40 Minutes In The Old Testament - 2 Kings 5:15-6:7 (Episode 327)

Episode Date: August 30, 2022

Naaman comes out of the Jordan river believing in the one true God but needs a little help with his theology. Gehazi lets his greed get the better of him. And a son of the prophets loses a borrowed ax head in the river and Elisha helps him. Have a listen! HWSS National Conference 1517 Podcast Network 1517 YouTube Donate

Welcome to another episode of 40 Minutes in the Old Testament. 40 Minutes in the Old Testament is a 1517 Podcast Network podcast. You can go to 1517.org slash podcast. Check out all the other podcasts that are living over there. While you're over there, make sure you go to the events page. You can still sign up for the Here We Still Stand National Conference coming up October 13th through 15th. There is a handful of tickets left.

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and register that way. All right, Chad. Well, last week we got to talk about, I think, one of both of our favorite stories in this particular book where Nahum gets to go and get baptized in the muddy Jordan and get his skin condition washed away. And we're going to talk about how that works. He didn't have the prophet there doing it for him. He just had the words. He just had the promise. He just had the guarantee. And sure enough, that's all he needed. And so now we're going to get into what happens next. So what does it look like post-baptism, as it were, for Nahum yeah now he's got to go he's got to go back to the prophet uh so far he hasn't actually met him he's only met his messenger so he's gonna actually gonna go back to Elisha at this point

we're gonna have a little uh little conversation a confession and uh then in the end uh Elisha's gonna tell him to take off in peace uh so it actually some fairly interesting stuff coming up here, especially when we get to the part about Naaman asking for pardon when unwillingly he has to go into the house of another god where his king is going to be doing some worshiping. So we are in 2 Kings 5 verse 15, and this is just after Naaman's flesh has been restored like the flesh of a little child, and he was clean. So in verse 15, we read that he returned to the man of God, that is to Elisha. He and all his company, remember he has this large military retinue with him. So they all go back from the Jordan to where Elisha is. And then he comes and he stands before him.

This is the same language that we've seen earlier in the narrative where he appears before him. And in Hebrew, when you usually appear before, in Hebrew that's lifne, you appear before someone. And that's the typical language of an inferior to a superior. So a servant appears before his master. And at this point, Naaman has changed. I mean, not only changed in the sense that he's been cleansed, he's been healed, but also his perspective has been completely altered. So he goes before the prophet and he says, and this is such a great confession,

behold i know that there is no god in all the earth but in israel so accept now a present from your servant now for those of us who grow up uh in monotheistic households and even for people who didn't i mean i think it's it's just kind of a it's widely accepted today that there's one god i mean even among people that don't go to church they're not really religious many of them if you were to ask how many gods are, they would say one. But in the ancient world, that was not the case whatsoever. So to hear this kind of confession coming out of the mouth of Naaman is really astonishing. Because people believe that you had a god here, maybe it was connected to just one particular side or one particular nation. But for him to say, basically, you know what, in all the

earth, there is no God except here in Israel. That's an astonishing confession coming from the mouth of a Gentile, which is another feature of this. We see this quite frequently in the Old Testament and then over into the New Testament as well, where people outside of Israel, Gentiles, give clear and bold confessions of the fact that Yahweh alone is God. We've seen examples of that earlier, for instance, with the prostitute Rahab. We've seen that in other narratives as well, where people from outside of Israel, they make this bold confession. So here he does that.

He says there's no God on the earth but in Israel. And then he wants, from good motives, he wants to give a present to the prophet. He says, so accept now a present from your servant. So I don't think he means anything, you know, wrong by this. He just, he's received such a great gift that he wants to give a gift to, to Elisha. So verse 16 says that Elisha responded, as the Lord lives before whom I stand. That's that same, that same word in Hebrew, by the way.

So you're standing before me, but I, the prophet, stand before God. so I am his servant. So as the Lord lives before whom I stand, I will receive none. And then Naaman urges him to take it, but he still refuses. You know what all this is telling me, is that one, isn't it interesting that Naaman goes down into the water and comes out a monotheist. He says, I think I believe just in one God, and I think it's your God. That's the one I believe in. That is what we would say is consistent theologically with the position that we would hold, Chad, which is that sometimes you come out of that water with a little bit of faith on you,

and that's what it seems like happens with Nahum. He goes down. He doesn't want it. He don't believe it at first that he doesn't like this word, but he goes and undergoes this sevenfold kind of baptism and comes out with a confession on his lips. So put that in the file, that one away for your argument of baptism being able to create faith. You can just file that one away. So that's what I that's what I see there. And then, of course, he doesn't come out a great theologian.

