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Expositor's Bible Commentary 2 Kings 13:1 In the three and twentieth year of Joash the son of Ahaziah king of Judah Jehoahaz the son of Jehu began to reign over Israel in Samaria, and reigned seventeen years. THE DYNASTY OF JEHU Jehoahaz 814-797 {2Ki 13:1-9} Joash 797-781 {2Ki 13:10-21; 2Ki 14:8-16} Jeroboam II 781-740 {2Ki 14:23-29} Zechariah 740 {2Ki 15:8-12} "Them that honor Me I will honor, and they that despise Me shall be lightly esteemed." - 1 Samuel 2:30 ISRAEL had scarcely ever sunk to so low a nadir of degradation as she did in the reign of the son of Jehu. We have already mentioned that some assign to his reign the ghastly story which we have narrated in our sketch of the work of Elisha. It is told in the sixth chapter of the Second Book of Kings, and seems to belong to the reign of Jehoram ben-Ahab; but it may have got displaced from this epoch of yet deeper wretchedness. The accounts of Jehoahaz in 2 Kings 13:1-25 are evidently fragmentary and abrupt. Jehoahaz reigned seventeen years. Naturally, he did not disturb the calf-worship, which, like all his predecessors and successors, he regarded as a perfectly innocent symbolic adoration of Jehovah, whose name he bore and whose service he professed. Why should he do so? It had been established now for more than two centuries. His father, in spite of his passionate and ruthless zeal for Jehovah, had never attempted to disturb it. No prophet-not even Elijah nor Elisha, the practical establishers of his dynasty-had said one word to condemn it. It in no way rested on his conscience as an offence; and the formal condemnation of it by the historian only reflects the more enlightened judgment of the Southern Kingdom and of a later age. But according to the parenthesis which breaks the thread of this king’s story, {2Ki 13:5-6} he was guilty of a far more culpable defection from orthodox worship; for in his reign, the Asherah -the tree or pillar of the Tyrian nature-goddess-still remained in Samaria, and therefore must have had its worshippers. How it came there we cannot tell. Jezebel had set it up, {1Ki 16:33} with the connivance of Ahab. Jehu apparently had "put it away" with the great stele of Baal, {2Ki 3:2} but, for some reason or other, he had not destroyed it. It now apparently occupied some public place, a symbol of decadence, and provocative of the wrath of Heaven. Jehoahaz sank very low. Hazael’s savage sword, not content with the devastation of Bashan and Gilead, wasted the west of Israel also in all its borders. The king became a mere vassal of his brutal neighbor at Damascus. So little of the barest semblance of power was left him, that whereas, in the reign of David, Israel could muster an army of eight hundred thousand, and in the reign of Joash, the son and successor of Jehoahaz, Amaziah could hire from Israel one hundred thousand mighty men of valor as mercenaries, Jehoahaz was only allowed to maintain an army of ten chariots, fifty horsemen, and ten thousand infantry! In the picturesque phrase of the historian, "the King of Syria had threshed down Israel to the dust," in spite of all that Jehoahaz did, or tried to do, and "all his might." How completely helpless the Israelites were is shown by the fact that their armies could offer no opposition to the free passage of the Syrian troops through their land. Hazael did not regard them as threatening his rear; for, in the reign of Jehoahaz, he marched southwards, took the Philistine city of Gath, and threatened Jerusalem. Joash of Judah could only buy them off with the bribe of all his treasures, and according to the Chronicler they "destroyed all the princes of the people," and took great spoil to Damascus. {2Ch 24:23} Where was Elisha? After the anointing of Jehu he vanishes from the scene. Unless the narrative of the siege of Samaria has been displaced, we do not so much as once hear of him for nearly half a century. The fearful depth of humiliation to which the king was reduced drove him to repentance. Wearied to death of the Syrian oppression of which he was the daily witness, and of the utter misery caused by prowling bands of Ammonites and Moabites-jackals who waited on the Syrian lion-Jehoahaz "besought the Lord, and the Lord hearkened unto him, and gave Israel a savior, so that they went out from under the hand of the Syrians: and the children of Israel dwelt in their tents, as beforetime." If this indeed refers to events which come out of place in the memoirs of Elisha; and if Jehoahaz ben-Jehu, not Jehoram ben-Ahab, was the king in whose reign the siege of Samaria was so marvellously raised, then Elisha may possibly be the temporary deliverer who is here alluded to. On this supposition we may see a sign of the repentance of Jehoahaz in the shirt of sackcloth which he wore under his robes, as it became visible to his starving people when he rent his clothes on hearing the cannibal instincts which had driven mothers to devour their own children. But the respite must have been brief, since Hazael ( 2 Kings 13:22 ) oppressed Israel all the days of Jehoahaz. If this rearrangement of events be untenable, we must suppose that the repentance of Jehoahaz was only so far accepted, and his prayer so far heard, that the deliverance, which did not come in his own days, came in those of his son and of his grandson. Of him and of his wretched reign we hear no more; but a very different epoch dawned with the accession of his son Joash, named after the contemporary King of Judah, Joash ben-Ahaziah. In the Books of Kings and Chronicles Joash of Israel is condemned with the usual refrains about the sins of Jeroboam. No other sin is laid to his charge; and breaking the monotony of reprobation which tells us of every king of Israel without exception that "he did that which was evil in the sight of the Lord," Josephus boldly ventures to call him "a good man; and the antithesis to his father." He reigned sixteen years. At the beginning of his reign he found his country the despised prey, not only of Syria, but of the paltry neighboring bandit-sheykhs who infested the east of the Jordan; he left it comparatively strong, prosperous, and independent. In his reign we hear again of Elisha, now a very old man of past eighty years. Nearly half a century had elapsed since the grandfather of Joash had destroyed the house of Ahab at the prophet’s command. News came to the king that Elisha was sick of a mortal sickness, and he naturally went to visit the death-bed of one who had called his dynasty to the throne, and had in earlier years played so memorable a part in the history of his country. He found the old man dying, and he wept over him, crying, "My father; my father! the chariot of Israel, and the horsemen thereof." {Comp. 2Ki 2:12} The address strikes us with some surprise. Elisha had indeed delivered Samaria more than once when the city had been reduced to direst extremity; but in spite of his prayers and of his presence, the sins of Israel and her kings had rendered this chariot of Israel of very small avail. The names of Ahab, Jehu, Jehoahaz, call up memories of a series of miseries and humiliations which had reduced Israel to the very verge of extinction. For sixty-three years Elisha had been the prophet of Israel; and though his public interpositions had been signal on several occasions, they had not been availing to prevent Ahab from becoming the vassal of Assyria, nor Israel from becoming the appendage of the dominion of that Hazael whom Elisha himself had anointed King of Syria, and who had become of all the enemies of his country the most persistent and the most implacable. The narrative which follows is very singular. We must give it-as it occurs, with but little apprehension of its exact significance. Elisha, though Joash "did that which was evil in the sight of the Lord," seems to have regarded him with affection. He bade the youth take his bow, and laid his feeble, trembling hands on the strong hands of the king. Then he ordered an attendant to fling open the lattice, and told the king to shoot eastward towards Gilead, the region whence the bands of Syria made their way over the Jordan. The king shot, and the fire came back into the old prophet’s eye as he heard the arrow whistle eastward. He cried, "The arrow of Jehovah’s deliverance, even the arrow of victory over Syria: for thou shalt smite the Syrians in Aphek, till thou have consumed them." Then he bade the young