Explore the fascinating roles prophets played in ancient Israel, especially during the time of Elisha. This episode delves into the days when oral prophecies were predominant and how schools of prophets came to be. Through narratives like Elisha’s miraculous saving of an axe head and his clever maneuvering against a Syrian ambush, we uncover how prophecy and divine insight protected Israel in tumultuous times.
The CEM Network is pleased to present Ronald L. Dart and Born to Win.
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The days of the prophet Elisha seemed to be somewhat unique in the history of Israel. Prophecy was vital in those days, but most of it was delivered orally. Prophet stepped up to the line and spoke. We don’t encounter much in the way of writing prophets until somewhat later in history. One Jewish writer, though, had something to say about a very late time in the history of the Jewish people that sheds a little light back into this. He said, at the same time, the prophets and the schools of prophecy, or sons of the prophets as they are called in the Bible, were apparently centers of study and speculation in these spheres. Prophecy died out in the era of the Great Assembly. Now, this would be well after the Babylonian captivity in the time of the Persian domination of Palestine. In this period, he said prophecy died out. And this institution, the prophetic institution, was faced with the additional task of handing down the spiritual heritage of the prophets to a younger generation. This comes in a discussion of the oral law and how the oral law was handed down to later generation. Jewish scholars worked hard at this, and finally they put together a written form of the oral law called the Mishnah and later the Talmud. So the sons of the prophets is a term understood to be a school of the prophets. Now, that’s an interesting idea, since the general assumption about prophets are, well, this poor guy is sitting out here minding his own business, and all of a sudden the Spirit of the Lord comes upon him, goes into a trance, gives him a vision, and he goes in and tells people what God told him. But he needs a school for that. Well, I can think of two issues. First, prophecy doesn’t necessarily and always refer to a vision like those of Ezekiel or Isaiah. It merely means to speak under inspiration. In other words, you could say a guy stood up to prophesy. You could say he stood up to preach. Second, a prophet needs some basis upon which to judge whether he is being inspired of God or another spirit. And if there’s one thing that’s clear in the Bible, it is there’s more than one kind of spirit wandering back and forth across the landscape. And so a prophet, an assumed prophet, would need to have something to go by to say, how do I know what I’ve just heard is from God or from some demonic spirit? In the New Testament, we are warned to always try the spirits. But by what standard? How do you go about doing that? Someone comes along and says, oh, I had a vision. The Lord spoke to me and did this. And there are all kinds of people who make claims about the Lord speaking to them. The Bible says, try the spirits. By what standard? Well, if you’re stuck with the New Testament, you may wonder a little bit about it. But if you take the Old Testament into account, the answer hangs right out there for you. It’s found in Isaiah, chapter 8. Behold, I and the children whom the Lord has given me, said Isaiah, are for signs and wonders in Israel from the Lord of hosts who dwells in Mount Zion. Interesting thing, he is saying what you see in me and my children, my family. are actually given for signs, icons, that represent something that’s to come. Okay, then he goes on to say this about that. When they shall say unto you, Seek unto them that have familiar spirits, and unto wizards that peep and mutter. Should not a people seek to their God? Should the living seek to the dead? Then here comes this ironclad statement about how to go about trying the spirits. Look to the law and to the testimony. If they speak not according to this word, it is because there is no light in them. Now, you should know, in the Old Testament, the expression, the testimony, is just another way of referring to the Ten Commandments, the commandments of God, the ten words of God written on tables of stone with God’s own finger. So the prophets needed to be well-schooled in the law and the commandments. Now, I think it’s only natural that Elisha attracted young men to him in large numbers with the power he had demonstrated, with all the things he was doing. In fact, he had so many of them that one day they came to him and said, We don’t have enough room here. You’ll find this in 2 Kings 6. They said, we don’t have enough room. The place where we’re living with you is too narrow for us. Let’s go, we pray you, to Jordan, and let’s take every man a beam, and let’s make us a place there where we can live. And he said, okay, go right ahead. And one of them