2 Kings 2:23-2523And he went up from thence unto Beth-el: and as he was going up by the way, there came forth little children out of the city, and mocked him, and said unto him, Go up, thou bald head; go up, thou bald head. 24And he turned back, and looked on them, and cursed them in the name of the Lord. And there came forth two she bears out of the wood, and tare forty and two children of them. 25And he went from thence to mount Carmel, and from thence he returned to Samaria. (2 Kings 2:23‑25)
We live over nineteen hundred years after Christ lived on earth. About eighteen hundred years before Christ was born, a solitary man lay down in a solitary place to spend a solitary night. Alone and utterly miserable, he fell asleep. But during the night he made a discovery. It was this: He was not alone. God was there, close to him, speaking to him, caring for him, watching over him. Rising from his hard bed and his stony pillow, Jacob gave the lonely place a name. He called it Bethel, which means “House of God.”
House of God! What a beautiful name for a place to have! From that day Bethel became a holy place to Jacob and his descendants. When Jacob came back from his long years with Laban, his father-in-law, and was settling down among the heathen Canaanites, God sent him to Bethel that He might meet with him there (Gen. 35:11And God said unto Jacob, Arise, go up to Beth-el, and dwell there: and make there an altar unto God, that appeared unto thee when thou fleddest from the face of Esau thy brother. (Genesis 35:1)). There again he drew near to God, and God drew near to him. “He built there an altar, and called the place El-beth-el,” which means “God — House of God.”
Years went by. The Israelites went down to Egypt, and Bethel was left desolate. But no sooner did Jacob’s descendants take the land of Canaan than Bethel became again the “House of God.” It was no longer called by its old name, Luz, but become known as Bethel.
In the times of the judges we read, “The children of Israel arose, and went up to the house of God,” or, as it is in the Hebrew, “went up to Bethel” (Judg. 20:1818And the children of Israel arose, and went up to the house of God, and asked counsel of God, and said, Which of us shall go up first to the battle against the children of Benjamin? And the Lord said, Judah shall go up first. (Judges 20:18)). There was the ark; there was the altar of sacrifice; there lived Phinehas, the High Priest, the grandson of Aaron; there the children of Israel inquired of the Lord. Bethel was, in those troubled times, the center of life and godliness in the land of Israel.
Later, dark days came to Bethel. Jeroboam, who rebelled against King Rehoboam and who made Israel to sin, actually chose Bethel, the House of God, as the place of his idol worship. He set up in Bethel a golden calf, and here he bid the people in the southern part of his kingdom to come to worship. Here he made the lowest of his people priests and bid them cry aloud to this calf just what Aaron had said of the golden calf at Sinai: “Behold thy gods, O Israel, which brought thee up out of the land of Egypt.”
So the House of God became the House of Idols. God gave it, in consequence, a new name. He called it not Bethel, but Beth-aven; not House of God, but House of Vanity. Hosea said, “The inhabitants of Samaria shall fear because of the calves of Beth-aven,” not Bethel (Hosea 10:55The inhabitants of Samaria shall fear because of the calves of Beth-aven: for the people thereof shall mourn over it, and the priests thereof that rejoiced on it, for the glory thereof, because it is departed from it. (Hosea 10:5)).
Bethel, as man called it — Beth-aven, as God called it — was a large and important place in the days of Elisha, filled with people who had been brought up in the stronghold of idolatry and who had been taught from childhood to despise the true followers of Jehovah. The priests of Jezebel had many followers in Bethel, and these did all in their power to make the inhabitants of that city as idolatrous and godless as they were themselves. The man who defied the Word of God by rebuilding Jericho was a native of Bethel. Hiel, the Bethelite, was not afraid to disobey the direct command of Jehovah.
But God had not left the Bethelites without witness or without any means of grace. In their very midst had been erected one of the colleges in which young men were trained to be teachers. The very presence of this college was a testimony against the ungodliness of the Bethelites. Not only so, but the prophets who superintended these colleges were constantly in Bethel. But the bulk of the people seem to have taken little notice of their instructions. They went on in their scoffing, God-forgetting ways.
One day news arrives in Bethel, and most everyone likes to hear the news. Through the forest, which lay east of the city, winding up the long hill which reaches from Jericho to Bethel, come mules and donkeys and camels, bringing goods from the city of palm trees to sell in the streets of Bethel — oranges and lemons, sweet-scented herbs, and salt from the Dead Sea. These men of Jericho bring something besides merchandise; they bring two pieces of news.
The first piece of news is this: Elijah, the great prophet, well-known to all of them, had disappeared, and the report was that he had been carried alive up to heaven.
How was this news received in the streets of Bethel? We are not told, but knowing the kind of people who lived in the city, we can guess. Who ever heard of such a thing as a man taken up to heaven without dying? What an unlikely, ridiculous tale! How improbable! How impossible! What evidence was there that it had taken place?
The Jericho traders would have to admit that the story only rested on the word of one man. Who was the man? Elisha. What? That servant of his? Was he the one who had started this extraordinary story? They would not believe it for a moment!
The second item of news pleases the Bethelites no better. Elijah has disappeared, and they feel thankful to be rid of him. They cannot stand his stern rebukes and his solemn warnings. But now what? They find that another has stepped into his place. A new prophet has come to annoy them by his visits and his remarks! A new prophet, and he is no other than that servant, that Elisha. Who is he that he should lay down the law to the Bethelites and find fault with their proceedings? The first time he dares to come near Bethel, they will let him know what they think of him.
