2 Kings 13:15

_AND ELISHA SAID UNTO HIM, TAKE BOW AND ARROWS. AND HE TOOK UNTO HIM BOW AND ARROWS._ Take bow and arrows. Hostilities were usually proclaimed by a herald, sometimes by a king or general making a public and formal discharge of an arrow into the enemy's country. Elisha directed Joash to do this, as a symbolical act designed to intimate more fully and significantly the victories promised to the king of Israel over the Syrians. His laying his hands upon the king's hands was to represent the power imparted to the bow-shot as coming from the Lord through the medium of the prophet. His shooting the first arrow eastward-to that part of his kingdom which the Syrians had taken, and which were east of Samaria-was a declaration of war against them for the invasion. His shooting the other arrows into the ground was in token of the number of victories be was to gain; but his stopping at the third be...

10-19 Jehoash, the king, came to Elisha, to receive his dying counsel and blessing. It may turn much to our spiritual advantage, to attend the sick-beds and death-beds of good men, that we may be encouraged in religion by the living comforts they have from it in a dying hour. Elisha assured the king of his success; yet he must look up to God for direction and strength; must reckon his own hands not enough, but go on, in dependence upon Divine aid. The trembling hands of the dying prophet, as they signified the power of God, gave this arrow more force than the hands of the king in his full strength. By contemning the sign, the king lost the thing signified, to the grief of the dying prophet. It is a trouble to good men, to see those to whom they wish well, forsake their own mercies, and to see them lose advantages against spiritual enemies....

Verse 2 Kings 13:15. _TAKE BOW AND ARROWS._] The _bow_, the _arrows_, and the _smiting on the ground_, were all emblematical things, indicative of the _deliverance of Israel_ from Syria....

EXPOSITION 2 KINGS 13:1 REIGNS OF JEHOAHAZ, SON OF JEHU, AND JOASH, SON OF JEHOAHAZ, OVER ISRAEL. NOTICES OF ELISHA. WAR OF ISRAEL WITH SYRIA. 2 KINGS 13:1 THE REIGN OF JEHOAHAZ. The writer returns in this chapter to the history of the Israelite kingdom, taking it up from the death of Jehu, which was recorded in the clo

AND ELISHA SAID UNTO HIM, TAKE BOW AND ARROWS,.... The usual instruments of war in those days: and he took unto him bow and arrows; which though they might not be had in the house of the prophet, he could have some from his guards that attended him....

2 Kings 13:1. _In the three and twentieth year of Joash the son of Ahaziah king of Judah Jehoahaz the son of Jehu began to reign over Israel in Samaria, and reigned seventeen years. And he did that which was evil in the sight of the LORD, and followed the sins of Jeroboam the son, of Nebat, which made Israel to sin; he departed not therefrom._ «Seventeen years» that is a long time in which to do mischief. Seventeen years of reigning over a people, influencing them all for mischief, turning them aside from God, and doing his utmost to erase the name of Jehovah from the hearts of the people. Remember, this Jehoahaz was the son of John, who had been called to the front because of the sins of the house of Ahab. Though Jehu was brought forward to be a reformer, yet he and his race were as bad as those who were cast out. What a sad thing this is, when those who are planted where the cu

5. JEHOAHAZ AND JEHOASH OF ISRAEL, ELISHA'S DEATH CHAPTER 13 _ 1. The reign of Jehoahaz and his death (2 Kings 13:1)_ 2. Jehoash King of Israel (2 Kings 13:10) 3. Elisha and Joash (2 Kings 13:14) 4. The death of Elisha (2 Kings 13:20) 5. Hazael and his death (2 Kings 13:22) Jehoahaz, the son of Jehu, reigned after the death of his father (2 Kings 10:35) and here we learn that he also followed in t

THE REIGN OF JOASH OR JEHOASH OF ISRAEL. During this reign Elisha died. He is represented, as in 2 Kings 6, as Israel's champion in the great war with Syria, the chariots of Israel and the horsemen thereof (_cf._ 2 Kings 2:12). 2 Kings 13:16_ _ f. The action is a piece of sympathetic magic (_cf._ Exodus 17:9; Joshua 8:18; Joshua 8:26), but it is something more. The Hebrews thought of the prophetic word as achieving its own fulfilment (Isaiah 55:10 f.

_Take bow and arrows_ It is as if the prophet by this significant action directed and encouraged the king to enter on the war against Syria....

CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE THE KINGDOMS AT HIGH TIDE 2 Kings 13:10 to 2 Kings 15:7 Help came to Israel in the midst of the Aramean oppression from an unexpected quarter. In 802 B.C. the Assyrian king Adadnirari III attacked Damascus and inflicted serious casualties on Benhadad II. From that point on, Israel began to gradually recover her lost territories and emerge from the half century of humiliating submission to Damascus. The text under study in this chapter deals with (1) the period of recovery (2 Kings 13:10 to 2 Kings 14:22); and (2) the heyday period of both Israel and Judah ...