Moab and Miracles

2 Kings 3-4

            There’s not much of a unifying theme to today’s reading. In chapter 3, three kings (Israel, Judah, and Edom) make war against rebellious Moab. The Lord blesses the endeavor, first by miraculously providing water in the desert and second by giving the three kings victory. The victory is resounding and the three kings achieve everything Elisha has told them: they slaughter the Moabites, overthrew the towns, cut down the trees, stop up the springs, and ruin the fields. They make Moab a wasteland. Yet, the last verse of the story is a mystery. The king of Moab sacrifices his son and we read, “The fury against Israel was great; they withdrew to their own land.” My study Bible suggests that it was the Lord’s wrath that burned against Israel, but this is one of those rare cases in which God’s people seem to have done exactly what the Lord commanded. And even Joram of Israel is said to have done modestly better on the faithfulness-to-the-Lord scale than his ancestors had. No, it seems to me that the king of Moab’s sacrifice somehow galvanized the will of his own people so that they resisted all the harder, causing the three kings to withdraw. If there is any criticism of the three kings here, it seems to me that it is implicit in the fact that once again an Israelite king didn’t push through to completing the Lord’s task.

            Chapter 4 relates a series of miracles the Elisha performs: a seemingly unending supply of oil for a widow’s debt; a new son and that son’s resuscitation for another woman; making poisoned stew edible, and a miraculous feeding. The first thing I noticed was the overlap with the echoes of Elijah. Elijah had given the widow of Zarephath an unending supply of oil and flower, and he had restored that widow’s son to life. Now here comes Elisha, for whom the miracles of Elijah are nothing, easily repeatable. It seems like we are supposed to think that Elijah may be the more famous prophet but Elisha is the greater prophet. This plays into the second thing I notice: the parallel with Jesus. If John the Baptizer is recognized as a ‘new Elijah’ (Matthew 11:4), then Jesus is the new Elisha. John is forerunner; Jesus is the real deal. I notice, too, how many of Elisha’s miracles are repeated by Jesus, especially the resuscitation of a widow’s son ((Luke 7) and a miraculous feeding (Matthew 14). No matter how famous Elisha becomes, he will not be able to solve the problem of Israel’s rebellious descent into idolatry. But Jesus! He will pay the price of not just that rebellion, but all human sin, and he will establish a kingdom that lasts forever!