king to take the sheaf of arrows, and smite towards the ground, as if he was striking down an enemy. Not understanding the significance of the act, the king made the sign of thrice striking the arrows downwards, and then naturally stopped. But Elisha was angry-or at any rate grieved. "You should have smitten five or six times," he said, "and then you would have smitten Syria to destruction. Now you shall only smite Syria thrice." The king’s fault seems to have been lack of energy and faith. There are in this story some peculiar elements which it is impossible to explain, but it has one beautiful and striking feature. It tells us of the death - bed of a prophet. Most of God’s greatest prophets have perished amid the hatred of priests and worldlings. The progress of the truth they taught has been "from scaffold to scaffold, and from stake to stake." "Careless seems the Great Avenger. History’s pages but record One death-grapple in the darkness ‘twixt old systems and the Word- Truth forever on the scaffold, wrong forever on the throne; Yet that scaffold sways the Future, and behind the dim unknown Standeth God within the shadow, keeping watch above His own!" Now and then, however, as an exception, a great prophetic teacher or reformer escapes the hatred of the priests and of the world, and dies in peace. Savonarola is burnt, Huss is burnt, but Wicliff dies in his bed at Lutterworth, and Luther died in peace at Eisleben. Elijah passed away in storm, and was seen no more. A king comes to weep by the death-bed of the aged Elisha. "For us," it has been said, "the scene at his bedside contains a lesson of comfort and even encouragement. Let us try to realize it. A man with no material power is dying in the capital of Israel. He is not rich: he holds no office which gives him any immediate control over the actions of men; he has but one weapon-the power of his word. Yet Israel’s king stands weeping at his bedside-weeping because this inspired messenger of Jehovah is to be taken from him. In him both king and people will lose a mighty support, for this man is a greater strength to Israel than chariots and horsemen are. Joash does well to mourn for him, for he has had courage to wake the nation’s conscience; the might of his personality has sufficed to turn them in the true direction, and rouse their moral and religious life. Such men as Elisha everywhere and always give a strength to their people above the strength of armies, for the true blessings of a nation are reared on the foundations of its moral force." The annals are here interrupted to introduce a posthumous miracle-unlike any other in the whole Bible-wrought by the bones of Elisha. He died, and they buried him, "giving him," as Josephus says, "a magnificent burial." As usual, the spring brought with it the marauding bands of Moabites. Some Israelites who were burying a man caught sight of them, and, anxious to escape, thrust the man into the sepulcher of Elisha, which happened to be nearest at hand. But when he was placed in the rocky tomb, and touched the bones of Elisha, he revived, and stood up on his feet. Doubtless the story rests on some real circumstance. There is, however, something singular in the turn of the original, which says (literally) that the man went and touched the bones of Elisha; and there is proof that the story was told in varying forms, for Josephus says that it was the Moabite plunderers who had killed the man, and that he was thrown by them into Elisha’s tomb. It is easy to invent moral and spiritual lessons out of this incident, but not so easy to see what lesson is intended by it. Certainly there is not throughout Scripture any other passage which even seems to sanction any suspicions of magic potency in the relics of the dead. But Elisha’s symbolic prophecy of deliverance from Syria was amply fulfilled. About this time Hazael had died, and had left his power in the feebler hands of his son Benhadad III. Jehoahaz had not been able to make any way against him, {2Ki 13:3} but Joash his son thrice met and thrice defeated him at Aphek. As a consequence of these victories, he won back all the cities which Hazael had taken from his father on the west of Jordan. The east of Jordan was never recovered. It fell under the shadow of Assyria, and was practically lost forever to the tribes of Israel. Whether Assyria lent her help to Joash under certain conditions we do not know. Certain it is that from this time the terror of Syria vanishes. The Assyrian king Rammanirari III about this time subjugated all Syria and its king, whom the tablets call Mari, perhaps the same as Benhadad III. In the next reign Damascus itself fell into the power of Jeroboam II, the son of Joash. One more event, to which we have already alluded, is narrated in the reign of this prosperous and valiant king. Amity had reigned for a century between Judah and Israel, the result of the politic-impolitic alliance which Jehoshaphat had sanctioned between his son Jehoram and the daughter of Jezebel. It was obviously most desirable that the two small kingdoms should be united as closely as possible by an offensive and defensive alliance. But the bond between them was broken by the overweening vanity of Amaziah ben-Joash of Judah. His victory over the Edomites, and his conquest of Petra, had puffed him up with the mistaken notion that he was a very great man and an invincible warrior. He had the wicked infatuation to kindle an unprovoked war against the Northern Tribes. It was the most wanton of the many instances in which, if Ephraim did not envy Judah, at least Judah vexed Ephraim. Amaziah challenged Joash to come out to battle, that they might look one another in the face. He had not recognized the difference between fighting with and without the sanction of the God of battles. Joash had on his hands enough of necessary and internecine war to make him more than indifferent to that bloody game. Moreover, as the superior of Amaziah in every way, he saw through his inflated emptiness. He knew that it was the worst possible policy for Judah and Israel to weaken each other in fratricidal war, while Syria threatened their northern and. eastern frontiers, and while the tread of the mighty march of Assyria was echoing ominously in the ears of the nations from afar. Better and kinder feelings may have mingled with these wise convictions. He had no wish to destroy the poor fool who so vaingloriously provoked his superior might. His answer was one of the most crushingly contemptuous pieces of irony which history records, and yet it was eminently kindly and good-humoured: It was meant to save the King of Judah from advancing any further on the path of certain ruin. "The thistle that was in Lebanon" (such was the apologue which he addressed to his would-be rival) "sent to the cedar that was in Lebanon, saying: Give thy daughter to my son to wife. The cedar took no sort of notice of the thistle’s ludicrous presumption, but a wild beast that was in Lebanon passed by, and trod down the thistle." It was the answer of a giant to a dwarf; and to make it quite clear to the humblest comprehension, Joash good-naturedly added: "You are puffed up with your victory over Edom: glory in this, and stay at home. Why by your vain meddling should you ruin yourself and Judah with you? Keep quiet: I have something else to do than to attend to you." Happy had it been for Amaziah if he had taken warning! But vanity is a bad counselor, and folly and self-deception-ill-matched pair-were whirling him to his doom. Seeing that he was bent on his own perdition, Joash took the initiative and marched to Beth-Shemesh, in the territory of Judah. There the kings met, and there Amaziah was hopelessly defeated. His troops fled to their scattered homes, and he fell into the hands of his conqueror. Joash did not care to take any sanguinary revenge; but much as he despised his enemy, he thought it necessary to teach him and Judah the permanent lesson of not again meddling to their own hurt. He took the captive king with him to Jerusalem, which opened its gates without a blow. We do not know whether, like a Roman conqueror, he entered it through the breach of four hundred cubits which he ordered them to make in the walls, but otherwise he contented himself with spoil which would swell his treasure, and amply compensate for the expenses of the expedition which had been forced upon him. He ransacked Jerusalem for silver and gold; he made Obed-Edom, the treasurer, give up to him all the sacred vessels of the Temple, and all that was worth taking from the palace. He also took hostages-probably from among the number of the king’s sons-to secure immunity from further intrusions. It is the first time in Scripture that hostages are mentioned. It is to his credit that he shed no blood, and was even content to leave his defeated challenger with the disgraced phantom of his kingly power, till, fifteen years later, he followed his father to the grave through the red path of murder at the hand of his own subjects. After this we hear no further records of this vigorous and able king, in whom the characteristics of his grandfather Jehu are reflected in softer outline. He left his son Jeroboam II to continue his career of prosperity, and to advance Israel to a pitch of greatness which she had never yet attained, in which she rivaled the grandeur of the united kingdom in the earlier days of Solomon’s dominion. 