Imagine a world leader asking his enemy’s religious leader to help him out? Say, Putin requesting spiritual support for his serious medical condition - from a proud Ukrainian nationalist priest?
That’s the perplexing paradox at the heart of this chapter, in which Elisha the Prophet of Israel is summoned to Damascus, the capital of the Syrian-Aramean nation to offer solace to the ill king, Ben Hadad. The king sends Hazael, his senior minister, with forty (!) camels worth of gifts to plead the prophet’s vision - will the king live or not? This is the same king in whose name so many wars have been waged on Israel including the most recent siege on Samaria, mid seven year famine. But Elisha obliges and meets Hazael for one of the more dramatic diplomatic scenes in this already dramatic book of emotional encounters.
Elisha delivers a paradoxical message - the king will - or will not die. And then, this happens:
What are Elisha’s tears about? The Aramean leader also wants to know. And Elisha reveals that in his vision he has seen the future - how this man he’s talking to will replace the current king - and then go on to slaughter Israel.
Hazael goes back to Damascus, tells the king that the prophet said he has more time to live - and then he takes a cloth and covers the king’s face, and kills him, and claims the crown. And goes on to fight with Israel.
So what’s this story all about?
We have to go back a few chapters to decipher the thread. In II Kings: In a Whirlwind Alex Israel helps us untangle:
“This dramatic scene closes the sequence of Elisha stories. Up to this point in time Elisha has functioned exclusively within Israel, engaging with various groups: the common folk , the prophetic circles, and royalty. But now Elisha steps into foreign territory. Why does Elisha visit Damascus, a foreign capital? Elisha’s dialogue with Hazael, Ben-Hadad’s attendant, is intriguing. In the first instance Elisha says to Hazael: “Go, say to him, ‘You will surely recover,’ but the Lord has shown me that he will certainly die” (8:10). And the second time: “The Lord has shown me a vision of you as king of Aram” (8:13).
Elisha was essentially laying out a murder plot to Hazael. By having Hazael issue the deceitful reassurance to the king, Ben-Hadad would be misled into a false sense of security and would be off guard when Hazael came to kill him.
Why is Elisha getting involved in an Aramean royal coup? To appreciate this, we must return to I Kings 19.
There at Mount Horeb, God had issued a series of instructions to the prophet Elijah: And YHWH said to him, “Go, return on your way to the desert of Damascus, and you shall come and anoint Hazael as king over Aram. And you shall anoint Jehu son of Nimshi as king over Israel, and you shall anoint Elisha son of Shaphat, from Abel Meholah, to be prophet in your stead.” (I Kings 19:15–16)
Elijah was to perform three acts of anointing: Hazael as king of Aram, Jehu as king over the Israelite (northern) kingdom, Elisha as prophet in his stead.
What is the background to this series of leadership appointments?
Prior to that scene, Elijah had protested to God about the terrible idolatrous regime of the house of Omri, led by King Ahab and his wife, Jezebel. God responds to Elijah’s outrage with these three acts of appointment, a threesome of leadership figures who become a three-pronged, synchronized plan to violently punish the northern kingdom and end the Omride hegemony: Those who escape the sword of Hazael, Jehu will kill, and those who escape the sword of Jehu, Elisha will kill.” (I Kings 19:17)
Hazael is the force of punishment from the outside; his kingdom will deliver a crushing blow to Israel.
Jehu is the force of destruction that emerges from within Israel.
Jehu is an officer in Ahab’s army. As depicted in the upcoming chapters, he betrays and assassinates the king, the son of Ahab, and executes the evil Jezebel.
The daunting mission spelled out to Elijah on Mount Horeb is the decimation of the house of Omri and the punishment of Israel, as enacted by Hazael and Jehu.
But what then is the role of Elisha? He is also singled out by God as the third of the figures whose sword will bring an end to the house of Omri.
We have followed him for some time now. He generally seems to be a non vindictive figure, offering assistance of one sort or another to individuals, groups, or the nation.
Can we envisage Elisha as a partner to the malicious figures of Hazael and Jehu? Let us return to the scene in which Elisha talks to Hazael. Elisha glimpses an image in which Hazael will ravage Israel: “You will set their strongholds on fire, and you will kill their young men with the sword, and you will dash their little ones in pieces, and you will cut open their pregnant women” (II Kings 8:12).
At this thought, Elisha becomes emotional and cries, experiencing prophecy in real time. The visions he beholds are so dreadfully horrifying that he is overwhelmed by emotion and cannot contain his tears.
Elisha leads Israel through a period that exceeds sixty years. This is an era characterized more than anything else by Aramean intimidation, invasion, and suppression. Elisha’s incumbency is uncannily aligned with this period of Aramean agitation and control, and it would seem that his mission serves as a willful response to it.
He is the prophet whose role is to guide Israel through a dark period of defeat, invasion, siege, and famine, navigating arduous times. “
So now we get what’s going on. Elisha is following the orders of Elijah, as commanded by YHWH, to end the dynasty of the House of Omri in Israel - on religious grounds - even by using foreign forces, no matter the price. No wonder he’s weeping.
Whoever wrote this story, centuries later, with a clear agenda in mind, is depicting the righteousness of Elisha, the wickedness of the House of Omri, and the weird ways with which reality keeps surprising itself.
This chapter ends with one more plot twist that will lead us to the bloody horrors coming up:
In Jerusalem, King Yehoram is married to Ataliya, the Princess of Israel, daughter of Ahab and Jezebel. This unique union between North and South is forged in family relations and faith in shared allegiance, and its symbol is the royal heir - Ahazia, who at age 22 becomes king when Yehoram dies.
Atalia, like her mother Jezebel in the north, is a powerful queen mother.
King Ahazia of Judah travels north to join his uncle, King Yehoram of Israel, in a battle against Hazael of Aram, and during the battle the King of Israel is wounded. When the King of Judah goes to visit his wounded uncle, everything goes wrong. Or maybe according to Elisha’s visions - it all goes right? Anyway, it’s awful. Coming tomorrow to a stolen piece of real estate with its own story to tell.
In this week which includes weeping for so many fallen soldiers and civilians, on both sides of the ongoing conflict between Israel and its neighbors, one prophet’s tears are worth remembering, so we can prevent future ones as well.
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