will not be acceptable to earn favor or as payment for a servant of the LORD.
[3] Garments in the ancient world are also expensive and an indicator of wealth.
Book 92: To the Lighthouse by Virginia Woolf (1929)
This is a series of reflections reading through Time Magazine’s top 100 novels as selected by Lev Grossman and Richard Lacayo published since 1923 (when Time magazine was founded). For me this is an attempt to broaden my exposure to authors I may not encounter otherwise, especially as a person who was not a liberal arts major in college. Time’s list is alphabetical, so I decided to read through in a random order, and I plan to write a short reflection on each novel.
To the Lighthouse is like a well painted still life, to utilize an image from the book. More accurately it is two moments in life, each carefully cataloged and described. Virginia Woolf has an artistic flair in her use of the English language as her palette to describe the Ramsay household and the extended number of close guests that occupy the action around the house. This is stream of consciousness writing informed by the sensibilities of a highly educated English family. There is a Freudian Oedipus Complex that emerges between father and son in the story, particularly visible in the second act, and there are times where the language and attitudes of the characters become pretentious to a point that it is distracting. It is a world where communication, especially between men and women, seems nearly impossible and much of the drama of the book is the characters waiting for someone of the opposite sex to intuit what the speaker in that moment of the book needs and relieve the anxiety of the moment. To utilize another image from the book it looks at the image of a perfectly balanced tray of fruit whose appearance is ruined by someone taking one of the pieces away from the platter. The two visions in the story are separated by the death of several key characters during the ten years that separate the interactions. This dramatically change the balance for each character.
Every book is not for every reader, and when a story fails for me, I often wonder what it is that makes me not the best reader of the book, particularly a book other intelligent readers have enjoyed. I appreciate Virginia Woolf’s utilization of the English language and the flow of her words on the page. Stream of consciousness writing has always been a struggle for me. To utilize the image above of a well painted still life, I can admire the artistry the artist puts into the individual brushstrokes but I only want to look at it for so long. Reading is a subjective experience and both the subject matter and the lack of movement of any type of plot made this a less enjoyable read for me. There have been several novels on the Time Magazine Top 100 novels that are set within a highly educated or very well off-English household in the early 20th Century and this time-period seems a sterile environment for both relationships and life with so much effort being placed into maintaining appearances. I can appreciate the artistry of the book and why so many people consider it one of the great English language novels but maybe I am just not a patient enough reader for the stream of consciousness novels that were popular among the elite of the early 20th Century.
Carmelite chapel – “Elisha resurrecting the son of the Shunammitee” by Jean-Baptiste Despax (1710-1773)
2 Kings 4:1-7
1Now the wife of a member of the company of prophets cried to Elisha, “Your servant my husband is dead, and you know that your servant feared the LORD, but a creditor has come to take my two children as slaves.” 2Elisha said to her, “What shall I do for you? Tell me, what do you have in the house?” She answered, “Your servant has nothing in the house except a jar of oil.” 3He said, “Go outside, borrow vessels from all your neighbors, empty vessels—and not just a few. 4Then go in, shut the door behind you and your children, and start pouring into all these vessels; when each is full, set it aside.” 5So she left him and shut the door behind her and her children; they kept bringing vessels to her, and she kept pouring. 6When the vessels were full, she said to her son, “Bring me another vessel.” But he said to her, “There are no more.” Then the oil stopped flowing. 7She came and told the man of God, and he said, “Go sell the oil and pay your debts, and you and your children can live on the rest.”
The fourth chapter of 2 Kings again departs from the normal royal time that structures the book. Throughout these four stories of miracles that Elisha performs the kings of Israel and Judah are never mentioned. The four stories all have thematic connections with the miracles of Elijah and the widow of Zarephath in 1 Kings 17: 8-24 and the four miracle stories where Elijah has two may thematically model the doubling of Elijah’s spirit that Elisha received as his prophetic heir. The stories can be viewed within the chapter as two stories related women and their children and two stories of providing food, of as two stories of miraculous provision which surround two stories of rescue from death. Ultimately all four stories weave together in a tapestry of stories about the man of God who leads the company of prophets.[1]
The kings of Israel and Judah are not ever mentioned in these stories, but in their absence we get in this first story a window into the world at the time of Elisha and the view is not flattering. The story provides, “a disturbing glance of the cruel socioeconomic reality of ancient Israel.” (Israel, 2019, p. 65) A world that is strikingly different from the world imagined in the law. A world in which widows, one of the vulnerable groups in the ancient world, and their children stand vulnerable to creditors. In Exodus widows, along with resident aliens and orphans, are mentioned as recipients of God’s special protection.
You shall not abuse any widow or orphan. If you do abuse them, when they cry out to me, I will surely hear their cry; my wrath will burn, and I will kill you with the sword, and your wives shall become widows and orphans. Exodus 22: 22-24
This entire story responds to this small portion of Exodus 22 when the oppressor in the story turns out to be a creditor/moneylender (Hebrew nosheh) which is mentioned in the verses immediately following Exodus’ warning not to abuse widows and orphans.
