When Elisha was in his last illness, King Jehoash of Israel visited him and wept over him. “My father! My father! I see the chariots and charioteers of Israel!” he cried.
Elisha told him, “Get a bow and some arrows.” And the king did as he was told. Elisha told him, “Put your hand on the bow,” and Elisha laid his own hands on the king’s hands.
Then he commanded, “Open that eastern window,” and he opened it. Then he said, “Shoot!” So he shot an arrow. Elisha proclaimed, “This is the lord’s arrow, an arrow of victory over Aram, for you will completely conquer the Arameans at Aphek.”
Then he said, “Now pick up the other arrows and strike them against the ground.” So the king picked them up and struck the ground three times. But the man of God was angry with him. “You should have struck the ground five or six times!” he exclaimed. “Then you would have beaten Aram until it was entirely destroyed. Now you will be victorious only three times.”
2 Kings 13:14-19
When I read through this earlier today, I was struck with a frustration that I've often felt when reading scripture from the bible, especially Old Testament scripture. The frustration I felt came from reading that Elisha ("the man of God" in v.19) was angry with King Jehoash. It frustrated me because in my head, as I'm reading this scripture, I'm thinking, "How in the heck was Jehoash supposed to know that he was supposed to keep striking the ground? It's not like Elisha gave him an preparatory instructions. It's not like Elisha came at all close to giving Jehoash even a hint that his number of victories (and therefore, health, well-being and overall safety) would be determined by how many times he struck the ground. Why should Jehoash be punished for not knowing any better? It doesn't make sense to hold Jehoash accountable for something he wasn't aware of." That was the thought going through my head as I read it. That same initial thought has gone through my head before when I've read scripture where someone seems to be getting punished for not having the right information available to them.
However, after meditating on that thought and not just walking away from it, though it somewhat offended me, another thought surfaced. That thought was, "Perhaps Jehoash could have known better, but lived life in such a way that it kept him from being able to know better, which in return kept him from being able to provide safety and well-being to himself, and his nation.
Earlier in 2 Kings Chapter 13:10-11, it is said that Jehoash "...reigned in Samaria for sixteen years. But he did what was evil in the Lord's sight." There is no detail recorded about exactly what that could mean. But none is necessarily needed. What is being suggested is that for at least sixteen years of Jehoash's life, Jehoash chose to live in a way that kept him from being able to know God personally. Jehoash chose to follow other God's and worldviews that were distinctly different, and at odds, with the God of Elisha. Jehoash's lifestyle prevented him from being able to have a closeness with God that might have put inside of Jehoash a spiritual intuition of sorts, an intuition that may have been able to give him a clue that three strikes was not what God was hoping for.
A relationship with God is personal. And just like the relationship I have with my wife, if I'm living closely with her, if I'm attuned to who she is and what she desires, I don't always need her to give me explicit, detailed instructions to be able to act (though my density often requires so). Sometimes I just know what she wants, because I know who she is and what the desires of her heart are.
What this scripture makes me wonder is this: If Jehoash had NOT been living his life in ways that kept him from being able to know God personally, if Jehoash had instead been seeking to align his heart and desires with God's heart and desires, might have Jehoash then been able to intuitively know that God wanted him to strike the ground as many times as he wanted? If Jehoash had not have been living separated from God, and instead had been living as close to God as he possibly could, would Jehoash have been able to secure countless victories for himself and his people?
That was the thought that disarmed my offense, and where the teaching turned my original thought into this one: If I want to be able to act in the right way when things are on the line, I must be seeking to know God's heart and God's desires, or else when things matter most, I very well might fail to act in the most beneficial way possible.
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