Our purpose is not to explain all the chronological difficulties raised by the reign of Jehoram, son of Jehoshaphat, King of Judah. (Compare 2 Kings 1:17; 3:1; 8:1617So he died according to the word of the Lord which Elijah had spoken. And Jehoram reigned in his stead in the second year of Jehoram the son of Jehoshaphat king of Judah; because he had no son. (2 Kings 1:17)
1Now Jehoram the son of Ahab began to reign over Israel in Samaria the eighteenth year of Jehoshaphat king of Judah, and reigned twelve years. (2 Kings 3:1)
16And in the fifth year of Joram the son of Ahab king of Israel, Jehoshaphat being then king of Judah, Jehoram the son of Jehoshaphat king of Judah began to reign. (2 Kings 8:16); 1 Kings 22:5151Ahaziah the son of Ahab began to reign over Israel in Samaria the seventeenth year of Jehoshaphat king of Judah, and reigned two years over Israel. (1 Kings 22:51); 2 Chron. 20:3131And Jehoshaphat reigned over Judah: he was thirty and five years old when he began to reign, and he reigned twenty and five years in Jerusalem. And his mother's name was Azubah the daughter of Shilhi. (2 Chronicles 20:31)). We shall come back to the most important of these in chapter 8. Unbelief, quick to find fault with God’s Word, has not failed to criticize some apparent errors here. To admit a copyist’s mistake (always a possibility) in 2 Kings 1:1717So he died according to the word of the Lord which Elijah had spoken. And Jehoram reigned in his stead in the second year of Jehoram the son of Jehoshaphat king of Judah; because he had no son. (2 Kings 1:17) would only remove half the difficulty. The believer waits upon God, without needing to account for everything, and at the right time and place receives light as a recompense for his confidence.
In this chapter we find the prophet grappling with the circumstances of the world round about him. What troubles is the man who comes down from Mount Carmel to visit Samaria going to meet! Moab had rebelled against Israel; this was the consequence of Ahab’s unfaithfulness (2 Kings 1:11Then Moab rebelled against Israel after the death of Ahab. (2 Kings 1:1)), but it lay heavy, as a judgment from God, upon Ahaziah, his unworthy successor. It was customary for subjugated kings to throw off the yoke of their oppressors just as soon as there was a change of reign (2 Kings 3:4-54And Mesha king of Moab was a sheepmaster, and rendered unto the king of Israel an hundred thousand lambs, and an hundred thousand rams, with the wool. 5But it came to pass, when Ahab was dead, that the king of Moab rebelled against the king of Israel. (2 Kings 3:4‑5)). The politically-minded man sees nothing more than this in this rebellion of Moab, while the believer recognizes God’s hand in chastening or in judgment therein.
Jehoram, the son of Ahab, in one sense had shown himself less irreligious than his father. He had removed the idol of Baal set up by his father, yet without destroying his prophets, as one can infer from Elisha’s reply in 2 Kings 3:1313And 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 Lord hath called these three kings together, to deliver them into the hand of Moab. (2 Kings 3:13). Outwardly he gave up this abominable worship, but it troubled him very little to let its spirit remain. What he did not at all give up was the national religion instituted by Jeroboam the son of Nebat, which masked a gross form of idolatry under the guise of the religion of the true God.
Elisha is witness to the alliance between Jehoram of Israel and Jehoshaphat against Moab. Jehoram here follows the tradition of the reign of his father who had allied himself with this same Jehoshaphat against the Syrians, but he goes even further than his father in evil. Needing to pass through the territory of Edom to reach Moab (2 Kings 3:88And he said, Which way shall we go up? And he answered, The way through the wilderness of Edom. (2 Kings 3:8)), he includes this idolatrous nation, well-known for its implacable emnity against the Lord’s people, in his alliance. What a picture of the world whose politics do not take God into account at all!
According to man everything is calculated for certain success; the little warlike country of Moab despite its valor would not be able to resist this powerful confederation. But God is there—the only One whom Jehoram should have taken into account and whom he had outrageously left aside.
