2 Kings 13:18

_AND HE SAID TO THE KING OF ISRAEL, PUT THINE HAND UPON THE BOW. AND HE PUT HIS HAND UPON IT: AND ELISHA PUT HIS HANDS UPON THE KING'S HANDS._ No JFB commentary on these verses....

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 13:18. _SMITE UPON THE GROUND_] As he was ordered to take his _arrows_, the smiting on the ground must mean _shooting arrows into_ _it_. _HE SMOTE THRICE, AND STAYED._] The prophet knew that this shooting was _emblematical_: probably the king was not aware of what depended on the _frequency_ of the action; and perhaps it was of the Lord that he smote only _thrice_, as he had determined to give Israel those three victories _only_ over the Syrians. Elisha's being _wroth_ because there were only _three_ instead of _five_ or _six_ shots does not prove that God was wroth, or that he had intended to give the Syrians _five_ or _six_ overthrows....

SMITE UPON THE GROUND - Some prefer to render - “Shoot to the ground;” i. e. “Shoot arrows from the window into the ground outside, as if thou wert shooting against an enemy.”...

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 HE SAID, TAKE THE ARROWS, AND HE TOOK THEM,.... The rest of them: AND HE SAID UNTO THE KING OF ISRAEL, smite upon the ground; the floor of the room in which the prophet lay: AND HE SMOTE THRICE, AND STAYED; made a stop, ceased smiting; he might think this action trifling, and beneath him, only was willing to please the prophet, but did not do it with a good will, and therefore smote no more; though this was an emblem of his smiting the Syrians, which he might not understand....

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 the arrows_ By the previous symbolical act, the prophet has directed the king to go eastward with courage against the enemy, assured that the Lord will be with his arrows, and will regard them as His own. He now proceeds to test the zeal of Joash. _Smite upon the ground_ The Hebrew indicates the _direction_of the blows -towards the ground". It appears as though the prophet wished blows to be aimed as if intended to strike down a foe. So the sense is equivalent to -strike (some one) down to the ground". It does not seem that there was to be any shooting of the arrows in this second figurative action, but only a series of blows made with them as they were grasped, and aimed at some imaginary enemy who was to be brought down. _And he smote thrice, and stayed_ On -stayed" in this sense of -ceased" cf. on 2 Kings 4:6 above. The act, which was intended to be an index of