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Commentaries and Other Bible Study Helps - Prayer Tents - Prayer Tents
3:1-27 Elisha and the Conquest of Moab. One expects that Elisha, as Elijah's successor, will also be involved in politics, and in this story he is consulted about a military campaign. The narrative noticeably echoes 1 Kings 22:1-28.
3:2 not like his father and mother. As one of a number of surprises in ch. 3, Jehoram son of Ahab is distanced from the rest of his family by the way in which his reign is described. The implication is that while he tolerated the Baal cult (cf. v. 13; 9:22; 10:18-28), he did not himself worship Baal (he removed Baal's pillar from the temple; see 1 Kings 14:23).
3:4-27 The Moabite Stone (currently in the Louvre Museum in Paris) is a stele set up by Mesha, king of Moab, to commemorate his achievements. Mesha makes his version of a war fought with Israel in prominent; the Israelite account appears in this chapter. The two accounts differ: Mesha emphasizes his victories over Israel, and the biblical writer emphasizes Israel's successful counterattacks.
3:4-5 Mesha was a king of Moab, the successor of his father Chemosh-yatti according to the Moabite Stone (see notes on 1:1; 3:4-27). He began his reign under the dominion of the Israelite house of Omri, and was required to pay his overlord "tribute" (i.e., taxation) in the form of a percentage of his agricultural produce (lambs and wool), which is understandable given the importance of sheep in the economy of ancient Palestine. After the death of Ahab, Mesha took advantage of the new situation and rebelled, inciting Ahab's son Jehoram to launch the military campaign described in this chapter (see map).
3:7-9 he went and sent word to Jehoshaphat. Like his father before him, Jehoram seeks help from his southern neighbor Jehoshaphat, whose initial response is recognizable from 1 Kings 22:4: I am as you are, my people as your people, my horses as your horses. Missing on this occasion, however, is any desire on Jehoshaphat's part to discover the counsel of the Lord before going off to war (contrast 1 Kings 22:5); here he moves directly from agreement to tactics (2 Kings 3:8), and from tactics to action (v. 9). This is surprising. The tactics involve attacking Moab from the south, through the wilderness of Edom, rather than from the north. This is possible because Edom is under Judean rule (1 Kings 22:47) and her king is Jehoshaphat's deputy rather than an independent monarch. The action involves a march in which the combined armies get lost, caught in a circuitous march. Unsurprisingly, a military venture undertaken without prophetic advice faces disaster.
3:11-14 Is there no prophet of the Lord here? Jehoshaphat's memory suddenly returns, and he asks the right question (cf. 1 Kings 22:7). Elisha, the one who poured water on the hands of Elijah (probably a reference to Elisha's role as Elijah's servant), is found to be in their midst. Unimpressed as he is with Jehoram's piety, Elisha agrees to help because of righteous (albeit forgetful) Jehoshaphat's presence in the alliance.
3:15-19 bring me a musician. Music plays a part in Elisha's attainment of the prophetic state in which he utters his prophecy (cf. 1 Sam. 10:5-11; note on 1 Sam. 10:5). The immediate crisis (no water, 2 Kings 3:9) is to be dealt with by miracle, as the nearby streambed shall be filled with water from an unspecified and unexpected source (neither wind nor rain). God will further grant the alliance a comprehensive victory over Moab. They will attack every fortified city and every choice city (or perhaps "major town"), devastating the land as they move through it. Deuteronomy 20:19-20 prohibits this kind of destruction in normal cases, but here it appears that Elisha portrays the Moabites as a nation to be given over to desolation (like the cities of Canaan in Deut. 20:16-18), rather than simply subjugated.
3:20-24 Events begin to unfold in line with Elisha's prophecy. Water mysteriously flows from the direction of Edom (Hb. ’Edom), fooling the Moabites into thinking the allies have slaughtered each other because in the morning sunlight the water appears red (Hb. ’adummim) as blood (Hb. dam); notice the play on words with ’Edom. Their reckless advance on the Israelite camp is met with force.
3:25 The combined armies act out Elisha's words (cf. v. 19) point by point, attacking all the Moabite cities including Kir-hareseth, strategically situated on a rocky hill overlooking the Dead Sea about
3:27 Facing defeat by Israel, Mesha offered his son as burnt offering on the wall. As a consequence, there came great wrath (Hb. qetsep) against Israel. This is not to be understood as divine anger, because on the one hand the biblical authors did not regard the Moabite god Chemosh as a real god (1 Kings 11:7), and on the other hand Israel's God would surely not have acted on Moab's behalf as a result of a ritual practice that was abhorrent to him (cf. 2 Kings 16:3; 17:17; 21:6). It seems, instead, that this "great wrath" is human wrath (as on both other occasions in Kings when qetsep appears, 5:11; 13:19): Mesha's troops respond to his desperate act with an anger that carries them to victory against the odds.