said, no, no, no, please go with us. And he said, okay, I’ll go. So they went down to the Jordan, and when they came to it, they cut down wood. But as one of them was cutting a beam, the axe head, and you know how this, if you’ve ever cut wood, you know how an axe head can come off the end of that thing. The axe head fell into the water, and he cried, oh, alas, master, it was borrowed. The man of God said, where to go? He showed him. So he cut down a stick and he cast it in there and the iron floated to the top. I have the idea this young man was so stunned to see an iron axe head floating on the water. He just stood there and stared at it. Well, Elijah said, no, take up, put out your hand and take the thing. And he did. Elisha was something that Elijah never was. He was a great teacher and the master of a school of young prophets who thought the world of him. Well, the time came when the king of Syria warned against Israel. He took counsel with his servants, saying, In such and such a place shall be my camp. Here’s where we’re going to go. And he laid it out for them. We’re going to go over here, and we’re going to camp there. Well, the man of God sent to the king of Israel and said, Beware that you don’t pass that place, for there the Syrians are come down. And the king of Israel saw and sent to the place and warned him of. He saved himself there, not once or twice. So here’s the thing. The king of Syria is going down laying ambushes, and the king of Israel is coming down toward the ambush and turns away, and he can’t get him. And the heart of the king of Syria got kind of aggravated about this, and he called his servants and said, okay, won’t you show me which one of us is spying for the king of Israel? Natural question, I would think. I mean, maybe once you wouldn’t think so. Maybe twice you might wonder, but about the third time he obviously knows what you’re doing, you begin to wonder who’s the spy. And one of his servants says, no, my lord, O king, none of us is the spy. Elisha, the prophet that is in Israel, tells the king of Israel the words you’re speaking in your bedchamber. Now, that’s a pretty pungent way of telling him what’s going on. Well, the king heard that and says, aha, go and find out where he is. I want to send and fetch him. It was told him, well, he’s in Dothan. So he sent their horses and chariots and a huge army, and they came by night and surrounded the city. Well, the servant of the man of God got up early, wandered out on the wall and said, good grief, there was a whole army around the place with horses and chariots, and his servant said, my master, what are we going to do? And what follows is one of the great classic lines in the Bible, one that is passed all the way down into English literature. Elisha answered, Don’t be afraid, for they that be with us are more than they which be with them. And Elisha prayed and said, Lord, I pray you, open his eyes that he can see. And the Lord opened the eyes of the young man, and he saw, and behold, the mountain was full of horses and chariots of fire all around where they were, in particular around Elisha. And when they came down to him, Elisha prayed to the Lord and said, Smite this people, I pray you, with blindness. And the Lord smote them with blindness according to the word of Elisha. You know, I read these things, and I wonder at the sequence of things that go on in a prophet’s mind and God’s response to it. Was this Elisha’s idea? What’s interesting about it is Elisha doesn’t ask God to kill them all. He doesn’t let the armies of the host of the Lord come rolling in there and wipe them all out. Actually seems to have been a considerate sort of a guy, as a matter of fact. What he did do was say, let’s smite these guys with blindness. And the Lord said, good idea. Let’s do that. So Elisha said to these men, he went out to them. He said, you’re not in the right place. This isn’t the city. Follow me and I’ll bring you to the man whom you seek. But he led them right into the heart of Samaria. It came to pass when they were in the place, Elisha said, Lord, open the eyes of these men that they may see. And the Lord opened their eyes, and they saw, and behold, they were in the midst of Samaria. And in many circumstances they would have been dead men. The king of Israel said to Elisha who brought them there, My father, shall I smite them? Shall I smite them? And he said, No, you shall not smite them. Would you smite people you had taken captive with the sword? Would you kill your prisoners of war? Set bread and water before them, and eat and drink, and go home to their master. They prepared a great provision for them. And when they had eaten and drunk, he sent them away, and they went home to their master. So the brigands of Syria came no more into the land of Israel, at least for a time. It’s a fascinating story and an interesting insight into the character of the man Elisha. Stay with me. We’ll have more on this when I come back after this brief message.