If you lend money to my people, to the poor among you, you shall not deal with them as a creditor (nosheh); you shall not exact interest from them. If you take your neighbor’s cloak in pawn, you shall restore it before the sun goes down; for it may be your neighbor’s only clothing to use as cover; in what else shall that person sleep? And if your neighbor cries out to me, I will listen, for I am compassionate. Exodus 22: 25-27
The company of prophets throughout these stories seem to operate from a place of poverty, and there is no economic ability within the community to pay off the creditor without the miracle. This is a story of provision that comes from God acting through the man of God.[2] Interestingly throughout these stories Elisha rarely mentions God and assumes that God will act upon his words.
The action that Elisha narrates for the woman does involve both participation from herself and her children, the community of people around them, and most importantly God. The woman and her children are to collect vessels from the surrounding community. Although the text does not specifically indicate that she does this[3] there are an unknown number of vessels available for her and her children to fill behind closed doors.[4] The oil in the house fills all the available vessels and provides a means to paying off the creditors, providing a source of income for the widow and her children, and providing protection in an world that would enslave the children for their father’s debts.
2 Kings 4: 8-37
8 One day Elisha was passing through Shunem, where a wealthy woman lived, who urged him to have a meal. So whenever he passed that way, he would stop there for a meal. 9 She said to her husband, “Look, I am sure that this man who regularly passes our way is a holy man of God. 10 Let us make a small roof chamber with walls and put there for him a bed, a table, a chair, and a lamp, so that he can stay there whenever he comes to us.” 11 One day when he came there, he went up to the chamber and lay down there. 12 He said to his servant Gehazi, “Call the Shunammite woman.” When he had called her, she stood before him. 13 He said to him, “Say to her: Since you have taken all this trouble for us, what may be done for you? Would you have a word spoken on your behalf to the king or to the commander of the army?” She answered, “I live among my own people.” 14 He said, “What then may be done for her?” Gehazi answered, “Well, she has no son, and her husband is old.” 15 He said, “Call her.” When he had called her, she stood at the door. 16 He said, “At this season, in due time, you shall embrace a son.” She replied, “No, my lord, O man of God; do not deceive your servant.” 17 The woman conceived and bore a son at that season, in due time, as Elisha had declared to her. 18 When the child was older, he went out one day to his father among the reapers. 19 He complained to his father, “Oh, my head, my head!” The father said to his servant, “Carry him to his mother.” 20 He carried him and brought him to his mother; the child sat on her lap until noon, and he died. 21 She went up and laid him on the bed of the man of God, closed the door on him, and left. 22 Then she called to her husband and said, “Send me one of the servants and one of the donkeys, so that I may quickly go to the man of God and come back again.” 23 He said, “Why go to him today? It is neither new moon nor Sabbath.” She said, “It will be all right.” 24 Then she saddled the donkey and said to her servant, “Urge the animal on; do not hold back for me unless I tell you.” 25 So she set out and came to the man of God at Mount Carmel. When the man of God saw her coming, he said to Gehazi his servant, “Look, there is the Shunammite woman; 26 run at once to meet her and say to her: Are you all right? Is your husband all right? Is the child all right?” She answered, “It is all right.” 27 When she came to the man of God at the mountain, she caught hold of his feet. Gehazi approached to push her away, but the man of God said, “Let her alone, for she is in bitter distress; the LORD has hidden it from me and has not told me.” 28 Then she said, “Did I ask my lord for a son? Did I not say, ‘Do not mislead me?’ ” 29 He said to Gehazi, “Gird up your loins, and take my staff in your hand, and go. If you meet anyone, give no greeting, and if anyone greets you, do not answer, and lay my staff on the face of the child.” 30 Then the mother of the child said, “As the Lord lives and as you yourself live, I will not leave without you.” So he rose up and followed her. 31 Gehazi went on ahead and laid the staff on the face of the child, but there was no sound or sign of life. He came back to meet him and told him, “The child has not awakened.” 32 When Elisha came into the house, he saw the child lying dead on his bed. 33 So he went in and closed the door on the two of them and prayed to the LORD. 34 Then he got up on the bed and lay upon the child, putting his mouth upon his mouth, his eyes upon his eyes, and his hands upon his hands, and while he lay bent over him, the flesh of the child became warm. 35 He got down, walked once to and fro in the room, then got up again and bent over him; the child sneezed seven times, and the child opened his eyes. 36 Elisha summoned Gehazi and said, “Call the Shunammite woman.” So he called her. When she came to him, he said, “Take your son.” 37 She came and fell at his feet, bowing to the ground; then she took her son and left.
Elisha, traveling through the country of Israel, becomes a regular guest of a well-off woman and her husband. This woman shows hospitality to the man of God by providing both a meal and eventually building a room for the prophet and his companions. Elisha seeks to reward the hospitality of the woman and her husband by speaking to the political and military powers in the region, but she has no need to have the prophet speak on her behalf. This woman seems to be a formidable individual even though she is childless. Gehazi, the servant of Elisha, suggests that she is childless and her husband is old, so Elisha promises her in due time she will bear a son.