2 Kings 13:10 In the thirty and seventh year of Joash king of Judah began Jehoash the son of Jehoahaz to reign over Israel in Samaria, and reigned sixteen years. elete_me 2 Kings 13:10-21 THE DYNASTY OF JEHU Jehoahaz 814-797 {2Ki 13:1-9} Joash 797-781 {2Ki 13:10-21; 2Ki 14:8-16} Jeroboam II 781-740 {2Ki 14:23-29} Zechariah 740 {2Ki 15:8-12} "Them that honor Me I will honor, and they that despise Me shall be lightly esteemed." - 1 Samuel 2:30 ISRAEL had scarcely ever sunk to so low a nadir of degradation as she did in the reign of the son of Jehu. We have already mentioned that some assign to his reign the ghastly story which we have narrated in our sketch of the work of Elisha. It is told in the sixth chapter of the Second Book of Kings, and seems to belong to the reign of Jehoram ben-Ahab; but it may have got displaced from this epoch of yet deeper wretchedness. The accounts of Jehoahaz in 2 Kings 13:1-25 are evidently fragmentary and abrupt. Jehoahaz reigned seventeen years. Naturally, he did not disturb the calf-worship, which, like all his predecessors and successors, he regarded as a perfectly innocent symbolic adoration of Jehovah, whose name he bore and whose service he professed. Why should he do so? It had been established now for more than two centuries. His father, in spite of his passionate and ruthless zeal for Jehovah, had never attempted to disturb it. No prophet-not even Elijah nor Elisha, the practical establishers of his dynasty-had said one word to condemn it. It in no way rested on his conscience as an offence; and the formal condemnation of it by the historian only reflects the more enlightened judgment of the Southern Kingdom and of a later age. But according to the parenthesis which breaks the thread of this king’s story, {2Ki 13:5-6} he was guilty of a far more culpable defection from orthodox worship; for in his reign, the Asherah -the tree or pillar of the Tyrian nature-goddess-still remained in Samaria, and therefore must have had its worshippers. How it came there we cannot tell. Jezebel had set it up, {1Ki 16:33} with the connivance of Ahab. Jehu apparently had "put it away" with the great stele of Baal, {2Ki 3:2} but, for some reason or other, he had not destroyed it. It now apparently occupied some public place, a symbol of decadence, and provocative of the wrath of Heaven. Jehoahaz sank very low. Hazael’s savage sword, not content with the devastation of Bashan and Gilead, wasted the west of Israel also in all its borders. The king became a mere vassal of his brutal neighbor at Damascus. So little of the barest semblance of power was left him, that whereas, in the reign of David, Israel could muster an army of eight hundred thousand, and in the reign of Joash, the son and successor of Jehoahaz, Amaziah could hire from Israel one hundred thousand mighty men of valor as mercenaries, Jehoahaz was only allowed to maintain an army of ten chariots, fifty horsemen, and ten thousand infantry! In the picturesque phrase of the historian, "the King of Syria had threshed down Israel to the dust," in spite of all that Jehoahaz did, or tried to do, and "all his might." How completely helpless the Israelites were is shown by the fact that their armies could offer no opposition to the free passage of the Syrian troops through their land. Hazael did not regard them as threatening his rear; for, in the reign of Jehoahaz, he marched southwards, took the Philistine city of Gath, and threatened Jerusalem. Joash of Judah could only buy them off with the bribe of all his treasures, and according to the Chronicler they "destroyed all the princes of the people," and took great spoil to Damascus. {2Ch 24:23} Where was Elisha? After the anointing of Jehu he vanishes from the scene. Unless the narrative of the siege of Samaria has been displaced, we do not so much as once hear of him for nearly half a century. The fearful depth of humiliation to which the king was reduced drove him to repentance. Wearied to death of the Syrian oppression of which he was the daily witness, and of the utter misery caused by prowling bands of Ammonites and Moabites-jackals who waited on the Syrian lion-Jehoahaz "besought the Lord, and the Lord hearkened unto him, and gave Israel a savior, so that they went out from under the hand of the Syrians: and the children of Israel dwelt in their tents, as beforetime." If this indeed refers to events which come out of place in the memoirs of Elisha; and if Jehoahaz ben-Jehu, not Jehoram ben-Ahab, was the king in whose reign the siege of Samaria was so marvellously raised, then Elisha may possibly be the temporary deliverer who is here alluded to. On this supposition we may see a sign of the repentance of Jehoahaz in the shirt of sackcloth which he wore under his robes, as it became visible to his starving people when he rent his clothes on hearing the cannibal instincts which had driven mothers to devour their own children. But the respite must have been brief, since Hazael ( 2 Kings 13:22 ) oppressed Israel all the days of Jehoahaz. If this rearrangement of events be untenable, we must suppose that the repentance of Jehoahaz was only so far accepted, and his prayer so far heard, that the deliverance, which did not come in his own days, came in those of his son and of his grandson. Of him and of his wretched reign we hear no more; but a very different epoch dawned with the accession of his son Joash, named after the contemporary King of Judah, Joash ben-Ahaziah. In the Books of Kings and Chronicles Joash of Israel is condemned with the usual refrains about the sins of Jeroboam. No other sin is laid to his charge; and breaking the monotony of reprobation which tells us of every king of Israel without exception that "he did that which was evil in the sight of the Lord," Josephus boldly ventures to call him "a good man; and the antithesis to his father." He reigned sixteen years. At the beginning of his reign he found his country the despised prey, not only of Syria, but of the paltry neighboring bandit-sheykhs who infested the east of the Jordan; he left it comparatively strong, prosperous, and independent. In his reign we hear again of Elisha, now a very old man of past eighty years. Nearly half a century had elapsed since the grandfather of Joash had destroyed the house of Ahab at the prophet’s command. News came to the king that Elisha was sick of a mortal sickness, and he naturally went to visit the death-bed of one who had called his dynasty to the throne, and had in earlier years played so memorable a part in the history of his country. He found the old man dying, and he wept over him, crying, "My father; my father! the chariot of Israel, and the horsemen thereof." {Comp. 2Ki 2:12} The address strikes us with some surprise. Elisha had indeed delivered Samaria more than once when the city had been reduced to direst extremity; but in spite of his prayers and of his presence, the sins of Israel and her kings had rendered this chariot of Israel of very small avail. The names of Ahab, Jehu, Jehoahaz, call up memories of a series of miseries and humiliations which had reduced Israel to the very verge of extinction. For sixty-three years Elisha had been the prophet of Israel; and though his public interpositions had been signal on several occasions, they had not been availing to prevent Ahab from becoming the vassal of Assyria, nor Israel from becoming the appendage of the dominion of that Hazael whom Elisha himself had anointed King of Syria, and who had become