He just comes out a believer. And so he's like, what kind of gift could I do to repay? and that's what this feels like right here's a gift but it's really like hey you know what i really appreciate everything you did i wanted to give you this gift and it does seem like elisha's like that's not how this god operates uh and i don't want to lead you down a road theologically that says that when this god that you're now confessing gives you a gift that then you must to repay him, because that's exactly not how this works. Yeah, that is a fantastic point. Because, I mean, that is the, it's kind of natural theology, right? That's our natural assumption.

You know, when you want something from God, you give something to him. And when God gives you something, you give something back, because this commercial or transactional way of doing things is very much the way that we conduct our daily lives. And the prophet wants to make sure that he doesn't get his theology wrong at this point yeah he's protecting him from it from the thing that you are that you would by default believe yeah yeah he just wants him to by his refusal he is underscoring the fact that this is all gift right you didn't you didn't bring anything that caused god to work this healing and you're not going to give anything to god that is as it are going to repay him for the healing that he's given to you. The reason you're healed is because

the God of Israel, the only God that there is, is a God of love, the God who loves to give to you. And so keep your gift. And this is going to become significant as the narrative unfolds, because as we're going to see, a servant of the prophet thinks the prophet has acted wrongly, And he's going to try and get a gift out of Naaman. But Elisha's like, nope, you don't need to give me anything. I will not receive anything from you because I want you to understand this is all by grace. So what does Naaman do? Well, after that refusal, he actually makes a request of the prophet.

He says, if not, so if you're not going to receive this gift, then let me take something. He says, please let there be given to your servant two mule loads of earth, for from now on your servant will not offer burnt offering or sacrifice to any god but the Lord. So no god but Yahweh. And then he adds, in this matter, may the Lord pardon your servant. When my master goes into the house of Ramon, Ramon is the Syrian god, probably another name for Hadad, the storm god. So Ramon or Hadad, whatever the Syrian god is. So when my master, that is the king, goes into Ramon's temple to worship there, leaning on my arm. So this is probably just a description of maybe the servant's role.

So when your master goes in somewhere, he's leaning on your arm. You are there to minister to him. You're there to help him, to serve him. So when that happens, when I have to go, because of my duties as general, with the king into the temple of this false god, and he leans on my arm, and I bow myself in this house of Ramon. When I bow myself in the house of Ramon, so he's leading all up to this. When this happens, the Lord pardon your servant in this matter. Now, just pause there before we get to Elisha's response. Now, if you were to just kind of describe this to me, and I didn't know Elisha's response,

and I knew other things about the prophets and what Elijah and Elisha had done, my assumption would have been that maybe there would be, I don't know, some kind of correction, some sort of mild rebuke, some sort of like, well, you can't be doing that. That's not right. You're going to have to find some other course of action because you can't place yourself into that kind of situation. name. I mean, look at what just happened to you. You were baptized. You were cleansed. You just made a monotheistic confession. And so when this happens, you're going to have to find some other way to deal with this. But that's not what the prophet says. He says in verse 19, go in peace.

Yeah. Go and go in shalom, which is quite a remarkable bit of a farewell on the part of part of the prophet. It's kind of like he is extending mercy to this Gentile whose calling, whose vocation in life necessitates that he's going to be in situations that he doesn't theologically agree with, that he may even think are just terrible situations, but the duties of his vocation require him to be there, and because Elisha knows that he does believe in the true God and that he has rejected these false gods, and he doesn't believe really that Ramon is anything but a heretical phantasm, because he believes all that, he says, well, then go in peace. Yeah, I mean, well, I think what it does, it tells you that worship is not just about you being

in a building there's certainly christians out there that would that would probably say like oh i wouldn't walk into a satanic you know temple or something like that because you know that i don't belong there and i shouldn't be there and i don't want god to be confused about what i'm doing turns out that god's not easily confused he knows whether you're worshiping or not and in this case he's like hey I have to do this this is my job but grant me pardon

