2 Kings 2:23-25 And he went up from there to Bethel: and as he was going up by the way, there came forth little children out of the city, and mocked him… This miracle, in contrast with the preceding, is one of judgment. Its apparent severity has made it a stumbling-block to many. The deed is one in "the spirit of Elias" in the harsher sense, and leaves a painful impression. But the painful aspect of the miracle need not be made greater than it is, nor must it be overlooked that the occasion was one when some display of the "severity of God" was necessary. I. NATURE OF THE SIN. Elisha, going up to Bethel, was assailed by a band of young people from the city, who mocked him, and said to him, "Go up, thou bald bead!" 1. The mockers. These were not, as the text might lead us to infer, "little children" of six or seven years of age, but "young lads," boys and young men, who had come to the age of responsibility. They came out of Bethel - once a patriarchal sanctuary, but now a focus of Israelitish idolatry - and had evidently been trained in utter ungodliness. 2. The mocking. Either Elisha was actually bald - in which case there was added to profanity the ridiculing, so common to boys, of a physical defect - or, as some have thought, "bald head" is a synonym for "leper," this being one of the signs of that disease. In either case there was manifested a spirit, contracted probably from their elders, of bitter hatred of the pure religion of Jehovah, and reviling of its prophets and professors. Levity, ridicule, and profane reviling of the pious and their ways is something on which God must always put the brand of his stern disapprobation. II. AGGRAVATIONS OF THE SIN. These must be considered in forming a fair judgment on the case. They enable us also better to draw out the lessons of the offence. There was: 1. Dishonor to a sacred place. Bethel means "the house of God." It was one of the places where God had recorded his name (Genesis 28:16-19). Now it was Beth-avert, "the house of the idol" (Hosea 10:5). The jeering outburst of impiety of these young men of the city was only a symptom of the iniquity which abounded in it. God was dishonored in a holy place. 2. Dishonor to a sacred person. Elisha was God's prophet, and, in some sense, the living representative at that time of the prophetic order. In him, mockery was heaped on all God's servants, and on true religion in general. He was known and eminent as the successor of Elijah, and probably it was on this account that he was singled out for these hostile manifestations. 3. Dishonor to a sacred subject. It is not certain, but it is the view of some, that in the words, "Go up, thou bald head!" there is allusion to the recent translation of Elijah. Sacred places, sacred persons, and sacred things are all to be honored, and contempt poured on any of them is insult done to God. III. PUNISHMENT OF THE SIN. After bearing the contumely for a time, Elisha, doubtless by God's inward direction, turned round, and pronounced a curse on these youthful mockers. The curse was God's, not his, as shown by the effect immediately given to it. "There came forth two she-bears out of the wood, and tare forty and two of them." How many escaped we are not told, nor whether all these forty-two were actually killed. But as connected with Elisha's curse, the event was an awful and unmistakable warning, both to those who escaped and to the population of the city. Had these she-bears issued from the wood without the previous word of Elisha, no one would have wondered at forty-two of this band of youths being attacked and slain. It would have been a "calamity." Here the event is the same, and it is the same Providence which is concerned, only the hidden reason of the dispensation comes to light. The whole incident teaches in a very emphatic manner the responsibility of youth. "I take this story as teaching us what I think we very much need to be taught, namely, that the faults of our youth, and those which are most natural to us at that age, are not considered by God as trifling. You may hear grown-up people talk in a laughing manner of the faults which they committed at school, of their idleness, and their various acts of mischief, and worse than mischief. And when boys hear this, it naturally makes them think it really does not matter much whether they behave well or ill - they are just as likely to be respectable and amiable men hereafter. I would beg those who think so to attend a little to the story in the text" (Dr. Arnold, quoted by Rev. T.H. Howat). - J.O. Parallel Verses KJV: And he went up from thence unto Bethel: and as he was going up by the way, there came forth little children out of the city, and mocked him, and said unto him, Go up, thou bald head; go up, thou bald head. |
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