of all the enemies of his country the most persistent and the most implacable. The narrative which follows is very singular. We must give it-as it occurs, with but little apprehension of its exact significance. Elisha, though Joash "did that which was evil in the sight of the Lord," seems to have regarded him with affection. He bade the youth take his bow, and laid his feeble, trembling hands on the strong hands of the king. Then he ordered an attendant to fling open the lattice, and told the king to shoot eastward towards Gilead, the region whence the bands of Syria made their way over the Jordan. The king shot, and the fire came back into the old prophet’s eye as he heard the arrow whistle eastward. He cried, "The arrow of Jehovah’s deliverance, even the arrow of victory over Syria: for thou shalt smite the Syrians in Aphek, till thou have consumed them." Then he bade the young king to take the sheaf of arrows, and smite towards the ground, as if he was striking down an enemy. Not understanding the significance of the act, the king made the sign of thrice striking the arrows downwards, and then naturally stopped. But Elisha was angry-or at any rate grieved. "You should have smitten five or six times," he said, "and then you would have smitten Syria to destruction. Now you shall only smite Syria thrice." The king’s fault seems to have been lack of energy and faith. There are in this story some peculiar elements which it is impossible to explain, but it has one beautiful and striking feature. It tells us of the death - bed of a prophet. Most of God’s greatest prophets have perished amid the hatred of priests and worldlings. The progress of the truth they taught has been "from scaffold to scaffold, and from stake to stake." "Careless seems the Great Avenger. History’s pages but record One death-grapple in the darkness ‘twixt old systems and the Word- Truth forever on the scaffold, wrong forever on the throne; Yet that scaffold sways the Future, and behind the dim unknown Standeth God within the shadow, keeping watch above His own!" Now and then, however, as an exception, a great prophetic teacher or reformer escapes the hatred of the priests and of the world, and dies in peace. Savonarola is burnt, Huss is burnt, but Wicliff dies in his bed at Lutterworth, and Luther died in peace at Eisleben. Elijah passed away in storm, and was seen no more. A king comes to weep by the death-bed of the aged Elisha. "For us," it has been said, "the scene at his bedside contains a lesson of comfort and even encouragement. Let us try to realize it. A man with no material power is dying in the capital of Israel. He is not rich: he holds no office which gives him any immediate control over the actions of men; he has but one weapon-the power of his word. Yet Israel’s king stands weeping at his bedside-weeping because this inspired messenger of Jehovah is to be taken from him. In him both king and people will lose a mighty support, for this man is a greater strength to Israel than chariots and horsemen are. Joash does well to mourn for him, for he has had courage to wake the nation’s conscience; the might of his personality has sufficed to turn them in the true direction, and rouse their moral and religious life. Such men as Elisha everywhere and always give a strength to their people above the strength of armies, for the true blessings of a nation are reared on the foundations of its moral force." The annals are here interrupted to introduce a posthumous miracle-unlike any other in the whole Bible-wrought by the bones of Elisha. He died, and they buried him, "giving him," as Josephus says, "a magnificent burial." As usual, the spring brought with it the marauding bands of Moabites. Some Israelites who were burying a man caught sight of them, and, anxious to escape, thrust the man into the sepulcher of Elisha, which happened to be nearest at hand. But when he was placed in the rocky tomb, and touched the bones of Elisha, he revived, and stood up on his feet. Doubtless the story rests on some real circumstance. There is, however, something singular in the turn of the original, which says (literally) that the man went and touched the bones of Elisha; and there is proof that the story was told in varying forms, for Josephus says that it was the Moabite plunderers who had killed the man, and that he was thrown by them into Elisha’s tomb. It is easy to invent moral and spiritual lessons out of this incident, but not so easy to see what lesson is intended by it. Certainly there is not throughout Scripture any other passage which even seems to sanction any suspicions of magic potency in the relics of the dead. But Elisha’s symbolic prophecy of deliverance from Syria was amply fulfilled. About this time Hazael had died, and had left his power in the feebler hands of his son Benhadad III. Jehoahaz had not been able to make any way against him, {2Ki 13:3} but Joash his son thrice met and thrice defeated him at Aphek. As a consequence of these victories, he won back all the cities which Hazael had taken from his father on the west of Jordan. The east of Jordan was never recovered. It fell under the shadow of Assyria, and was practically lost forever to the tribes of Israel. Whether Assyria lent her help to Joash under certain conditions we do not know. Certain it is that from this time the terror of Syria vanishes. The Assyrian king Rammanirari III about this time subjugated all Syria and its king, whom the tablets call Mari, perhaps the same as Benhadad III. In the next reign Damascus itself fell into the power of Jeroboam II, the son of Joash. One more event, to which we have already alluded, is narrated in the reign of this prosperous and valiant king. Amity had reigned for a century between Judah and Israel, the result of the politic-impolitic alliance which Jehoshaphat had sanctioned between his son Jehoram and the daughter of Jezebel. It was obviously most desirable that the two small kingdoms should be united as closely as possible by an offensive and defensive alliance. But the bond between them was broken by the overweening vanity of Amaziah ben-Joash of Judah. His victory over the Edomites, and his conquest of Petra, had puffed him up with the mistaken notion that he was a very great man and an invincible warrior. He had the wicked infatuation to kindle an unprovoked war against the Northern Tribes. It was the most wanton of the many instances in which, if Ephraim did not envy Judah, at least Judah vexed Ephraim. Amaziah challenged Joash to come out to battle, that they might look one another in the face. He had not recognized the difference between fighting with and without the sanction of the God of battles. Joash had on his hands enough of necessary and internecine war to make him more than indifferent to that bloody game. Moreover, as the superior of Amaziah in every way, he saw through his inflated emptiness. He knew that it was the worst possible policy for Judah and Israel to weaken each other in fratricidal war, while Syria threatened their northern and. eastern frontiers, and while the tread of the mighty march of Assyria was echoing ominously in the ears of the nations from afar. Better and kinder feelings may have mingled with these wise convictions. He had no wish to destroy the poor fool who so vaingloriously prov

