Scripture Daily

Context No. 540 of 4322 · 2 Kings

Context · Reflection

2 Kings 13:10-14: in context

10In the thirty-seventh year of Joash king of Judah, Jehoash the son of Jehoahaz began to reign over Israel in Samaria for sixteen years. 11He did that which was evil in the LORD’s sight. He didn’t depart from all the sins of Jeroboam the son of Nebat, with which he made Israel to sin; but he walked in them. 12Now the rest of the acts of Joash, and all that he did, and his might with which he fought against Amaziah king of Judah, aren’t they written in the book of the chronicles of the kings of Israel? 13Joash slept with his fathers; and Jeroboam sat on his throne. Joash was buried in Samaria with the kings of Israel. 14Now Elisha became sick with the illness of which he died; and Joash the king of Israel came down to him, and wept over him, and said, “My father, my father, the chariots of Israel and its horsemen!”

Jehoash was a bad king of Israel, one more in the long line who did evil and clung to the idolatry that had corrupted the northern kingdom from its founding. The summary of his reign is grim. But then the passage does something unexpected: it shows this evil king at the deathbed of the prophet Elisha, and he is weeping. Elisha has fallen ill with the sickness he will die of, and King Jehoash comes down to him, weeps over his face, and cries out, my father, my father, the chariots of Israel and its horsemen! Those are striking words in the mouth of an idolatrous king, and they are borrowed words; they are exactly what Elisha himself had cried when Elijah was taken from him.

Consider what Jehoash is confessing in that moment. Chariots and horsemen were the military strength of a nation, the visible force that won its wars and secured its borders. And this king, weeping over a dying old prophet, calls Elisha the chariots and horsemen of Israel. He is admitting, perhaps despite himself, that the real strength and defense of his nation was never its army but this one man of God, and that losing him was a greater blow to Israel's security than losing a fleet of war chariots. Even a faithless king could see, as the prophet lay dying, where the true protection of his people had actually come from all along.

That presses a question about where I locate my real strength. Like Jehoash, I am tempted to trust the visible chariots and horsemen, the money, the influence, the practical means, and to undervalue the quiet, unspectacular presence of the godly, the praying, the faithful people in my life and the nearness of God himself. And like Jehoash, I am liable to realize their worth only as they are being taken from me, weeping over what I failed to treasure while I had it. What are the true chariots of Israel in my life, the real sources of strength I have been undervaluing, and will I recognize them before they are slipping away?

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