2 Kings 13:18,19

Smite upon the ground The former sign portended victory: and this was to declare the number of the victories. He smote thrice, and stayed Through his inattention to, or unbelief of, the sign just given, concerning war with, victory over, and deliverance from Syria, or through indifference about that deliverance. The man of God was wroth with him Whether Joash, before this interview with Elisha, was acquainted or not with the nature of those parabolic actions, whereby the prophets were accustomed to represent future events, he could not but perceive, by the comment which Elisha made upon the first arrow, which he calls the arrow of deliverance, that his shooting was a symbolical action, and intended to prefigure his victories over that nation; and, therefore, he might easily understand that this second action, of striking the ground with the arrow, was to portend the number of victories he was to obtain. And if, added to this, we may suppose, with the generality of interpreters, that the prophet had apprized him beforehand that such was the symbolical intent of what he now put him upon, that the oftener he smote upon the ground, the more would be the victories which his arms should obtain; and that thus, in some measure, his success in the war was put into his own power; the king's conduct was utterly inexcusable, if, diffident of the prophet's promise, and considering the great strength of the kings of Syria, more than the power of God, he stopped his hand after he had smote thrice, supposing that the prediction would never have been fulfilled, had he gone on and smote upon the earth oftener. Upon the whole, therefore, the prophet had just reason to be offended at the king for not believing God, who had done so many signal miracles in favour of the Israelites; for not believing him, who, according to his own acknowledgment, had been a constant defender of the state, and now, in his dying hours, was full of good wishes and intentions for his country. See Dodd, Le Clerc, and Patrick.