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Context No. 822 of 4322 · 2 Kings

Context · Reflection

2 Kings 6:12-18: in context

12One of his servants said, “No, my lord, O king; but Elisha, the prophet who is in Israel, tells the king of Israel the words that you speak in your bedroom.” 13He said, “Go and see where he is, that I may send and get him.” He was told, “Behold, he is in Dothan.” 14Therefore he sent horses, chariots, and a great army there. They came by night and surrounded the city. 15When the servant of the man of God had risen early and gone out, behold, an army with horses and chariots was around the city. His servant said to him, “Alas, my master! What shall we do?” 16He answered, “Don’t be afraid, for those who are with us are more than those who are with them.” 17Elisha prayed, and said, “LORD, please open his eyes, that he may see.” the LORD opened the young man’s eyes, and he saw; and behold, the mountain was full of horses and chariots of fire around Elisha. 18When they came down to him, Elisha prayed to the LORD, and said, “Please strike this people with blindness.” He struck them with blindness according to Elisha’s word.

The king of Syria is furious that Elisha keeps giving away his battle plans, so he sends an army by night to surround the town of Dothan and seize the one prophet. When Elisha's servant gets up in the morning and steps outside, he sees it: horses and chariots and a whole army ringing the city, there for them. He does what any of us would do. He panics. Alas, my master, he cries, what are we going to do? The odds are plain, and they are hopeless, and he can count.

Elisha is not afraid, and his answer sounds absurd until you understand what he can see. Do not be afraid, he says, for those who are with us are more than those who are with them. Then he prays, and notice what he asks for. Not that the enemy be destroyed, not that the situation change, but this: LORD, please open his eyes, that he may see. And God opens the servant's eyes, and the young man looks again at the same hillside and now sees what was there the whole time, the mountain full of horses and chariots of fire, all around Elisha. Nothing about the danger had changed. What changed was that the servant could finally see the far greater reality that had been surrounding him all along, invisible behind the visible threat. His problem had never been the size of the enemy army. It had been the smallness of what his eyes could take in.

The servant saw only the surrounding army and panicked, blind to the fiery host already there. What threat am I counting and re-counting, while unable to see the greater reality God has around me, and could my truest prayer be, open my eyes?

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