Context & Key Themes
2 Kings 8 is a chapter of returns and dark foreshadowings. The Shunammite woman returns from the land of the Philistines where she went during the seven-year famine Elisha predicted, and her land is restored to her at the exact moment Gehazi is telling the king about Elisha raising her son to life. Then Elisha goes to Damascus, where the Syrian king Ben-hadad is sick and sends Hazael to inquire whether he will recover. Elisha looks at Hazael and weeps, because he sees what Hazael will do to Israel. He tells Hazael the king will recover from the disease — but that Hazael will be king. Hazael goes back, smothers Ben-hadad with a wet cloth, and becomes king. The chapter closes with two southern kings whose brief reigns reveal how deeply the influence of Ahab and Jezebel has reached even into Judah.
Key Verse
“Elisha wept. And Hazael said, ‘Why does my lord weep?’ He answered, ‘Because I know the evil that you will do to the people of Israel.'”
— 2 Kings 8:11–12
Summary
Elisha had told the Shunammite woman to sojourn wherever she could during the coming seven-year famine. She goes to the land of the Philistines. At the end of seven years she returns and goes to appeal to the king for her house and land. At that exact moment Gehazi is telling the king all the great things Elisha has done. He says: this is the woman and this is her son whom Elisha restored to life. The king assigns an officer to restore everything that was hers, and all the produce of the field since the day she left until now. Elisha goes to Damascus. Ben-hadad king of Syria is sick. He hears Elisha has come and sends Hazael with a present and a question: shall I recover from this sickness? Elisha says: go, say you will certainly recover, but the Lord has shown me that he shall certainly die. He fixes his face on Hazael until Hazael is ashamed, then weeps. He tells Hazael he weeps because he knows the evil Hazael will do to Israel: set fire to their fortresses, kill their young men with the sword, dash their little ones in pieces, rip open pregnant women. Hazael says: what is your servant, who is but a dog, that he should do this great thing? Elisha says: the Lord has shown me that you will be king over Syria. Hazael goes back, tells Ben-hadad that Elisha said he will recover. The next day he takes the bed covering, dips it in water, and holds it over the king’s face until he dies. Hazael becomes king.
Jehoram son of Jehoshaphat becomes king of Judah. He walks in the way of the kings of Israel, as the house of Ahab did, for Ahab’s daughter was his wife. He does evil in the Lord’s sight, but for the sake of David the Lord would not destroy Judah. Ahaziah his son succeeds him and walks in the same way, for his mother was Athaliah granddaughter of Omri.
Reflection
Elisha weeping before Hazael is one of the most honest prophetic moments in scripture. He does not rejoice that the word of the Lord will be fulfilled. He weeps at what the fulfillment will cost. He can see the war crimes before they happen, the children dashed to pieces, the women ripped open, the fortresses burning, and he sits with that knowledge across a table from the man who will do it, unable to stop it because it is the judgment God has appointed. The prophet who receives the word does not always like what he receives. Elisha’s tears are not weakness. They are the grief of a man who loves the people the word is going to fall on.
Hazael’s astonished question — what is your servant, who is but a dog, that he should do this great thing? — carries a dark irony. He does not believe himself capable of such atrocities. And then he goes home and kills his own king with a wet cloth. The path from cannot imagine it to having already done it can be very short when power and ambition are the actual drivers and the moral imagination is the only thing standing between present identity and future action. Elisha knows what Hazael does not yet know about himself.