He did that which was evil in the sight of the Lord. 2 Kings 13:2-13 Defection Just as two roads that diverge from each other at a very sharp angle, get the wider apart the further they go, till at last half a continent may be held betwixt them — the little deflection from the narrow line of Christian duty and simple faithfulness, it is only God's mercy that will prevent it from leading thee away out, out, out into the waste plains and doleful wildernesses, where all sinful, and dark, and foul things dwell for ever. The rest of the acts of Jehoahaz. 2 Kings 13:8 Records of life J. Parker. How very little we know even of the men whose lives are written: "The rest of the acts of Jehoahaz and all that he did, and his might, are they not Written in the book of the chronicles of the kings of Israel " No! Another hand there indeed endeavours to sketch the life, but how much is left out! No human chronicler can put down all things concerning the subject which he has undertaken to depict. But the rest of our lives is written. A diary is kept in heaven; the journal is not published for the perusal of others; but the whole life, day by day, is put down in the book of remembrance; and we shall be able to recognise the writing, and to confirm the accuracy of the minute. We cannot get away from it, there is the writing, and it abides — a perpetual witness for us or against us. What is the Divine scribe now writing? The pen is going. We are obliged to use such figures to represent the spiritual reality. The writing is now proceeding: every thought registered, every deed chronicled, every day's work added up and carried over to the next page. It is a solemn thing to live! We are stewards, trustees, servants sent on messages, and entrusted with specified duties, and we are expected back with a definite answer and a complete report of our lives. ( J. Parker. ) Now Elisha was fallen sick of his sickness whereof he died. 2 Kings 13:14-21 The death of Elisha David Thomas, D. D. I. A GREAT MAN DYING. II. A WICKED MAN REGRETTING THE EVENT. III. A GOOD MAN LEAVING THE WORLD INTERESTED IN POSTERITY. Elisha, though dying, was excited to some interest in the future of his country (vers. 15-19). IV. A DEAD MAN EXERTING A WONDERFUL INFLUENCE. ( David Thomas, D. D. ) And Elisha said unto him, Take bow and arrows. 2 Kings 13:15-19 The king's arrows L. A. Banks, D. D. Elisha was lying ill on his deathbed. His long career of usefulness and blessing was drawing to a close. He was held in great honour, not only by the people but by the king, and when it was known that he was coming to the end of his career King Joash came to see him, and when he came into the room, and saw the prophet lying there, looking so frail and weak, the young king was greatly affected. He burst into tears, and cried aloud, "O my father, my father, the chariot of Israel, and the horsemen thereof." Now Joash was neither a good nor a great man, but he was still young and not yet hardened, and he had no doubt a sudden vision of something of the meaning of the great value of Elisha to the kingdom. Elisha was a man of deeds, and he called the young man to his composure by saying to him, "Take bow and arrows." For a moment Elisha is king, and the king is his servant, and the king turns and takes up a bow and arrows. 1. God's hand on ours is our only guarantee of success. When Elisha had young King Joash take up the bow and arrows and place the arrow on the string and make ready to shoot, he put his own hands over the hands of the king to illustrate and impress upon the mind of this young ruler that if he gave himself to earnest, resolute attack upon the enemies of God and of His people the hand of God should be with him as a guarantee of victory. The lesson is as important for us as it was for Joash. God calls 'every one of us to fight His enemies and the enemies of mankind. And there is that other warfare in our own hearts, that campaign against our personal besetting sins. God's hand must be on our hand if the arrow shall find its mark and do its execution. 2. We are to smite sin utterly. God seeks to deliver us entirely from sin, but we may limit the deliverance of God by our own conduct. When the prophet told the young king to shoot his arrow eastward towards his Syrian enemy, he exclaimed, "The arrow of the Lord's deliverance." But when, to test the young king, he told him to take up the arrows and smite on the ground with them, his heart was heavy and his soul indignant as he noticed that he struck half-heartedly and that after only three strokes he turned about in a lifeless sort of way as if looking for further directions. Let us not fail of this great lesson, God seeks our complete deliverance from sin. He desires that every enemy which troubles us and hinders us from working out the great purposes to which we are called of Jesus Christ shall be consumed and destroyed. But let us never forget that whether or not this is accomplished depends at the last upon us. It is a solemn thing that we, by our nerveless will, by our flabby lack of purpose, by our mushy indecision may thwart the purpose of Almighty God and continue to live lives far beneath our privilege. Let us smite, and smite, and smite, and yet again, smite, until every wicked passion, until every evil appetite, until every besetting sin shall be smitten to the death in our hearts and Jesus shall be crowned Lord over all. 3. There is no greater danger to the Christian than lack of persistence. Over and over again is this urged upon us in the Bible. Joash failed for lack of persistence. Many a Christian in these later centuries has failed because he gave up in despair by the way. 4. We are in great danger of being too easily satisfied. It may be that King Joash thought that three victories over Syria would be enough. It was not in him to rise up to a high ideal of his mission or to grasp the fulness of God's willingness to make him not only the great King of Israel but the great king of all the world. Because he was easily satisfied his career was short and disgraceful. ( L. A. Banks, D. D. ) Poverty of faith ensures but partial success J. E. Robinson. We may take this closing incident in the life of Elisha, as an illustration of the warfare between the soul and its enemies, and the conditions upon which complete victory is achieved. 1. Israel. Redeemed out of Egypt, in Canaan, where they might have lived in the enjoyment of triumph over all foes. Not in absolute exemption from conflict, but trusting in God and obeying Him, they would never have known defeat. They disbelieved, disobeyed, and as a consequence, there was failure and defeat. Type of a soul which has passed out of death (Egypt) into life (Canaan). But it has left its first love, in which it might have abode in the joys of continuous victory. 2. Israel's enemies. Syria in particular. We find ourselves attacked from different quarters at the same time. 3. Promised deliverance. (a) A definite deliverance — "from Syria." (b) A Divine deliverance — "The Lord's deliverance."Spiritual deliverance is promised us. Definite promises of deliverance from the dominion, love and pollution of sin. 4. The king's error. He erred in not resolving on, and expecting, complete success. "He smote thrice, and stayed." He, as it were, "limited the Holy One of Israel." He certainly manifested a lack of faith and of courage. In the spiritual life we should aim at, and expect, complete success. Be satisfied with nothing short of this. Not to rest while a single foe has a footing in the territory which belongs to God. We are to be "more than conquerors." 5. The king's partial success. Elisha would not have been "wrath" had there not been good cause. Elisha was God's messenger. As when he declared that there should be plenty in Samaria within a given time, and the lord of the court was held guilty for not believing the message, so here. On account of weak faith, we are often only partially successful against our spiritual enemies. Would Naaman have been cured of his leprosy had he dipped in Jordan but thrice, and then stayed? 6. The king's loss through unbelief. He was not aware, possibly, of the grandeur of the opportunity. Perhaps he treated the prophet's simple message with contempt — obeying him merely to indulge the whim of an old and dying man — failing to look beyond the prophet to God who sent him. Perhaps we stumble sometimes at the message because we look no farther or higher than the messenger. He is not talented, famous, but coarse, etc. The king suffered. So do we when this spirit is indulged. ( J. E. Robinson. ) Spiritual archery T. Spurgeon. There are two acts in this wonderful event. The first concerns the shooting of the arrow of deliverance, a symbolic and prophetic act; the second concerns the smiting on the ground with arrows, also symbolical, but providing as well a test of the character, of the zeal, and of the faith of the King of Israel. Now concerning these two acts and the several scenes in them let us speak as God may guide us. I. SHOOTING THE ARROW OF DELIVERANCE. Notice, 1. A call to action. "Take bow and arrows," said the dying prophet. There is a deal of meaning wrapped up in this apparently simple suggestion. Elisha had come to a full end, and like a shock of corn that was fully ripe he was now bending towards the sharpened sickle. The king, who was not remarkable all the years of his life for his devotion to God or to His prophets, is now found trembling and weeping by the side of the sick servant of Jehovah. Then it is that the dying prophet, with more faith and hope and vigour in him even at the last article than the sinful king in his prime and power, exclaims as it were, "Weep not, tremble not, faint not, fear not; I am going, but God is with you. God buries His workmen, but He carries on His work. I die, but God will surely visit you. Do not let this sad event unduly depress you. I must die, for my time has come; but so long as you live, live to purpose, take bow and arrows, let not your hands hang down. Go forth to the battle yet again, and believe in the God to whom I have so long, though vainly, pointed you; for He is the Lord God of Hosts, the God of battles still. Dry up your tears; forsake your grief; take bow and arrows; arm yourself; go forth into the fight, and the Lord my God shall be with you." 2. I notice next that Elisha gives to the king several strict injunctions; indeed, the detail to which he condescends is most remarkable. All through these verses we find a long list of instructions and commands. "Take bow and arrows." "Put thine hand upon the bow." "Open the window eastward." "Shoot." "Take the arrows." "Smite upon the ground." The dying prophet instructs the king in all the minutiae of his immediate duty. The wisest of us need to be divinely directed. 