in this matter and it kind of seems that Elisha's like not really anything to pardon here yeah everything's good because he doesn't say you will be pardoned in this matter before the Lord as I stand before the Lord

he says that you shall be pardoned in this matter that's not what he says he just says like go in peace is like this is like the the hebrew way to be like don't worry about it yeah we're all good god knows whether you're worshiping or you're just doing your job yeah which is uh uh it's it's it's really to me it's kind of a surprising at least on the surface but then when you when you look at it the way we've been talking about it it makes sense there's there's no sin to pardon here no uh the lord knows in whom you believe the lord knows whom you worship and i guess uh you know in regard to the two mule loads of earth

it's kind of kind of a wild thing but i suppose he understands i mean he's pretty advanced theologically at this point he does understand that uh he is on holy ground in the sense that this is the land of promise and uh he understands that he you know is going to need to take back some of that holy soil to to uh to syria so i i'm assuming what he's going to do here is to take that soil and uh put it in a certain place and what have an altar built over it that's where he's going to make his sacrifices i guess so i mean he connects this the soil with sacrifice in a way he's like i'm only i'm only going to sacrifice your god i'm going to need some mules and some carts and so i guess i guess so yeah i mean i i was trying to think if there's any

old testament passages that speak to this there certainly there was by the time you get to the first century this idea among the rabbis that uh outside the land of israel you were on unclean soil yeah so you uh one of the things that you did is when you when you got to the border of the holy land you like clean your feet you uh remove the dust from your feet because it was uh unclean soil and you were about to step into onto the holy ground so maybe that that same idea is uh is at work here in the mind this definitely feels like something that a christian would do today where they would you know chat you you went to uh yeah you went to the holy land not that long ago maybe you like go to calvary and then you know you got your little shovel and your little spade and

you put some dirt in a in a canister or something and you bring it back and then you know you you tell your friends like oh yeah actually when i pray i only i kneel right over there because see that ground right there uh that's from calvary now just so you know that doesn't mean anything and uh don't do that it doesn't it does that's not going to help god's not like oh good but we it's another thing that i think that we're kind of prone to believe i could see you know and especially at this at this period that you're saying that there is this sort of idea that this land is holy and this land is not and this kind of thing do i think that this is something that this guy even at this time needs to do probably not no no i don't either i mean just like

to piggyback on what you were saying a lot of a lot of people want to be baptized in the jordan river yeah you know so yeah that's like a complete reversal naam knows that the jordan river is nothing special christians need to learn that part of the name story where it's not actually special water's water yeah it's it's a it's all it's all the same it's the same problem he's like aren't there better rivers to be baptized in and christians are like the best river to be baptized in is the jordan and uh actually it makes the point of it is it makes no difference where the water is and just i i feel like i should clarify to our listeners too i did not bring back any soil with me so i didn't like sprinkle it under my desk here where i'm sitting to do the podcast but

i will admit that behind me i don't you can see it dan uh up there i do have uh five smooth stones that i gathered that i gathered from the uh from the brook that uh that is by the field where david kill goliath i was told that they actually like bring in truckloads of rocks because so many tourists pick those up really yeah but i don't care because believe me i i i still have my five there's someone over there that's got like a full-time job polishing up stones to be dumped over there oh i'm sure yeah yeah thousands of those disappear uh every week so i'm sure they have to replenish them after a while that was the uh the extent to which i brought back uh like a a physical natural object from uh from the land of israel chad got there and he was like

these stones are remarkably all slingshot worthy yes yeah it's funny the way that funny the way that worked okay so um that takes us through 19 and uh it seems like the story should be over at that point uh kind of like the the parable of the prodigal son you know once the son the younger son is back and they're throwing the party and fatted calf is killed and all of that it seems like the the parable should be over right but all of a sudden you realize whoa there's a there's a whole other element to this uh to this this story it's kind of like this with the case of naaman so you get to the end here and once you hear go on peace you think oh man that was a great story and it's over now we'll transition to what's next but it's not over because there is another element here

we read that when Naaman had gone from him from the prophet a short distance Gehazi the servant of Elisha the man of God said and this is like a soliloquy he's speaking to himself see my master has spared this Naaman the Syrian and I love the fact that it adds this it doesn't say he has spared Naaman, or Naaman the Syrian, but it's kind of a very kind of negative feel to this. He spared this Naaman the Syrian in not accepting from his hand what he brought. And then he adds this. He uses the Lord's name in vain. He says, as the Lord lives, I will run after him and get something from him yeah this just seems like a really bad idea uh from the jump basically this guy's saying i swear to god i'm gonna go get something from this guy i see that he's got

