2 Kings 3

1. Now Jehoram the son of Ahab began to reign over Israel in Samaria in the eighteenth 2 year of Jehoshaphat king of Judah, and reigned twelve years. And he did that which was evil in the sight of the LORD; but not like his father, and like his mother; for he put away 3 the pillar of Baal that his father had made. Nevertheless he cleaved unto the sins of Jeroboam the son of Nebat, wherewith he made Israel to sin; he departed not therefrom. 4 Now Mesha king of Moab was a sheepmaster; and he rendered unto the king of 5 Israel the wool of an hundred thousand lambs, and of an hundred thousand rams. But it came to pass, when Ahab was dead, that the king of Moab rebelled against the king of Israel. 6, 7 And king Jehoram went out of Samaria at that time, and mustered all Israel. And he went and sent to Jehoshaphat the king of Judah, saying, The king of Moab hath rebelled against me: wilt thou go with me against Moab to battle? And he said, I will go up: 8 I am as thou art, my people as thy people, my horses as thy horses. And he said, Which 9 way shall we go up? And he answered, The way of the wilderness of Edom. So the king of Israel went, and the king of Judah, and the king of Edom: and they made a circuit of seven days’ journey: and there was no water for the host, nor for the beasts that followed 10 them. And the king of Israel said, Alas! for the LORD hath called these three kings to- 11 gether to deliver them into the hand of Moab. But Jehoshaphat said, Is there not here a prophet of the LORD, that we may inquire of the LORD by him? And one of the king of Israel’s servants answered and said, Elisha the son of Shaphat is here, which poured water

12 on the hands of Elijah. And Jehoshaphat said, The word of the LORD is with him. So the 13 king of Israel and Jehoshaphat and the king of Edom went down to him. And Elisha said unto the king of Israel, What have I to do with thee? get thee to the prophets of thy father, and to the prophets of thy mother. And the king of Israel said unto him, Nay: for the 14 LORD hath called these three kings together to deliver them into the hand of Moab. And Elisha said, As the LORD of hosts liveth, before whom I stand, surely, were it not that I regard the presence of Jehoshaphat the king of Judah, I would not look toward thee, nor 15 see thee. But now bring me a minstrel. And it came to pass, when the minstrel played, 16 that the hand of the LORD came upon him. And he said, Thus saith the LORD, Make this 17 valley full of trenches. For thus saith the LORD, Ye shall not see wind, neither shall ye see rain, yet that valley shall be filled with water: and ye shall drink, both ye and your cattle 18 and your beasts. And this is but a light thing in the sight of the LORD: he will also de- 19 liver the Moabites into your hand. And ye shall smite every fenced city, and every choice city, and shall fell every good tree, and stop all fountains of water, and mar every good 20 piece of land with stones. And it came to pass in the morning, about the time of offering the oblation, that, behold, there came water by the way of Edom, and the country was filled 21 with water. Now when all the Moabites heard that the kings were come up to fight against them, they gathered themselves together, all that were able to put on armour, and up- 22 ward, and stood on the border. And they rose up early in the morning, and the sun shone upon the water, and the Moabites saw the water over against them as red as blood: and they 23 said, This is blood; the kings are surely destroyed, and they have smitten each man his 24 fellow: now therefore, Moab, to the spoil. And when they came to the camp of Israel, the Israelites rose up and smote the Moabites, so that they fled before them: and they went for- 25 ward into the land smiting the Moabites. And they beat down the cities; and on every good piece of land they cast every man his stone, and filled it; and they stopped all the fountains of water, and felled all the good trees: until in Kir-hareseth only they left the stones thereof; 26 howbeit the slingers went about it, and smote it. And when the king of Moab saw that the battle was too sore for him, he took with him seven hundred men that drew sword, to break 27 through unto the king of Edom; but they could not. Then he took his eldest son that should have reigned in his stead, and offered him for a burnt offering upon the wall. And there was great wrath against Israel: and they departed from him, and returned to their own land.