Some days later the report reaches them that Elisha was on his way. He had left Jericho and was coming up the long, steep hill, a climb of three thousand feet, to the stony heights of Bethel. As he passed through the forest, the boys and girls of these godless parents rushed out and began to insult him. They started calling him “bald head.” It was a common term of reproach among the Jews.
Was Elisha’s head bald? Undoubtedly not. In those days every nation in the East except the Jews shaved the head. The heat is so intense that it is a cool and cleanly custom. But the Jews were forbidden to shave their heads. It was one of the countless ways in which they were to be distinguished from their Gentile neighbors. God wanted them to be separate from the heathen around them. The Gentiles shaved the hair off their heads; the Jews kept their hair on. The only two exceptions to this rule were the leper who was to shave his head and the Nazarite if he was defiled by someone dying near him.
Not only so, but even had Elisha been bald-headed, no one could have seen it, for in those hot countries the head is always closely covered by the thick turban which is worn while one is out in the sun.
To call a man in those days a “bald head” was equivalent to calling him a Gentile dog, a heathen outsider. No good Jew would like such a name — one of reproach and scorn.
Out of the city came the crowd of Bethelite children mocking him and shouting, “Go up, thou bald head; go up, thou bald head.” In other words, “Go up, like your master has gone up. We are well rid of him. He has gone up, so you say. You go too, bald head.”
The Bethelites never dared to insult Elijah in such a way. They would have quailed before the great prophet, for they knew the mighty power of God was with him. But this was only Elisha, the servant. They could mock and laugh at him.
How did Elisha act? He turned around and looked at this crowd of mocking, insulting children. Then Elisha committed his cause to God. Speaking with God’s authority and as God’s mouthpiece, he cursed them for defiance of God and His prophet. Without a moment’s delay, God acted.
Out of the forest came two she-bears, sent by God. Elisha did not call them. It was God’s doing. They came and tore forty-two of them. Only forty-two, not the whole company. There may have been more than a hundred children there.
Those killed were the elder ones of the party, the more responsible ones. When all are mentioned, they are called “little children.” But quite a different word is used of those who were killed. The Hebrew word means “young men.” The very same word is used in 1 Kings 12:8,148But he forsook the counsel of the old men, which they had given him, and consulted with the young men that were grown up with him, and which stood before him: (1 Kings 12:8)
14And spake to them after the counsel of the young men, saying, My father made your yoke heavy, and I will add to your yoke: my father also chastised you with whips, but I will chastise you with scorpions. (1 Kings 12:14) of the young men who were brought up with Rehoboam. He was no child, for at that time he was forty-one years of age. Evidently it was upon the leaders — the ungodly, infidel young men of the place — that the judgment of God fell.
Where did these children, especially the young ones, learn to mock and heap insults upon Elisha? Their parents are responsible. Upon them, therefore, falls heavy, heart-breaking sorrow, as they have to mourn bitterly the loss of the very children whom they had stirred up to sin.
As it was in the days of Elisha, so it is still true today. Whatever children are not, they undoubtedly are good imitators. What my father does, that will I do — what my mother says, that will I say — is the rule which most children follow. If the child hears true religion lightly spoken of at home, if he is accustomed to hear God’s ministers or God’s Word ridiculed, he may soon grow up to do exactly the same. Let us, then, who are parents walk very carefully. Bright eyes are on us, watching our every movement, scrutinizing our every action; quick ears are listening to us, hearing and storing up in the memory each careless, thoughtless word. Those eyes are our children’s eyes, those ears are our children’s ears, and each of those children is a trust, put into our hands by God, and of each such trust we shall be called upon to give an account.
Did we ever ask ourselves this question: Why does God allow His children to meet with opposition? Why is it that young Christians, those who are just starting to live for Christ, so often have to encounter opposition and difficulty? If God chose, He could make the path of life for each Christian like a beautiful garden enjoying sunshine and pleasant rain. Instead, His plants often endure storms of opposition, surrounded by thorns and briars.
And God knows better than to let His children have nothing but easy times and prosperous circumstances. Even the biting words and cutting speeches and the cold, chilling repulsion of the worldly relative or friend has its purpose in God’s perfect ways for our spiritual development. Such things are certainly not pleasant, but they may be profitable. They may, if used aright, stablish, strengthen and settle us and help to make us useful.
In the museum of Namur, in Belgium, there is a very extraordinary statue called “The Headless Man.” The statue represents a young knight in armor. He has no head, but in his outstretched hand he holds a skull. Underneath the figure is an inscription, carved in the blue stone. The words are very remarkable: “AN HOUR WILL COME WHICH WILL PAY FOR ALL.”
The statue, more than four hundred years old, was erected to the memory of a young knight who died for his faith during an awful period of persecution in the Netherlands. For the sake of Christ that young man had lost his head, and his sorrowing family put up this blue statue to his memory. For many years it stood in the knight’s home before being placed in the museum at Namur.
An hour is coming which will pay for all. What hour will that be which will repay each servant of Christ for all that he has borne for his Master’s sake on earth? Will it not be that hour when he shall stand before the throne and shall hear the voice of the King of Glory saying to him, “Well done, good and faithful servant. ... Enter thou into the joy of thy lord”?
Then, and not till then, shall we fully know what this verse means: “Our light affliction, which is but for a moment, worketh for us a far more exceeding and eternal weight of glory.”