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Most Christians have no idea how the greatest of Jewish holidays became the greatest of Christian holy days. Ronald Dart’s second book, The Thread, God’s Appointments with History, is now available from Amazon.com or directly from BornToWin.net. Write to Born to Win, Post Office Box 560, White House, Texas 75791. Or call toll free 1-888-BIBLE44.
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There’s a curious thing about this section because the very next verse has Ben-Hadad gathering all his army and besieging Samaria right after he has said, “…so the bands of Syria came no more into the lands of Israel.” I don’t know whether we’ve got a time lapse here or whether this is talking about one set of outlaws or maybe the one king died before another one came. But by and large, when we read these things, we’re prone to look at them as American modern readers of history. And that’s not the way these people wrote. There are gaps. There are overlaps in time sequences. And it’s kind of hard sometimes to sort out what happened and when it happened. Well, it came to pass after this, Ben-Hadad, the king of Syria, gathered all his hosts and went up and besieged the city of Samaria. There was a great famine in Samaria at this time. They besieged it to the point to where the head of an ass was sold for four score pieces of silver and the fourth part of a cab of doves dung for five pieces of silver. The whole point he’s making here is things have gotten so bad we’re eating even the heads of the asses in order to live, and they’re expensive at that. You’re paying huge prices for anything that you can eat. Well, the king of Israel was passing by upon the wall. A woman cried to him, saying, Help my lord king. He said, Well, if the lord doesn’t help you, what do you think I’m going to do for you? Out of the barn floor, out of the wine press? He said, What’s the matter with you? And she said, Well, this woman said to me, Give me your son so we can eat him today, and we will eat my son tomorrow. So we boiled my baby and ate him. And I said to her on the next day, Well, now give me your son that we eat him. And she has hid her son. Well, when the king heard this, he was so destroyed. He tore his clothes. He passed by on the wall. People looked. He had sackcloth on his flesh, and he was furious. Then he said, God do so to me and more also if the head of Elisha, the son of Shaphat, shall stand on him this day. Now, I haven’t got a clue why he blamed Elisha on all this, but the truth is, if you have a prophet that comes in and says, look, the way you people are living your lives, the corruption, the stink, the sex, the pornography, all the stuff that you are doing, the destruction of families. God is going to punish you for all this. And then when the punishment comes, guess what? They want to blame the prophet for it, because they say the fact that he said it brought it to pass, forgetting altogether about the why. Elisha sat in his house, the elders were with him, and the king sent a man from before him. But before the messenger ever got to Elisha, he said to the elders… Do you see how this son of a murderer has sent to take away my head? Look, when the messenger comes, shut the door, hold him fast at the door, because the sound of his master’s feet won’t be far behind him. And while he talked with them, behold, the messenger came and came down to him, and he said, Behold, this evil is of the Lord. What should I wait for the Lord any longer? And Elisha said, Hear the word of the Lord. Thus saith the Lord, Tomorrow, about this time, a measure of fine flour will be sold for a shekel, and two measures of barley for a shekel in the gate of Samaria. Food is going to be plentiful and cheap tomorrow. Now, this has to be a totally off-the-wall statement to anyone that heard it after a siege so long, so profound, that people were selling unclean animals to eat. and even eating children, to say, oh, food’s going to be plentiful tomorrow. There was a Lord standing by the king who answered the man of God and said, you know, if the Lord would make windows in heaven, do you think this thing could be? And Elisha replied, you’re going to see it with your eyes, but you won’t eat any of it. There were four leprous men entering into the gate of the city. They kind of were caught in between everything. They couldn’t go in the city because they were lepers. And they didn’t dare go out to the Syrians. They might die. And then finally they got to the desperation. And they