3. Then followed on the king's part implicit obedience. "Take," said the prophet; "and he took." So it is throughout. "Put thine hand upon the bow;" "and he put his hand upon it." "Open the window;" "and he opened it." "Shoot;" "and he shot." "Smite;" "and he smote." All through there is a corresponding obedience on the king's part to the arrangement and suggestion of the prophet. So should it ever be with us and God. Let His imperative be answered by obedient indicative on our part. 4. There follows a hint as to the necessity for personal interest and effort. Read the 16th verse. 5. There was Divine co-operation, for we read "Elisha put his hands upon the king's hands:" 6. Notice next that the window had to be opened. He said, "Open the window eastward. And he opened it." In other words, every obstruction and possible hindrance has to be got rid of. You see the importance of this. 7. Then at last they come to the decisive action. All the rest has been preliminary and preparatory. II. THE SECOND ACT, THE SMITING WITH THE OTHER ARROWS. This was a symbolical act, as was the first. The flight of the single arrow through the open lattice must have. been readily understood by the king, for it was the custom there and then, as in other lands and times, to throw down the gage of battle, or to hurl a dart, the signal of the war. God has shot out of every window of this Tabernacle arrows of deliverance, if I may so speak; but with this purpose, that we ourselves shall follow up those tokens, and hope and believe that they were prophecies and promises with meaning which must meet with further fulfilment. It remains for us to shoot the other arrows, for we have a quiver full of them. The command was to smite with them on the ground. You see the meaning of that. It is as though Elisha said, "The arrow of God's deliverance has gone forth; it has already found its mark and done its work. You have now, if you will but believe it, these Syrians crouching at your very feet. God has already humbled them, and they are now at your mercy. Smite upon the ground. They are already at your feet. God has delivered them into your hands. Smite! Smite!" The king obeys, but with too little zeal. ( T. Spurgeon. ) The arrow of the Lord's deliverance Leighton Parks. How the spiritual drama repeats itself year after year! Again and again we see young people come up full of enthusiasm, full of the memory of the great things that noble lives have done, lamenting the glory that has departed from the earth, feeling a sudden impulse, which like an arrow is shot forth from the soul, essaying to do some great and noble work; and in that moment the prophetic voice is heard saying, The arrow of the Lord's deliverance; there lies the work of your life. This sudden impulse that takes possession of you in your youth, and causes you to shoot forth the arrows of the aspirations of your soul, — these are the things, that show you the way of the Lord. It is God's purpose that you should be the deliverer of His people in the particular path that He has opened before you. How that is going on every day! How every day at college men are lifting up their hearts, and setting open the windows of their souls, and looking out, shooting forth the thoughts and hopes and desires of their soul into this great unknown world! And then what? Then says the prophetic voice again, Smite upon the ground, Take these arrows and bind them together, and in a Divine frenzy devote yourself, soul and body, to the work that God has revealed to you to do. Then comes the critical moment in a man's life. He smites thrice, and stays. He says to himself, I need not do my best; I can do about as well as other men and not be wearied by my work; I have gifts that will enable me to live, and enable me to attain, perchance, a fortune, and yet I need not give up the things that make life pleasant; I need not turn aside from my self-indulgence; I will smite thrice, and stay. So it comes to pass that this great multitude, surging out into the life of the world year after year, equipped, crowned as kings for the work of life, smite the Syrians but thrice. The work of life is but half done. They remain failures, when they might have triumphed gloriously. Or take another illustration of the same thing. Here is a woman who has given herself up to a life of frivolity and vanity. Perhaps she is not to blame for that; perhaps she has had no ideal of noble things set before her. But some day the casement is thrown open, and she sees a new life before her, — a life which shall be devoted to husband and Children and home, a life which shall for the first time remember the great forgotten who dwell among us. The hand of the prophet is on that woman, and her soul shoots forth the arrow of a new desire. And the voice says, It is the arrow of the Lord's deliverance; there lie the glory, and splendour, and nobility of your life; there is the path on which God would have you walk, and you may deliver yourself and deliver those who live about you from the slavery and misery of the false ideals that thus far have dominated them. Smite, says the voice of the prophet. Devote yourself, soul and body, instantly, to the new work that has been revealed to you. .And she smites thrice. She goes to see some poor stricken soul, and she finds it tiresome; she turns aside from some gathering of frivolity, and her soul is parched. She undertakes some noble work of self-denial, and she is tired. She smites thrice, and stays, and goes down with the great multitude, worthless, useless, bringing no fruit to perfection Listen to one more example of the same thing. Here is a man or woman who has come on through life, and suddenly awakes to the consciousness of his ignorance of the Divine revelation in Jesus Christ. It smites upon him. Sometimes for one cause, and sometimes for another, it comes to pass that men and women living here in this city suddenly for the first time have a revelation of the glory and beauty and power of the life of Jesus Christ. And they say to themselves, Is the thing a myth? How has it come to pass that people have dreamed of such a life? How is it that men and women gather week after week, and day after day, to hear of the Lord Jesus Christ, and desire to serve Him? That man shoots forth the arrow of his desire for knowledge, and the voice says, It is the arrow of the Lord's deliverance. There lies the path by which you shall walk into the kingdom of truth and be saved from your enemies. And he begins to read. He reads a little, and he talks a little, and he thinks a little. But he learns before long that there is opening up before him a great and tremendous work, and the scepticism of the time finds voice, and whispers, Why waste your energies to learn that which cannot be known? Devote the energy of life to something that is practical; turn aside from vain dreams. So he, like the others, smites thrice and stays, and enters the great company of sceptics, — or, as they like to be called to-day, agnostics, — ignorant of God's eternal truth. ( Leighton Parks. ) The Lord's arrow of victory F. S. Webster, M. A. You see then the full measure of victory which God wants us to enjoy. "Thou shalt smite the Syrians till thou have consumed them." You see, too, the limited measure of victory which most Christians experience. "He smote thrice and stayed." Three big blessings and we think we have had all. Three successes over the enemy and we think we have done wonders. But the Saviour marvels that after all He went through for us, we should be content with such half measures. We glean from it four rules for complete victory in the Christian life. 1. Declare war against sin. Elisha breaks in upon the king's lamentations with the emphatic words, "Take bow and arrows." It is time not for weeping but for warring. The genius of the gospel is not peace at any price, but truth at all costs. 