It is remarkable perhaps that so evil a person as Joash, King of Israel, should visit Elisha upon his death bed, yet so it was (2 Ki. 13:14-19). He seems to have had some respect for the man of God, as Herod at a later date respected John the Baptist, though quite unwilling to conform his ways to his teaching. The sight of the stricken prophet brought tears to the eyes of the king, and he exclaimed, “Oh my father, my father, the chariot of Israel, and the horsemen thereof!” A truly wonderful thing for a sovereign to say of a humble subject, possessed neither of wealth nor power. But the king rightly felt (and wicked though he was, he could not but acknowledge it) that the presence and prayers of such a man as Elisha was a valuable asset to his nation. The king was right, and the same principle applies today. Who can estimate the priceless value to the British nation of the presence and prayers of God’s saints at this tremendous crisis! When the history of earth is fully known it will be found that Britain owes much to the Christians in her midst. But men of time and sense cannot be expected to understand this; with them “men, money, and munitions” are all in all.
The dying prophet sought to turn the king’s mind towards Jehovah as the only true Deliverer of his people. Israel was being sorely harassed at that time by the depredations of Hazael, King of Syria. Elisha bade Joash take bow and arrows. He would teach him by a parable. The prophet put his hands upon the hands of the king. The prophet’s hands are suggestive of the power of God, without which all human efforts are in vain. Both John in Patmos (Rev. 1:17) and Daniel at the river Hiddekel (Dan. 10:18) were strengthened when the Lord’s right hand was laid upon them.
“Open the window eastward,” said Elisha. If the shut door of 2 Kings 4:4 speaks of the soul’s seclusion with God, the opened window of 2 Kings 13:17 speaks of the soul’s expectation from God. Oh, that we all knew more experimentally of these things! Daniel opened his window when he prayed daily towards Jerusalem (Dan. 6:10). “Shoot,” said the prophet, and the king shot. The interpretation was then given: “The arrow of Jehovah’s deliverance, and the deliverance from Syria; for thou shalt smite the Syrians in Aphek, till thou have consumed them.” Joash had reached a critical moment in his history, and in the history of his kingdom, had he been able to perceive it. The very suggestion that blessing and deliverance from his dreaded foes was signified in the arrows should have prepared him to act worthily at the next stage. Alas, for him, and for man everywhere and always! God always so willing to bless, and man always so blind to his true advantage!
Elisha next bade the king take up the arrows and smite upon the ground. “And he smote thrice, and stayed.” Oh, the pity of it! Need we wonder that the man of God was wroth with Joash? “Thou shouldest have smitten five or six times; then hadst thou smitten Syria till thou hadst consumed it; whereas now thou shalt smite Syria but thrice” (v. 19). The man by his slackness had limited the deliverance of his people. God gave him as much as he had faith for but no more. “And Joash, the son of Jehoahaz, took again out of the hand of Benhadad, the son of Hazael, the cities which he had taken out of the hand of Jehoahaz, his father, by war; three times did Joash beat him, and recovered the cities of Israel” (v. 25).
What a lesson is here for us all! We have to do with a God who is boundless in resources, and who delights to bless His people, yet so poor are our thoughts and expectations that we limit Him continually. So little satisfies us. So slow are we, so lacking in spiritual energy, to go in boldly, and “possess our possessions.” Would that there were among us more of that holy yearning which filled the soul of the apostle when he wrote, “Not as though I had already attained, either were already perfected, but I follow after, if that I may apprehend that for which also I am apprehended of Christ Jesus. Brethren, I count not myself to have apprehended; but this one thing I do, forgetting those things which are behind, and reaching forth unto those things which are before, I press toward the mark for the prize of the high calling of God in Christ Jesus” (Phil 3:12-14).
Elisha might well be angry with Joash, as Nehemiah with the faulty Jews of his day (Neh. 13:25). Lack of faith in the one case, and unholy alliances in the other, dishonored God, and hindered the blessing of His people. Similar holy indignation (though not perhaps so vigorously expressed as by Nehemiah) is not unsuitable for our time also.