said, why are we going to sit here until we die? If we go into the city, the famine is in the city. We’ll die there. And if we sit still here, we’re going to die of the famine. So why don’t we fall into the host of the Syrians? If they save us alive, we live. If they kill us, we will die, and we’re going to do that anyway. So in the twilight, they rose up and went into the camp of the Syrians. And when they come to the uttermost part of the camp of Syria, they didn’t find a soul. There was no one there. Their tents were intact. There were weapons there. There was food in abundance there because they had just got up and run. The Lord had made the host of Syrians hear a noise of chariots and a noise of horses, and it scared them. They said, Oh, the king of Israel has hired against us the kings of the Hittites and the Egyptians to come upon us. So they rose up and fled in the twilight. and left their tents, their horses, their asses. They left the camp as it was and ran on their feet for their life. And these poor lepers came into the uttermost parts of the camp. They went into a tent, and they sat down, and they ate and drank and ate and drank, and they carried stuff out of there, silver and gold and raiment, and went and hid it. And they came and entered into another tent and did it again. Finally, they looked at one and said, you know, we’re not doing the right thing. This day is a day of good tidings and we are holding our peace. If we wait until the morning light, some mischief is sure enough going to come upon us. So let’s go and tell the story to the king’s household. So they went and called the porter of the city and they told him and saying, we came to the camp of the Syrians. Nobody was there. Neither a voice of man, horses tied, asses tied. Everybody’s gone. The tents are there. And that guy called the other porters, and they told it to the king’s house on the inside. And the king got up in the night and said to his servants, Now I’m going to show you what the Syrians have done to us. They know we’re hungry. Therefore, they’ve gone out of their camp to hide themselves in the field, saying, When they come out of the city, we will catch them alive, and we’ll get into the city. That’s not a bad ruse, if that’s what they had done. One of his servants answered and said, Let’s take, I pray you, five of the horses that remain that are left in the city. They are as the whole multitude of Israel that are left in it. Behold, I say, they are even as all the multitude of Israelites that are consumed. Let’s take these horses and let’s go and see. So they took, therefore, two chariot horses. And the king sent after the host of the Assyrians saying, Go find out what’s going on. They followed them all the way to Jordan, and lo, all the way was full of garments and vessels that the Syrians had cast away in their haste. Everything was clear what had happened. They had just run. So they went back and told the king. All the people went out and spoiled the tents of the Syrians. So a measure of fine flour was sold for a shekel, two measures of barley for a shekel, exactly like the word of the Lord that had been given to Elisha. And the king appointed this lord upon whose hand he leaned, the one who said, all this can’t happen. If God opened the windows of heaven, it wouldn’t happen, just diminishing what Elisha said. This is the very man that the king placed in charge of the gate. And the people stampeded over him in the gate. And he died under their feet, just like the man of God had said. Well, it came to pass, as the man of God had spoken to the king, saying, Two measures of barley for a shekel, a measure of fine flour for a shekel, be tomorrow about this time in the gate of Samaria. And that Lord that answered the man of God and said, Now behold, if the Lord should make the windows of heaven and open the windows of heaven, might such a thing be? And he said, Behold, you shall see it with your eyes, you shall not eat it. And so it fell out unto him, for the people trod upon him in that gate, and he died. Grab a pencil and a piece of paper. I want to give you an address and a phone number and a special offer.
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And then I’ll be right back. For a free copy of this radio program that you can share with friends and others, write or call this week only. And request the program titled, Kings Number 17. Write to Born to Win, Post Office Box 560, White House, Texas 75791. Or call toll free 1-888-BIBLE-44. And tell us the call letters of this radio station.
