07.14. The Prophecy of Hazael
The Prophecy of Hazael.
We have here another instance of the intimacy of the prophet with the counsels of the Lord. What daily communications there must have been between them! — indeed, in the history of the Church of God, glorious revelations have been vouchsafed to those faithful ones who stood obedient, witnessing, and suffering remnants in evil times. Thus to Ezekiel and Daniel among the captives. What extended visions of divine purposes were opened to them! So when Zechariah, Haggai, and their companions, began, in honesty of heart and in spite of enemies, to work at the house of the Lord as His faithful remnant returned out of captivity, what thoughts and scenes of coming glory are made to pass before them! As still more marvellously afterwards, in like manner, before John in Patmos, where he was a companion in the kingdom and patience of Jesus. And Elijah and Elisha were of the same. They were, each of them, in his season, the godly remnant of their day, and had very preciously the eye, the ear, and the lips of the Lord opened to them. But from this passage in his history we find that Elisha had honour beyond the limits of Israel. We see him in Damascus, and his arrival is soon reported to the king, and honoured by him. The case of Naaman may have given him this introduction to the honour and confidence of the Syrian court, and is some evidence of the testimony which that healed leper, that converted sinner of the Gentiles, had borne to the name of the God of Israel, so that at least the Syrian king does not now again look to the king (see 2 Kings 5:5), but to the prophet of Israel. But there is another point of moral value to our souls that shows itself here. I mean in the character of Hazael; and I must notice it. Hazael had come to Elisha with an inquiry from the Syrian king his master, about the disease under which the king was then suffering. Elisha tells him to say to his master, "Thou mayest surely recover." But having given him this answer to the king’s inquiry, he adds another word, addressed merely to Hazael himself, "Howbeit the Lord hath showed me that he shall surely die." On hearing this, we read that Hazael "settled his countenance stedfastly until he was ashamed." This was hypocrisy. Under the eye of the prophet, before the truthful mind of the man of God, this show of his countenance witnessed against him. He feigned sorrow at this prophecy of Benhadad’s death. The prophet himself, during this little moment of Hazael’s practising grief, appears to have been following the course of divine inspiration through his own soul, and weeps at the prospect of all the evil which this Hazael would do to Israel when he got into power — for into such scenes the inspiration he was now under was leading him. But this sorrow was genuine, as Hazael’s was hypocritical. It was the unforced fruit of a heart made sorry at the divine vision which his eye was then resting on. But after a little more intercourse between them, which I will not notice, Hazael returns to Benhadad, and misstates to him the prophet’s answer to his inquiry. The prophet had said, "Thou mayest surely recover" — thereby intimating, that there was nothing in the disease itself which was fatal; and then he added, "the Lord hath showed me that he shall surely die," — thereby intimating that Benhadad was to perish by other means than the disease. Hazael, however, now tells the king that the prophet had said, "he should surely recover." Here was the mis-statement or the lie of this hypocrite. But the end strikingly shows the full unmixed truth of the prophet’s words, for the disease does not kill the king, but other means, — the hand of this murderous Hazael. And thus he might have recovered, but he surely dies, as the prophet had spoken. This enigmatic style of the answers or oracles of the Spirit are worthy of our admiration. There was something like it in our prophet’s word upon the unbelieving nobleman — "Behold thou shalt see it with thine eyes, but thou shalt not eat thereof." For however strange this might sound in the ear, to the letter it was made good. "So it fell out to him, for the people trod upon him in the gate, and he died" — i.e. in the very act of bringing their barley and their flour under his own eye, the crowd crushed him to death (see 2 Kings 7:1-20) So here — the words "mayest recover" and "surely die," are made true by the event, though they sound strange to the ear. The case, however, of Zedekiah, the last king of Judah, is still more remarkable. Jeremiah had said of him, that his eyes should behold the eyes of the king of Babylon, and that he should go to Babylon. (Jeremiah 34:3). Ezekiel had said, that he should go to Babylon, but should not see it, though he should die there. (Ezekiel 12:13). Almost on the verge of impossibility all this seemed to be. But to the utmost jot and tittle all this was accomplished. They were the words of the lips of Him whose hand is wonderful and mighty, and sovereign in its operations. (See Jeremiah 39:1-18).
This, however, only as we pass. In the history of this scripture, on which we have now been meditating, we have indeed an awful picture of human selfishness and hypocrisy. And it is admonitory to us all. A look may be deep hypocrisy, as a word may be. And our watching and prayer should be, that the searching Spirit may find truth in the inward parts, and truth about us everywhere, in every look, in every word, and motion.