1-3. Jehoram (abbreviated Joram), the ninth king of Israel, was the son of Ahab and Jezebel, and the successor of his brother Ahaziah. His accession is marked by a twofold date—in the eighteenth year of Jehoshaphat, king of Judah, and the second year of Jehoram, the son of Jehoshaphat—that is, the second year of Jehoram’s association with his father, Jehoshaphat, in the kingdom. Jehoram of Israel reigned twelve years at Samaria. He maintained a close alliance with Judah, and it was perhaps by the influence of Jehoshaphat that he was a shade better than his father and his brother. P. S.—Jehoram was only half-hearted in his religious changes. He must have personally disapproved of the sensuous Phoenician religion; but he either shrank from carrying out his views to the full for fear of popular disturbances, or he was so far under the influence of the Queen-mother, Jezebel, that he submitted to a compromise, and while publicly condemning the Baal worship, privately connived at its continuance. Elisha’s angry words (in verse 13), “Get thee to the prophets of thy father and to the prophets of thy mother,” sufficiently indicate his dissatisfaction with the king’s half measures; and the history of Jehu’s reformation (2 K. 10: 21-28) shows that the Baal temple, image, and worship all continued to the end of Jehoram’s reign, and were not removed until the reign of his successor.

4-27. From religious reforms Jehoram turned his attention to matters political. The revolt of Moab in the reign of his predecessor, and the complete recovery by the Moabites of their independence through a series of successes unchecked by a reverse, constituted a new source of danger to the State, which could not afford the lowering of its prestige consequent upon the brilliant campaign conducted by Mesha. An effort was necessary, if not to recover Moab, at any rate to repair the loss of honor involved in the successful rebellion; and Jehoram, seemingly in his first year, conceived the design of forming a powerful confederation against the triumphant rebels, which should at the least severely chastise them for their audacity. In the first instance he applied to

Jehoshaphat, king of Judah, who had shown himself well disposed both toward Ahab (1 K. 22 : 4, 29) and toward Ahaziah (ibid., verses 44-49), and solicited his aid, which was willingly granted (verse 7); after which negotiations were entered into with the king of Edom, a semi-independent monarch, and he also was induced to join the league. Edom was at this time growing in power, and probably entertained a covert jealousy of Moab, which was its near neighbor and might be a formidable enemy. The king therefore accepted the third position in the confederacy, and even gave the armies of Israel and Judah passage through his territory, that so they might have the better chance of taking the Moabites by surprise. After traversing the waterless tract west and south of the Dead Sea, the frontier of Moab was approached at a point where a deep torrent bed separated between Moab and Edom. Here it seems to have been supposed that water would be found; but the bed of the stream proved wholly dry, and Jehoram gave way to despair. He was, however, persuaded by Jehoshaphat to make an appeal for aid to the prophet, Elisha, who had accompanied the host; and Elisha, after some contemptuous expressions and a half refusal, was induced to exert his supernatural powers in order to save the army. The host, refreshed in the night by a rush of water down the gully caused by some heavy rain at a distance, was set upon in the morning by the Moabites, who, seeing the ruddy sunrise reflected the pools which the flood had left, imagined that the red liquid was blood, and that the allies had fallen out and fought each other. Their error was fatal to them. Rushing, half armed probably, and in a disorderly crowd, against the Israelite camp, they were met by an enemy who was expecting their onset, repulsed, and routed. A hurried flight followed, and a hot pursuit; great numbers of the Moabites were slain; even the cities afforded little protection, and the land was devastated and ruined. At last the king of Moab stood at bay in Kir-Haraseh, the strongest of his fortresses. Then occurred that horrible scene, the king openly offering his son as a burnt offering upon the wall. Shocked and dismayed at the sight, the besiegers broke up their camp, and returned to their respective countries. Ewald remarks that “had there been a Joab or a David then alive in Israel, such an issue of the campaign would not have been tolerated; but already a worm of inward weakness had begun to gnaw at the national heart and at its confidence in Jehovah. From that day, however, Moab remained independent; and long ages after, every time that other causes had enfeebled the kingdom of the Ten Tribes, the roving bands from Moab marched across the Jordan on plundering excursions.” G. R.