And what are we to think about honest Jehoshaphat, already instructed in the thoughts of God by a previous experience (1 Kings 22), and a few years later falling back into the follies that had brought him to the brink of ruin? “I will go up,” he says, “I am as thou, my people as thy people, my horses, as thy horses” —exactly the same words he had previously said to Ahab. Kindness and amiability in the world’s opinion, the desire to please it, alliance with it in order to promote common interests, are all dreadful obstacles to a faithful walk; and when the Christian does not call these feelings by their right name —sin— they ruin his testimony and contribute toward preserving the world in a false sense of security, since it deludes itself into thinking it is walking in the Christian way because children of God are walking with it, while in fact it is the Christian who is walking in the way of the world. In short, this walk, if it does not bring immediate judgment upon the believer, is at least barren for him, as the history of Jehoshaphat makes manifest; and if it is profitable to anyone, it is to the apostate King Jehoram whose power and prosperity are increased by this alliance. Jehoshaphat was what one would call a broadminded, tolerant person. The division of Israel to him was an accomplished fact, something he no longer felt, if he had ever felt it. He would neither strike out against the opinions nor the religion of Jehoram. He willingly associated himself with him under cloak of being useful to him, but he forgot one very important thing: that he was joining himself together with a man who was dishonoring God, outraging His holiness, and taking no account of His Word. Naturally the world highly approves of such an alliance and promotes such believers as examples for those who separate themselves from evil to be true witnesses of Christ. “I am as thou, my people as thy people, my horses as thy horses.” And why not? says the world. Because I would give up my testimony, I reply, if not God Himself, from the moment that I accept an alliance with a world that is hostile to God.
This walk has yet other, even more serious disadvantages. Like Jehoshaphat one can ally himself with a Jehoram, representing the world which still keeps up the outward appearance of a heavenly religion. In Jehoshaphat’s eyes that, no doubt, seemed to be worth more than his alliance with Ahab. He perhaps cherished the illusion that since Jehoram had taken away the column of Baal, an alliance with him would be permissible. In fact, this was worse than the first, for it led to an alliance with Edom, something that poor Jehoshaphat would hardly have suspected, or for which he perhaps did not consider himself liable.
Ahab before going to war had gathered together the prophets to inquire whether he should do so (1 Kings 22:66Then the king of Israel gathered the prophets together, about four hundred men, and said unto them, Shall I go against Ramoth-gilead to battle, or shall I forbear? And they said, Go up; for the Lord shall deliver it into the hand of the king. (1 Kings 22:6)). Jehoram doesn’t even seem to think of this; Jehoshaphat, alas, no more than he. He had been more faithful with regard to Ahab (1 Kings 22:55And Jehoshaphat said unto the king of Israel, Inquire, I pray thee, at the word of the Lord to day. (1 Kings 22:5)). When a believer lapses back into evil again instead of abstaining from it, his conscience becomes deadened and he winds up no longer feeling the need for the direction from the Word which he had previously felt necessary.
These three kings, so sadly associated together, go then and instead of meeting the enemy have to deal with circumstances that give proof to them that one cannot forget God without danger. They lack water. The king of Israel says: “Alas! that Jehovah has called these three kings together, to give them into the hand of Moab!” Until now he had only followed his own will; when he does remember the Lord, he accuses Him of having led him, along with his two companions, to ruin. The man rebels against his fate, that is to say against God who governs it, instead of acknowledging that he has brought it down upon himself. Godly Jehoshaphat, though lacking the discernment to judge the evil and himself properly, nevertheless has the right though belated thought that it is impossible to get out of the difficulty without inquiring of the Lord. Jehoram on his part knows nothing of the existence of Elisha, the prophet in Israel, and feels no more need in presence of disaster to inquire of one who brings the Word of God than when setting out on his campaign. Happily, one of his servants knew Elisha. The little ones of this earth are aware of divine resources when the great ones are not even inquiring about them. They are also more able to esteem the character of the prophet who in self-forgetfulness had been such a perfect servant to Elijah that his name, as we have seen, was not mentioned from the time of his first call until that day when he was called to replace his master in his mission. A hateful reminder, no doubt, to Jehoram, for it would recall to mind Elijah and his judgment upon his father, his mother, and his brother.
Jehoshaphat, hearing Elisha’s name, regains a proper appreciation of the Word of God: “The word of Jehovah is with him” (2 Kings 3:1212And Jehoshaphat said, The word of the Lord is with him. So the king of Israel and Jehoshaphat and the king of Edom went down to him. (2 Kings 3:12)). The three kings go down to the prophet, who pays no attention at all to the king of Edom, refers the King of Israel to the prophet of Baal, and takes account only of weak Jehoshaphat, the only representative, although in such bad company, of God’s testimony in Israel. However poor and inconsistent they may be, the Lord does not forget His own. He takes into account the weakest indication of faithfulness to Himself. As to the ten tribes, they are definitively rejected in the person of their responsible king. As always, the inexhaustible patience of God still suspends the blow that is going to strike him and takes into full account the slightest return to Himself, but this dreadful word rings out: “What have I to do with thee?” Is not this that “Verily I say unto you, I do not know you” of Matthew 25:1212But he answered and said, Verily I say unto you, I know you not. (Matthew 25:12), worse even than the sentence pronounced upon Ahaziah: “Thou shalt certainly die”?
