“Looking for Loopholes” or “Prophets, Bears, Beasts”

Scripture: 2 Kings 2: 19-25, Revelation 13: 1-10

Preached: February 2009

Sermon: “Looking for Loopholes” or “Prophets, Bears, Beasts”

Rev. Mike Abma

2 Kings 2: 19-25

Now the people of the city said to Elisha, ‘The location of this city is good, as my lord sees; but the water is bad, and the land is unfruitful.’²⁰He said, ‘Bring me a new bowl, and put salt in it.’ So they brought it to him. ²¹Then he went to the spring of water and threw the salt into it, and said, ‘Thus says the Lord, I have made this water wholesome; from now on neither death nor miscarriage shall come from it.’ ²²So the water has been wholesome to this day, according to the word that Elisha spoke.

23 He went up from there to Bethel; and while he was going up on the way, some small boys came out of the city and jeered at him, saying, ‘Go away, baldhead! Go away, baldhead!’ ²⁴When he turned round and saw them, he cursed them in the name of the Lord. Then two she-bears came out of the woods and mauled forty-two of the boys. ²⁵From there he went on to Mount Carmel, and then returned to Samaria.

This is the Word of the Lord

Thanks be to God

INTRODUCTION

Okay, there may be some parents here tonight who are thinking: “Of all the passages in the Old Testament, why in the world did you choose that one? This is an Intergenerational Service? What were you thinking?”

That is a good question.

What was I thinking?

I’m not sure.

But a couple of weeks ago, I preached on the earlier part of this chapter – Elijah ascending into heaven. Afterwards, someone commented that this was an amazing text. But the next one, the one about the bears, well, they couldn’t figure that one out. What was it doing in the Bible anyway?

That got me thinking.

What is that passage doing in the Bible?

What is this tough text, and in ways terrible story, doing in the Bible?

LOOKING FOR LOOPHOLES

I think that whenever we stumble across a particularly difficult Bible passage, we are tempted to apply the W.C. Fields rule of Biblical interpretation. Remember that old comedian W.C. Fields? When someone caught him reading the Bible, they asked, “What are you doing?”

He replied, “Looking for loopholes.”

I think we read a text like tonight’s bear text and we almost automatically look for loopholes.

Here are some possible loopholes:

1. The Small Boys are Actually Big Men: in our text we read that the crowd of kids who were taunting Elisha were small boys. There are some people who quibble with that translation. They say it should read, young lads or teenagers. Some have even stretched the Hebrew meaning of these words to include young men in their 20’s. The older we can make these boys, the more palatable this story is. That is one loophole.

2. Heighten the Curse: another loophole is to hear the taunts of these boys in the worst possible light. Some people will say that their taunts of “Go away, baldy” were not simply rude. They were much worse than that. They were a great curse, equal to telling Elisha to up and die. Making their taunts as terrible as possible is another loophole.

3. Lower the Mauling: a third loophole involves downplaying what the bears actually did. In other words, people will say that the bears mauled the boys but didn’t murder them. The bears roughed them up but did not seriously injure them. In other words, what the bears did was serious, but not too serious. This is loophole number three.

4. Prophetic Insight: there is a fourth loophole. This one I found in the Jewish Talmud – a commentary on this passage. There it reads that when Elisha turned and saw the crowd of boys, he saw right through them. In other words, Elisha was able to see into their hearts and even into their futures. He saw that nothing good would come out of this bunch of hoodlums.^[1] That is loophole number 4.

So, one way to make this passage a little more palatable is by making the kids older, making their taunting worse, making the mauling less, and giving Elisha amazing prophetic insight. But is this W.C. Fields loophole approach the best one? I don’t think so. We should remember that W.C. Fields also once quipped, “Anyone who hates children and animals can’t be all bad.”

So what is a better approach?

Martin Marty, a church historian who taught for a long time at the Divinity School at the University of Chicago, and who also happens to be about as bald as a billiard ball, takes a bit of a light-hearted and humorous approach to this passage.

Being bald himself, he admits to being quite sympathetic to Elisha, a fellow-baldy.

He writes that maybe this pack of rascals, this crowd of ruffians, this mob of raiders got what they deserved. And using sporting language, he writes that here is a text where the score is clear: Bears 42 Raiders 0.

Personally, I thought I might slip in something from Dwight Shrute of the TV show, The Office. Dwight has a lot to say about bears, including his Rule 17 (a rule that all Shrute boys learn by age 5): “never turn your back on a bear.”

ANOTHER LOOK

Let’s take another look at this story.

One thing we can say about it is that it is an odd story for Elisha.

Read the whole Elisha story and you find story after story

of good things happening:

of water being made drinkable,

of a poor widow being given a miraculous amount of oil,

of hungry people being fed,

an enemy general being healed

and even a little boy being raised from the dead – clearly Elisha liked kids.

If anything, Elisha is kinder and gentler than his mentor Elijah.

A SYMBOLIC NARRATIVE?

So what is this bear story doing here?

Could it be a symbolic narrative?

By symbolic narrative, I mean, could the different parts of this story be symbols for a bigger message? If it is a symbolic narrative, what do the different parts mean or symbolize?