This story bears a strong resonance with the story of Sarah being promised Isaac in Genesis 18. God promises to return in due season and Sarah will have a child. Sarah challenges God by saying, “I did not laugh,” while this wealthy woman pushes back to the prophet, “do not deceive your servant.” In both stories both age and barrenness are a factor. Yet, in both cases in due season a child comes to a previously childless mother and an aged father.
Yet, after this incredible birth comes an unimaginable tragedy. The promised son mysteriously experiences pain in his head at a time when he is old enough to visit his father in the fields. He dies tragically on his mother’s lap; she lays him on the prophet’s bed and moves into action. This woman gives commands to her husband to provide both a donkey and a servant for her journey to the prophet[5] and this woman sets out do demand the man of God’s presence in this time. Like the story in 1 Kings 17, where the widow goes to Elijah on behalf of her son, it is the woman who impels the man of God to act.
Behind the woman’s response and the prophet’s questions of things being all right is the Hebrew term shalom. When she speaks to her husband she tells him, “It will be shalom.” Elisha’s questions to her (spoken through Gehazi), “Is it shalom to you? Is it shalom to your husband? Is it shalom to your son?” She answers, “It is shalom.” This indomitable woman will not settle for Gehazi as a substitute for the man of God, she clings to his feet and echoes back to him her initial challenge, “Did I not say, ’Do not mislead me.’” Even though Gehazi is dispatched with the staff of Elisha, this woman will not be satisfied without the prophet’s presence and so they both return to the Shunammite woman’s house. Gehazi proves unable to revive the child and so Elisha comes into the house and closes the door.
Elisha attempts to resuscitate the child but is only able to warm the child’s skin. The two of them, presumably Elisha and Gehazi, pray and Elisha walks to and fro in the room before bending over the child one additional time when the child sneezes seven times and revives. Elisha has Gehazi summon the Shunammite woman and restores her son to her. This woman, who like the later Syrophoenician woman in Mark or the Canaanite woman in Matthew, refused to be denied the man of God’s action has their child restored.
2 Kings 4: 38-44
38 When Elisha returned to Gilgal, there was a famine in the land. As the company of prophets was sitting before him, he said to his servant, “Put the large pot on, and make some stew for the company of prophets.” 39 One of them went out into the field to gather herbs; he found a wild vine and gathered from it a lapful of wild gourds and came and cut them up into the pot of stew, not knowing what they were. 40 They served some for the men to eat. But while they were eating the stew, they cried out, “O man of God, there is death in the pot!” They could not eat it. 41 He said, “Then bring some flour.” He threw it into the pot and said, “Serve the people and let them eat.” And there was nothing harmful in the pot.
42 A man came from Baal-shalishah bringing food from the first fruits to the man of God: twenty loaves of barley and fresh ears of grain in his sack. Elisha said, “Give it to the people and let them eat.” 43 But his servant said, “How can I set this before a hundred people?” So he repeated, “Give it to the people and let them eat, for thus says the LORD: They shall eat and have some left.” 44 He set it before them; they ate and had some left, according to the word of the LORD.
As mentioned above, the company of prophets throughout this chapter live in a vulnerable position when there is famine in the land. Through both stories God provides for these prophets through the actions of Elisha. The first story is a story of making a poisonous stew palatable. Elisha returns to the company of prophets at Gilgal and has them put a large pot on. One member of the company finds some wild gourds, possibly citrullus colcynthus a small yellow melon known as the “Apple of Sodom” which “is a strong purgative and has been known to be fatal.” (Cogan, 1988, p. 58) Elisha makes the poisonous stew palatable by adding flour and serving it to the company.
The second miracle of provision takes twenty loaves and fresh grain providing more than enough for the hundred people present at Gilgal. A man comes bringing an offering to God to the man of God. This man from Baal-shalishah comes to the man of God instead of the royal shrine at Bethel and the prophet takes on the position as the mediator between the people and God. Elisha’s servant, likely Gehazi from the previous and following story, wonders how it can be enough for such a large group. Elisha declares that the LORD says they will all eat and have some left. Like Elijah with the widow of Zarephath’s meal and oil or the loaves and fishes in the hands of Jesus, the loaves of brought to Elisha are more than enough in the provision of God.
[1] Literally the sons of the prophets, the Benei HaNavi’im in Hebrew.
[2] Throughout the chapter Elisha is mainly referred to by his title ‘the man of God’ rather than his name. This may be due to the honor paid as the leader of the company of prophets and as the heir to Elijah.
[3] Some take this absence as a comment on the woman’s faith and limits the benefit she receives. For me this is reading too much into the story.
[4] In both this and the following miracle the action takes place behind closed doors and out of the public view.
[5] It is possible in the narrative that the father is unaware of his son’s death.
Sign of the Rose 