2. Union is strength. This is the meaning of the second act in this significant drama. "The prophet laid his hands upon the king's hands." Like the officer who sallied forth to capture one of the enemy's forts, after two unsuccessful attempts had been made, asking first of all from his general a grasp of his conquering right hand, so we must know what it is for our weakness to be encompassed in Christ's strength. 3. Claim a complete deliverance. This is the meaning of the next step. The window was opened eastward and through the open window was shot forth the Lord's arrow of victory, even the arrow of victory over Syria. 4. Then came the fourth act with its momentous lesson, "Fulfil the obedience of faith," and the king failed at this point so that the man of God was angry with him. How slow we are to learn this lesson. It is what we are in secret before God that fixes the amount of victory and blessing we enjoy in our walk and service amongst men. If only Joash had emptied the quiver he would have consumed the Syrians. If only we will he whole-hearted before God, yielding our will wholly and trusting God's promises absolutely, we too shall be completely victorious against the world, the flesh, and the devil. ( F. S. Webster, M. A. ) The challenge arrow David A. Taylor. History gives us the explanation of this symbolic narrative. It appears that in former times war was often proclaimed or renewed by the despatch of an arrow into the enemy's lines. Elisha meant to teach the king that, although he was weak and dying, yet Israel's cause was not going to die with him; and that the same power that made Israel strong in the past would follow the king in his new campaign against the Syrian oppressor. Let us learn the following lessons from the laying of those old emaciated hands of the prophet upon the young strong hands of the king. We see there a picture of — I. THE PAST DIRECTING THE PRESENT. When we crossed the threshold of the year we did not get rid of the old; for the past is always stretching out its vanishing hands to direct and influence the present. The white-bearded face of Elisha well represents the past, which is over behind us, overlooking our work. The actions, associations, and habits of the past are still with us. We may turn over a new leaf, but we cannot unlearn at once the irregularities of the defective writing on the previous page. We may point the arrow afresh, but the old hands are inevitably influencing the sweep it takes from the bow. This influence is exerted by the past, whether it is good or evil. Virtue and piety reap their immediate, as well as ultimate, harvests. The good deeds of the past are ever stretching forth their gentle hands to guide and bless not only ourselves, but others as well. Who can tell the influence of a mother's prayers uttered by lips long since sealed in death? In the critical moment of her boy's career, it would seem as if a straw would have turned the scale of destiny this way or that. The young impulsive nature is guided and restrained by the mother's prayers answered, the mother's words remembered, the mother's influence exerted; and these have saved him in the hour of danger II. THE DIVINE CONTROLLING THE HUMAN. "The arrow of the Lord's deliverance " had power in it, not because of the strong hand of Joash who pulled the bow, but mainly because of the prophetic hands that were laid upon him as he did so. Mere human effort is fruitless unless a higher power directs and controls the course and goal of the arrow's flight. We may spread the sails, but they must be filled with heaven-sent breezes. We may sow the seed, but God gives the increase. "Man proposes, but God disposes." We form plans and projects, we bend the bow, and throw all our power into the work lying before us, but unless a higher power is with us, all the determination and foresight we may command are valueless. "Except the Lord build the house, they labour in vain that build it." If this is true in regard to temporal concerns, how much more should we recognise its truth in the spiritual sphere. Too long has the enemy oppressed and held dominion over our hearts and our lives. Let us look to the ground we would reconquer and reclaim for the King of kings. Let us resolve that this slavery of our souls to sin shall cease. And as we do so, let us pray for the presence and power of the "hands of the mighty God of Jacob" to strengthen our weakness and give us the victory. But while thus trusting in Divine help, notice that it was the young king who drew the bow. Human effort is as essential as Divine direction. God's promise to help does not warrant idleness. The sense of God's helping us should not paralyse, but should rather stimulate to doing and daring greater things than we have ever hitherto attempted. The narrative suggests that effort must be sustained to be successful. One blow never won a battle. The king stayed his hand after he had discharged three arrows, and the man of God was wrath, and said he should have smitten the ground oftener, and then he would have utterly consumed the foe. So long as God bids us "fight the good fight", we must not cease our warring. So long as His hand is urging us we must smite again and again. Let us not desist, as Joash may have done, from a feeling of tenderness towards me enemy, nor from unbelief in the efficacy of the means ordained of God for our deliverance. Both motives have hindered and crippled the efforts of many a hopeful life. Finally, let us ask ourselves, has "the arrow of the Lord's deliverance" been discharged from our bow at all? Have we declared war against sin and Satan? If not, let us do so before another day closes. Look up and see God's hands held out, waiting, and able to help and to save you, and to rid from the guilt and bondage and pollution of sin. Fight for your life, and the lives of those around you, and all your arrows shall bring help and joy and peace to you and yours. ( David A. Taylor. ) Three arrows, or six ? — It is a very difficult task to show the meeting-place of the purpose of God and the free agency of man. One thing is quite clear, we ought not to deny either of them, for they are both facts. It is a fact that God has purposed all things both great and little; neither will anything happen but according to His eternal purpose and decree. It is also a sure and certain fact that, oftentimes, events hang upon the choice of men. Their will has a singular potency. In the ease before us, the arrows are in the hands of the King of Israel; and according to whether he shall shoot once, twice, thrice, or five or six times, so will the nation's history be affected. Now, how these two things can both be true, I cannot tell you; neither, probably, after long debate, could the wisest men in heaven tell you, not even with the assistance of cherubim and seraphim. If they could tell you, what would you know, and in what way would you be benefited if you could find out this secret? But sometimes a practical question about these two points does arise. It is correct to say, speaking after the manner of men, "If men are earnest, if men are believing, if men are prayerful, such and such a blessing will come"; and that the blessing does not come, may be rightly traced to the fact that they were not as prayerful and as believing as they ought to have been. Next, reflect what great things may lie in a man's hand There stood Joash an unworthy king; and yet m his hands lay, measurably, the destiny of his people. If he will take those arrows, and will shoot five or six times, their great enemy will be broken in pieces. If he will be dilatory, and will only shoot three times, he will get only a measure of victory; and poor Israel will ultimately have to suffer again from this enemy, who has been only scotched, and not killed. You do not know, dear friends, what responsibility lies upon you. You are the father of a family; what blessings may come to your household, or may be missed by your children, through your conduct! Once more, notice what great results may come from very little acts. It was a very trifling thing, was it not, to shoot an arrow from a bow? Your child has done it many times in his holidays. He has taken his bow, and shot his little home-made shaft into the air. This is what the King of Israel is required to do, to perform this very slight and common feat of archery, to shoot from an open window, and to drive his arrows into the ground beneath; and yet upon the shooting of these arrows will hang victory or defeat for Israel. so there be some who think that hearing the Gospel is a little thing. Life, death, and hell, and worlds unknown, may hang upon the preaching and hearing of a sermon. I. LET ME SPEAK OF SOME MATTERS IN WHICH MANY MEN TOO SOON PAUSE. There are some who, having great opportunities, — and we all have them more or less, — shoot only three times when they ought to shoot five or six times. 