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The section that follows in 2 Kings 8 is interesting because it’s almost like a character study of a relationship that has been a long-term relationship. You may recall… The great woman who was so appreciative of Elisha that she had built a little room on her house with her husband’s help where he and his servant could stay and sleep when he came by on the way, as opposed to having to sleep in the great out of door somewhere, which is where an awful lot of travelers had to sleep in these days. They couldn’t find hospitality. You may also recall that her son died yesterday. and unexplained causes, and how Elisha went and brought this child back to life. Well, here, out of nowhere, Elisha has information that she doesn’t have. Apparently, the relationship is still there. He said to the woman whose son he had restored to life, Arise, you and your household, and go wherever you can sojourn, for the Lord has called for a famine, and it’s going to come upon the land for seven straight years.” Now, it’s fascinating that when the opportunity came, Elisha returned a favor to this woman. It would have been small, I think, in a way, if with her having done so much for him, he knew this was going to happen, that he didn’t do something for her. So the woman arose and did exactly what he said, and she went with her household and sojourned in the land of Philistines seven years. It came to pass at the end of seven years she returned out of the land of the Philistines, and she went forth to cry unto the king for her house and for her land. You know how it is. You move off somewhere else, somebody else will move in. Well, the king at the time was talking with Gehazi, the servant of the man of God. And he said, tell me some of these stories about all the great things that Elisha has done, because apparently this king didn’t know him. Well, it came to pass Gehazi was sitting there telling the king how he had restored a dead body to life. that right then, behold, the woman whose son he had restored to life came in, crying to the king for her house and for the land. And Chiasi’s mouth dropped and said, My lord, O king, that’s the woman, and this is her son, whom Elisha restored to life. And when the king asked the woman, she told him, So he appointed to her a certain officer, saying, Restore everything that was hers, all the fruits of the field, since the day she left the land, even to this day. Let’s make this right by this woman. So Elisha came to Damascus. Ben-Hadad, the king of Syria, was sick. And it was told him, saying, The man of God has come here. And the king said to Hazael, Take a present in your hand, go meet the man of God, and inquire of the Lord by him. Ask him, Am I going to recover of this disease? By this time, people were prone to believe what Elisha had to say. So Hazael went to meet him and took a present with him, a very good thing of Damascus, forty camels’ burden worth of it. And came and stood before him and said, Your son Ben-Hadad, king of Syria, has sent me to you, saying, Shall I recover of this disease? Now, you know, this is really interesting because this is a man who they wanted to kill at one time because he was such a danger to them. But over the process of time, Elisha has become such a huge figure. that the king of Damascus looks to him and even has his servant refer to him as Elisha’s son. Elisha said, Go and say to him, Yes, you will certainly recover. How be it? The Lord has showed me that he shall surely die. Elisha stared at Hazael until it became uncomfortable, and then the man of God began to weep. And Hazael said, Why are you crying? What are you weeping about? He said, Because I know the evil that you will do to the children of Israel. You’re going to set their strongholds on fire. Their young men you’re going to slay with a sword. You will dash their children against stones and rip up their women with child. Hazael must have stood there with his mouth gaping open and said, What? Is your servant a dog that he should do something like this? Elisha answered, The Lord has showed me that you will be king over Syria. So he left Elisha and came to his master. And the master said, What did Elisha say? He told me that you should surely recover. Well, the very next day, this same man, Hazael, came in with a thick cloth, dipped it in water, spread it on his face, so that he died, smothered him to death, and Hazael reigned in his place. In the fifth year of Joram, the son of Ahab, king of Israel, Jehoshaphat was at that time king down in Judah. Jehoram, the son of Jehoshaphat, king of Judah, began to reign in Israel. And we’re some 80 years now into the period since the death of Solomon, the time of the divided kingdom. He was 32 years old when he began to reign. He reigned for eight years in Jerusalem. He walked in the way of the kings of Israel, which is a very bad thing to say about anybody in these days, because every single one of those men carried right on in the ways of Jeroboam, who started that kingdom up there, kept the people separated from God, didn’t let them go down to Jerusalem to worship, set up whole different things about worship in the north, and made priests of the lowest of the people. He walked in that way like the house of Ahab did. Why? Because the daughter of Ahab was his wife. And he did evil in the sight of the Lord. Presumably, this woman was also the daughter of one Jezebel. It is amazing the effect that the wives of these kings had on them. But God would not destroy Judah because of David. He had promised David to give him always a light unto his children. And in his days, the days of this king, Edom revolted from under the hand of Judah and made a king over themselves. Revolution sweeps across the land. Joram went over to Zare and all the chariots with him, and he rose by night and smote the Edomites who surrounded him, the captains of the chariots, and the people fled to their tents. Yet Edom revolted under the hand of Judah unto this day, Libna at the same time.
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Until next time, I’m Ronald Dart. The Born to Win radio program with Ronald L. Dart is sponsored by Christian Educational Ministries and made possible by donations from listeners like you. If you can help, please send your donation to You may call us at 1-888-BIBLE44 and visit us online at borntowin.net.
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