The enormous annual tribute of one hundred thousand fleece of rams, and as many of lambs, led, after the death of Ahab, to a vigorous revolt, in which Ammon rallied to the support of Moab. This tribute in kind is referred to by Isaiah (Isa. 16 : 1): “Send ye the lamb to the ruler of the land from Sela to the wilderness.” A campaign, or rather two campaigns, quickly followed, of which, or of parts of which, we have three distinct records. 2 Kings, chap. 3, recounts the invasion of Moab by the combined armies of Israel, Judah, and Edom. 2 Chronicles, chap. 20, records an invasion of Judah by Moab and her allies, Ammon and Edom. Twenty years ago the discovery of the famous monolith of King Mesha, at Dibon, known as “the Moabite Stone,” a unique relic of antiquity, nearly three thousand years old, and not only the sole Moabite inscription, but the earliest existing document in the Hebrew language, older by a hundred and fifty years than any other epigraphic record containing the same species of writing, gave us the story of Moab’s struggle with Israel from the side of the former. The Moabite Stone pictures to us the desperate defence of Mesha in his capital, Kir (now Kerak), which the invaders had overrun and destroyed his whole country. But, as we read in verse 27, they retired; and then Mesha, evidently a monarch of great sagacity and vigor, set to work to restore his fortresses, and, pushing beyond the Arnon, wrested again from the unstable grasp of Reuben many of the towns which, originally Moabite, had been seized by Sihon, to be soon conquered by Moses. Henceforward, till the Assyrian invader impartially ravaged both alike, Moab was the aggressor in a border warfare, kept in check only by the growing power of Syria. In the warnings of the prophets we see how bitter was the feud between the children of Lot and of Abraham. But the end soon came; and from the date of the Captivity the kingdom of Mesha disappears from history, and Moab itself has remained but a geographical expression. Tristram.

The points established by the Moabite inscription are: 1. That Moab recovered from the blow dealt by David (2 Sam. 8 : 2, 12), and became again an independent state in the interval between David’s conquest and the accession of Omri. 2. That Omri reconquered the country, and that it then became subject to the northern kingdom, and remained so throughout his reign and that of his son Ahab, and into the reign of Ahab’s son and successor, Ahaziah. 3. That the independence was regained by means of a war, in which Mesha took town after town from the Israelites, including in his conquests many of the towns which, at the original occupation of the Holy Land, had passed into the possession of the Reubenites or the Gadites, as Baal-Meon (Num. 32: 38), Kirjathaim (ibid. 37), Ataroth (ibid. 34), Nebo (ibid. 38), Jahaz (Josh. 13: 18), etc. 4. That the name of Jehovah was well known to the Moabites as that of the God of the Israelites. 5. That there was a sanctuary of Jehovah at Nebo, in the trans-Jordanic territory.

8. The way through the wilderness of Edom.** That is, round the southern extremity of the Dead Sea, and across the Arabah, or continuation of the Jordan and Dead Sea valley. This route led to the Edomite country which extended along the eastern side of the Arabah and bordered on Moab toward the south, where its desert (midbar) was divided from that of Moab by the Wady-Kurahy or El Ahsy. One object of taking this route was most likely to effect a junction with the forces of Edom, which had resumed its dependence on Judah, though the year before it had been in alliance with Moab. (See 2 Chron. 20: 22.) Another may have been, to come upon the Moabites unprepared. This line of march was followed on more than one occasion by the Crusaders, who maintained fortresses in the Moabite country. B. C.

10. God had not “called the three kings together;” they had come together of their own accord, guided by their own views of earthly policy. Yet God was not about to “deliver them into the hands of Moab,” as in strict justice He might have done. He was about to deliver the three kings from their peril.

11. The Israelite monarch despairs at once; the Jewish monarch retains faith and hope. Undoubtedly he ought to have had inquiry made of the Lord before he consented to accompany Jehoram on the expedition. But one neglect of duty does not justify persistence in neglect. This he sees, and therefore suggests that even now, at the eleventh hour, the right course shall be taken. Apparently Jehoram was not aware of Elisha’s presence with the army. He had to be enlightened by one of his attendants, who happened to be acquainted with the fact.

We may suppose that Elisha had joined the army “at the instigation of the Spirit of God” (Keil), God having resolved to rescue the Israelites from their peril by His instrumentality, and at the same time to show forth His glory before the people of Moab.

12. Prophets were commonly summoned into the king’s presence, or, if they had a message to him, contrived a meeting in some place where they knew he would be. That the kings should seek Elisha out and visit him was a great sign both of the honor in which he was held, and also of the extent to which they were humbled by the danger which threatened them. Hammond.

13. And Elisha said unto the king of Israel.** Jehoram’s present humility does not save him from rebuke. He is of the accursed stock, and lies himself under a special curse; since all the evil threatened against Ahab was to come to pass in “his son’s days” (1 K. 21: 29). Moreover, his reformation (see verse 2) had been but a half reformation—a compromise with idolatry. Not only had the calf worship been retained, but the Baal worship itself, though disestablished, had been allowed to continue and was in favor with the queen-mother, and probably with a portion of the court. B. C.