Yet Elisha is a prophet of grace. He is not ignorant of the evil; but instead of pronouncing judgment, he points out a marvelous resource for these three kings in their calamity. In order to speak of deliverance he needs to abstract himself from that which is before his eyes and which might rouse him to pronounce a sentence of judgment without mercy. “Now fetch me a minstrel,” he says. How could he better abstract himself than by lifting up his soul to God, for it was upon stringed instruments that the heart of the believer would breathe up to Jehovah his praise, his desires, his needs, or his complaints. The remedy worked: “The hand of Jehovah was upon him.” Then he was able to reveal by what miraculous intervention (2 Kings 3:16-1916And he said, Thus saith the Lord, Make this valley full of ditches. 17For thus saith the Lord, Ye shall not see wind, neither shall ye see rain; yet that valley shall be filled with water, that ye may drink, both ye, and your cattle, and your beasts. 18And this is but a light thing in the sight of the Lord: he will deliver the Moabites also into your hand. 19And ye shall smite every fenced city, and every choice city, and shall fell every good tree, and stop all wells of water, and mar every good piece of land with stones. (2 Kings 3:16‑19)) Jehovah would bring about deliverance. They must prepare ditches to receive water, and the Lord would fill them. He does not work any miracle of grace which does not at the same time have the goal of putting faith into action. We shall see more than one example of this in the history of the prophet Elisha. Here Jehovah does not intervene, as He does on other occasions, through natural means —wind or rain. He cuts short all the unbelieving reasoning of the confederated kings.
The deliverance takes place in the morning, at the same hour that the sacrifice was being offered upon the altar. Jeroboam’s national idolatrous worship had nothing to do with this hour, and God in no way recognizes it; His intervention is in relationship to the altar of the temple at Jerusalem. It is this latter which, so to speak, opens those marvelous floodgates by which a whole army is going to be given to drink. Thus it is with the cross of Christ. However far away it may appear to be, it is at the hour of that offering that God gives heed to save all those who trust in His Word. The water of life originates in the death of a victim. But that which is life for some is death for others. Moab, deceived by appearances, rushes headlong to its doom at the very moment when Jehovah is delivering those who had received His message. For not having discerned and acknowledged the deliverance sent by God Moab is destroyed, and the victory is on the side of those who have drunk of the waters prepared by grace. Is this not like a partial fulfillment of the prophecy of Balaam: “Water shall flow out of his buckets... and his king shall be higher than Agag” (Num. 24:77He shall pour the water out of his buckets, and his seed shall be in many waters, and his king shall be higher than Agag, and his kingdom shall be exalted. (Numbers 24:7))?
Israel alone is mentioned as smiting the enemy and effecting their destruction, according to Elisha’s prediction. The King of Moab with seven hundred men tries to break through to the King of Edom, no doubt to take refuge with him, but he does not succeed. Then he offers up his firstborn son for a burnt offering upon the wall. Does not this call to mind that which Jehovah says much later with respect to this same Moab: “Shall I give my firstborn for my transgression, the fruit of my body for the sin of my soul” (Mic. 6:77Will the Lord be pleased with thousands of rams, or with ten thousands of rivers of oil? shall I give my firstborn for my transgression, the fruit of my body for the sin of my soul? (Micah 6:7))?
This horrible sacrifice calls forth the indignation of Israel’s allies, whose vengeance has driven Moab to this extremity; they withdraw from the victor to return home. What a useless victory! Moab may believe itself delivered by this appalling offering to its god and remain unvanquished amid its ruins, ready for worse reprisals. Such will ever be the result of human victories, when it is not God who leads His people to victory. Edom, allied for a day, on whom Israel had counted, abandons her and is indignant with her from the moment that she goes into battle with the name of Jehovah as her banner. Jehoshaphat also leaves her and returns into his own country with the same feelings, though they arise from other causes. Jehoram must learn that a religion that only has the appearance of being true will find no lasting support, whether among avowed unbelievers or among those who keep the testimony of God.