1. One of these matters is in the warfare with the evil within. Some, as soon as they begin their Christian life, fit an arrow to the string, and shoot down big sins, such as swearing., or drunkenness, or open uncleanness. When they have shot these three times, they seem to think that the other enemies within them may be tolerated. My brother, thou shouldest have shot five or six times. 2. There are some who shoot three times, and then leave off, with regard to Christian knowledge. They know the simple truth of justification by faith; but they do not want to know much about sanctification by the Spirit of God. Why not, my brother? Canst thou be saved unless thou art sanctified? Some are perfectly satisfied with laying again the first principles, always going over those; but they want to know no more. I beseech you, strive to be educated in the things of God. 3. Some, again, sin in this way with regard to Christian attainments. They have little faith, and they say, "Faith like a grain of mustard-seed will save you." That is true. But are you always to be a little one? A grain of mustard-seed is not worth anything if it does not grow; it is meant to grow till it comes to be a tree, and birds lodge in its boughs. Come, my dear friend, if thou hast little faith, do not rest till thou hast great faith, till thou hast full assurance, till thou hast the full assurance of understanding. 4. Others, again, seem satisfied with little usefulness. You brought a soul to Christ, did you? Oh, that you would long to bring another! Do you not remember what the general said, in the war, when one rode up to him, and cried out, "We have taken a gun from the enemy"? "Take another," said the general. If you have brought one soul to Christ, it should make you hunger and thirst to bring another. 5. And this spirit comes out very vividly in prayer. You do pray; else were you not the living children of God at all; but oh, for more power in prayer! You have asked for a blessing; why not ask for a far greater one? 6. The Church of God, as a whole, is guilty here, as to her plans for God's glory. She is doing much more now than she used to do; but even now, though she smites three times, we may say to her, "Thou shouldest have smitten five or six times." Oh, that the Church of Christ had a boundless ambition to conquer the world for her Lord! II. But now, secondly, let me speak of THE REASONS FOR THIS PAUSING, Why do men come to a dead hall so soon? 1. Some of them say that they are afraid of being presumptuous. You are afraid of being too holy, are you? Dismiss your fear. You are afraid of asking for too much grace; be afraid of having too little. You are afraid of conquering sin; tremble for fear of an unconquered sin. There is no presumption in taking the largest promise of God, and pleading it, and expecting to have it fulfilled. 2. Perhaps one says, "I have not the natural ability to be doing more, or enjoying more." What has natural ability to do with it? When all thy natural abilities are in the grave, and thou lookest only to the spiritual strength of God, then thou shalt see greater things than these. 3. Shall I tell you the real reasons why men pause in their work? With some, it is because they are too dependent upon their fellow-men. This King Joash could shoot when Elisha put his hand on his hand; probably Elisha only did that once, and then left him to himself, and said, "Now, you shoot." Then he only shot three times. There are many Christian people who are a great deal too dependent upon their ministers, or upon some elderly Christian person who has helped them onward. 4. Another reason why some pause is, that they are too soon contented. Joash thought that he had done very well when he had shot three times, and that Elisha would pat him on the back, and say, "How well you have done!" That kind of feeling creeps over many workers for the Lord. 5. Joash, too, I dare say, gave up shooting because he was unbelieving. He could not see how shooting the arrows could affect the Syrians; and he wanted to see. 6. I should not wonder, also, if Joash was too indolent to shoot five or six times. He did not feel in a shooting humour. Now, whenever you do not feel in a humour for prayer, then is the time when you ought to pray twice as much. 7. Joash also probably had too little zeal. He was not wide awake, he was not thoroughly aroused, he did not care for the glory of God. If he could beat the Syrians three times, that would be quite enough for him. III. But now, thirdly, notice THE LAMENTABLE RESULT OF THIS PAUSING. 1. When Joash had shot three times, he paused; and therefore the blessing paused. Three times he shot, and three times God gave him victory. Do you see what you are doing by pausing? You are stopping the conduit-pipe by which the river of blessing will flow to you. Do not do that; to impoverish yourself must certainly be a needless operation. 2. You will suffer in consequence, as this king did; for, after the three victories, the rival power came to the front

13:1-9 It was the ancient honour of Israel that they were a praying people. Jehoahaz, their king, in his distress, besought the Lord; applied himself for help, but not to the calves; what help could they give him? He sought the Lord. See how swift God is to show mercy; how ready to hear prayer; how willing to find a reason to be gracious; else he would not look so far back as the ancient covenant Israel had so often broken, and forfeited. Let this invite and engage us for ever to him; and encourage even those who have forsaken him, to return and repent; for there is forgiveness with him, that he may be feared. And if the Lord answer the mere cry of distress for temporal relief, much more will he regard the prayer of faith for spiritual blessings. 13:10-19 Jehoash, the king, came to Elisha, to receive his dying counsel and blessing. It may turn much to our spiritual advantage, to attend the sick-beds and death-beds of good men, that we may be encouraged in religion by the living comforts they have from it in a dying hour. Elisha assured the king of his success; yet he must look up to God for direction and strength; must reckon his own hands not enough, but go on, in dependence upon Divine aid. The trembling hands of the dying prophet, as they signified the power of God, gave this arrow more force than the hands of the king in his full strength. By contemning the sign, the king lost the thing signified, to the grief of the dying prophet. It is a trouble to good men, to see those to whom they wish well, forsake their own mercies, and to see them lose advantages against spiritual enemies. 13:20-25 God has many ways to chastise a provoking people. Trouble comes sometimes from that point whence we least feared it. The mention of this invasion on the death of Elisha, shows that the removal of God's faithful prophets is a presage of coming judgments. His dead body was a means of giving life to another dead body. This miracle was a confirmation of his prophecies. And it may have reference to Christ, by whose death and burial, the grave is made a safe and happy passage to life to all believers. Jehoash was successful against the Syrians, just as often as he had struck the ground with the arrows, then a stop was put to his victories. Many have repented, when too late, of distrusts and the straitness of their desires.