15. The power of music in particular—the concord of sweet sounds—to soothe the brain, to calm the nerves and elevate the soul, is well known. The noblest passages in “Paradise Lost” were composed as Milton’s daughter played to her father on the organ. We all remember how David’s harp chased away the evil spirit from Saul. The father of medicine himself, Esculapius, appears in ancient history as healing diseases with songs. The philosopher Pythagoras quieted the troubles of his mind with the lyre. T. H. Howat.—As David’s harping refreshed Saul and tranquilized his spirit, so the playing of any skilled minstrel had a soothing effect on those possessing the prophetic gift generally, and enabled them to shut out the outer world, and concentrate their whole attention on the inward voice which communicated to them the Divine messages.

17. Wind and rain usually go together in the East, especially when there is sudden heavy rain after a time of drought. What Elisha promises is a heavy storm of wind accompanied by violent rain, which, however, will be at such a distance that the Israelites will see nothing of it, but whereof they will experience the effects when the torrent-course that separates them from the Moabite country suddenly becomes a rushing stream as the rain flows off down it. Their “pits,” or trenches, will retain a portion of the water, and furnish them with a sufficient supply for their wants. It was necessary that the storm should be distant, that the Moabites might know nothing of it, and so fall under the delusion (verse 23) which led to their complete defeat.

20. Behold, there came water by the way of Edom.** The Wady-el-Ahsy drains a portion of Southern Moab, and also a considerable tract of Northern Edom. The nocturnal storm had burst, not in the Moabite country, where it would have attracted the attention of the Moabites, but in some comparatively distant part of the Idumæan territory, so that the Moabites were not aware of it. Hammond.

20-24. We have here the Divine gift of both those things which God had promised by Elisha—water and victory; and the former not only a pledge of the latter, but a means of it. God, who created and commands all the waters both above and beneath the firmament, sent them an abundance of water on a sudden, which did them double service. H.

23. This is blood.** The pits, deep but with small mouths, gleaming redly through the haze which would lie along the newly moistened valley, seemed to the Moabites like pools of blood. They caught at the idea, probably, the more readily from a recollection of their own disaster the preceding year, when they and their allies had mutually destroyed each other (2 Chron. 20: 23). It seemed to them, from their knowledge of the jealousies subsisting between Judah, Israel, and Edom, not unlikely that a similar calamity had now befallen their foes.

25. Only in Kir-Haraseth.** Kir-Haraseth, called also Kir-Hareseth (Isa. 16: 7), Kir-Haresh (ibid 11), and Kir-Moab (ibid 15: 1), is identified almost certainly with the modern Kerak, a strong city on the highland immediately east of the southern part of the Dead Sea,

It was the great fortress of Moab, though not the capital, which was Rabbath or Rabbah. B. C.

25-27. The victory was followed up by an exterminating war. The cities of Moab were razed, and their stones thrown into the cornfields; the wells were filled, and the fruit-trees were cut down. The only refuge left was the city of Kir-Haraseth; and even this was on the point of being taken by storm, when the king of Moab, with seven hundred chosen warriors, tried to cut his way through to reach the king of Edom, but he was driven back into the city. He resorted to the forlorn hope of his horrid superstition. Mounting the wall, in sight of the besiegers, he offered his eldest son and heir as a burnt offering to Moloch. It would seem that this act of despair roused the sympathy of the Edomites, as well as the horror of Jehoshaphat: “There was great indignation against Israel; and they departed from him, and returned to their own land;” and the next we hear of the relations between the allies is the revolt of Edom from the king of Judah. To Elisha’s aid in this war may probably be ascribed those friendly relations between Jehoram and the prophet which belong to the history of the latter. Indeed the deeds of Elisha filled the greater part of the annals of Israel under Jehoram. P. S.

Elisha was a prophet of the Gospel, as Elijah had been a prophet of the Law. Yet, as the Law is in the Gospel, and the Gospel was in the Law, so Elisha could sometimes denounce God’s judgment, and Elijah yearn for and delight in His mercy. The story of the three kings and their invasion of Moab discloses Elisha in both aspects—severe toward the king of Israel, but gentle and helpful to the king of Judah. And such is the true character of the Gospel, and the genuine spirit of its teachers and confessors. Always accessible with its precious truths and promises, and always helpful with its wise counsels and sufficient grace, yet always boldly and sternly outspoken when fidelity to truth and righteousness demand. B.