Scripture Daily

Context No. 408 of 4322 · 2 Kings

Context · Reflection

2 Kings 13:15-19: in context

15Elisha said to him, “Take bow and arrows;” and he took bow and arrows for himself. 16He said to the king of Israel, “Put your hand on the bow;” and he put his hand on it. Elisha laid his hands on the king’s hands. 17He said, “Open the window eastward;” and he opened it. Then Elisha said, “Shoot!” and he shot. He said, “The LORD’s arrow of victory, even the arrow of victory over Syria; for you will strike the Syrians in Aphek until you have consumed them.” 18He said, “Take the arrows;” and he took them. He said to the king of Israel, “Strike the ground;” and he struck three times, and stopped. 19The man of God was angry with him, and said, “You should have struck five or six times. Then you would have struck Syria until you had consumed it, but now you will strike Syria just three times.”

This is one of the last scenes of Elisha's life. The prophet is dying, and Joash, the king of Israel, comes to him in tears, because Israel is being ground down by the armies of Syria. Elisha, even from his deathbed, has one more prophetic act in him. Take a bow and arrows, he tells the king, and as the king holds the bow, Elisha lays his own hands over the king's hands and has him shoot an arrow out the east window. That, Elisha declares, is the LORD's arrow of victory over Syria.

Then comes the part that turns. Elisha tells the king to take the remaining arrows and strike the ground with them. The king strikes the ground three times, and stops. And Elisha becomes angry with him. You should have struck five or six times, the prophet says; then you would have struck Syria until you destroyed it completely. But now you will defeat Syria only three times. The king's victory was measured out to the boldness of his response. The offer was as large as his persistence; God was ready to give total victory, and the king, tentative and half-hearted with the arrows, struck a few times and quit, and so he received a few partial victories instead of a complete one. It was not that God was stingy. It was that the king stopped short of what was on the table.

There is a searching lesson in the arrows, and it is not a crude one about claiming more simply by wanting more. It is about the difference between a wholehearted response to God's opportunity and a tepid, tentative one that stops short. Where in my life have I struck the ground three times and stopped, responding to something God opened up in front of me half-heartedly, settling for a partial version because I was cautious or lukewarm or quick to quit, when a bolder, more persistent response might have received far more of what he was ready to give?

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