Let’s start with the context.

We have to remember that Elijah and Elisha had just made a journey out of Israel: from Gilgal, to Bethel, to Jericho, then over the Jordan River.

Now Elisha was making a journey back into Israel: back over the Jordan, to Jericho, to Bethel, and beyond.

It is while in Bethel, while re-entering Israel, that this prophet gets razzed, taunted, swarmed, and blocked by this crowd of kids.

Kids tend to mimic their parents, don’t they?

So I think these kids simply represent the Israelite rejection of Elisha and his message.

For Elijah, they used to say, “O no, here comes trouble.”

Now for Elisha, they are saying, “Get away, baldy, get away.”

So if the kids represent the rejection of Elisha and his message, what do the bears represent?

Personally, I do not think Elisha summoned the bears to come.

I don’t even think God summoned the bears to come.

I think the two bears represent the consequences of this rejection.

Why do I say that?

Well, remember, this all takes place in Bethel and I do not think that is an accident.

The name Bethel means “house of God.”

But in Israel at the time, Bethel was the home, the shrine, of the Baal golden-calves. Israel had one shrine up north in Dan and another shrine down south in Bethel. In ways, these two bears may very well represent these two shrines of idolatry.

In other words, if you reject the Lord and the prophet of the Lord, what are you left with?

You are left with your idolatrous shrines: Bethel and Dan.

And what will these shrines lead to? Destruction and Death.

I have yet another theory for what these two bears may signify.

Throughout Elisha’s life, Israel was plagued by two neighboring nations: Syria and Moab. Israel was constantly at war with Syria and Moab. In ways, I think this story is also saying: reject the Lord and his prophet, and things will go poorly. That is what happens. Israel is mauled by Moab and especially by Syria.

WHY BEARS?

So why bears?

Why are bears used to symbolize this destruction?

If you know your Bible, you know that bears were one of the three scariest animals in the Bible. The other two were lions and leopards.

When Daniel has a vision in chapter 7 of what is about to come,

he sees 4 terrifying beasts coming out of the sea.

The first beast is like a lion with eagle wings.

The second beast is like a bear with tusks.

The third beast is like a leopard with multiple wings.

The fourth beast is like nothing Daniel had seen before – it had a jaw of iron.

In other words, from the sea, from chaos, come these beasts of destruction.

From Elisha to Daniel, the Bible is pretty clear:

reject the prophets,

reject the message of the prophets,

reject the God of the prophets and the righteousness of the prophets,

and what are you left with?

You are left with chaos.

And what comes out of chaos?

Only beastly things that lead to death and destruction.

REVELATION 13

Now let’s change gears.

Let’s look far ahead to the last book of the Bible.

In Revelation, John also has a vision.

It’s a cosmic vision of a cosmic struggle.

The vision is of a woman, her child, and all those who belong to her family.

This is code language or symbolic language for the church.

They are fighting against a dragon,

and the beastly allies of the dragon:

a beast that comes out of the water and a beast that comes out of the land.

Again, this is code language or symbolic language for all those who reject the True Prophet,

who reject Jesus Christ, and his righteousness.

Do you remember how the beast from the sea in Revelation is described?

The beast from the sea

is said to look like a leopard,

With feet like a bear

And a mouth like a lion.

There are those 3 dreaded animals again: leopards, lions, and bears.

This beast is uttering

blasphemies and curses against God

(sounds a bit like those kids taunting Elisha doesn’t it?)

and this beast is allowed to do this for 42 months

( interestingly there is that number 42 again).

So who is this beast mauling and roughing up?

We are told it is making war against us, the saints –

the followers of Jesus.

Here, in Revelation, we have something of a reversal of the scene from 2 Kings.

In 2 Kings we have those who reject God being mauled by a beast.

Now here in Revelation we have those who have accepted God

and who have accepted the gospel of Jesus,

being mauled by a beast.

In other words, following Christ, being a believer, will come at a cost.

CONCLUSION

So what are the saints, what are we Christians called to do?

How are we supposed to react?

John says it plainly: endure, be faithful, persevere.

Do not react to the beast in beastly ways.

Do not react to violence with violence.

Do not react to blasphemy with blasphemy.

The beast will not be overcome by beastly behavior.

Its evil cannot be resisted by returning evil.

Its fire cannot be fought with our fire.

No, ironically it is a Lamb that will finally defeat this beast.

A Lamb whose love is stronger than the beast’s hatred,

And whose righteousness is stronger than the beast’s rage.

For followers of Jesus,

believers in the Lamb of God who takes away the sin of the world,

our main job is to remain faithful to this Lamb.

That is why even these texts – these bearish-beastly texts in the Old and New Testaments – fit in an Intergenerational service?

They fit because they take your faith seriously:

whether you are young or old,

whether you are 7, or 17, or 70,

whether you have lots of hair, or less and less every year,

these texts take your faith seriously.

These bearish, beastly texts remind us

that in the end,

what counts is to whom we belong,

what counts is to whom we remain faithful,

what counts is who we are willing to sacrifice and suffer for.

People of God,

Followers of the Lamb,

Remain faithful…..faithful to Jesus.

1. Talmud, Sotah 46b. ↑