stuff to give elisha's like trying to make some theological point here that i don't care about at all uh i'm very interested in your gifts and so uh yeah this this seems like a guy that is not familiar with his scriptures. Yeah, and it flies in the face of everything that just happened. I mean, when you look at what not just Elisha did, but what God did for Naaman. I mean, so Elisha obviously is the authoritative voice of God. He says what to do. God heals this guy. So everything is pointing to the fact that what happened was in accordance with the will of God. And now the servant comes along and he says, you know what? I know better.

The prophet really, really messed up on this one. If he would consult with me, I would have told him what would be best. And that is, you know what? This guy that God just blessed, that God just healed, this guy that just made a monotheistic confession, he needs to pay. This needs to cost him, cost him something. Yeah, or at the very least, if he's willing to pay, you got to take it, man. What are we doing here?

Yeah, we're in a business here. Yeah. So, verse 21 says that he follows him. Gehazi follows Naaman. And when Naaman saw someone running after him, he got down from the chariot to meet him. And he said, is everything okay? And the servant says to him, yeah, everything's okay. But here's the thing. My master sent me with a message. He told me to tell you that there have just now come to me from the hill country of Ephraim, two young men of the sons of the prophets. So please give them a talent of silver and two changes of clothing.

So he just kind of digs his hole deeper and deeper here. I mean, not only has he questioned the prophet, not only has he questioned God, not only has he used the Lord's name in vain, but now he just outright lying. He's completely fabricating this story. and he's taken of course he's taken advantage of naaman in doing so so he asked for a talent of silver and two changes of clothing for these two young guys who just happened to show up supposedly right after naaman left well naaman of course he doesn't know any of this and so he actually is is extra generous he's probably kind of glad that he can do something so he turns around and gives him

two talents of silver so Gehazi asked for one talent he's like well I'm gonna give you double that I'm gonna give you two talents of silver and it says he urged him and he tied up two talents of silver in two bags and he gave him the two changes of clothes so it gives him some money gives him some some clothes and then he puts all of this on two of his servants and they actually carry it before Gehazi so Gehazi doesn't even carry this stuff he's got two servants along who are carrying this with him. Verse 24 says, when they came to the hill, he took them from their hands. So Gehazi takes the stuff from them. And then he goes and he hides it in his house and he sends the men away and they go back to where Naaman was.

And I'm assuming at this point, Gehazi thinks that, oh man, it worked. Now I've got some money. I got twice the money I asked for. Well, that worked out well. And I got two new sets of clothing. Just think of what I can do with this money. I mean, I'm set. And I got away with it. Nobody knew. Nobody suspected that I lied about this. And, you know, because everything worked out, maybe, you know, maybe God thought this was a good idea because, you know, he let me get away with it. Whatever's going through his mind after he does all this and he hides the stuff, then he goes back to his master, verse 25. He goes in and he stands before his master, and the first words out of Elisha's mouth are, where have you been, Gehazi? As soon as he asked that, he should have

known, but he responds, I didn't go anywhere. Your servant went nowhere. I mean, I was just in the house this whole time. I don't know what you're talking about. Verse 26 says that Elisha responded to him, did not my heart go when the man turned from his chariot to meet you? Was it a time to accept money and garments, olive orchards and vineyards, sheep and oxen, male servants and female servants? Therefore, the leprosy of Naaman shall cling to you and to your descendants forever so he went out from his presence a leper like snow it's a very rhetorical question here so i just wonder and like was this the time to accept all these things no response given no time for response given obviously not the time and and then you see that so what name is cleansed from

now belongs to Gehazi. That is a bummer, man. Yeah, that's a big bummer. Yeah. Yeah. Peter Lightheart in his commentary on this says he sins against the Gentile and is put into the place of a Gentile. Yeah. Yeah. He sins against Naaman and what formerly had clung to Naaman now clings to him. And so just like Naaman had been outside, literally outside of Israel, but also outside in the sense that he had this skin disease. Now Gehazi is in the same exact situation. You know, this could easily come across as just kind of a story about greed,

and certainly greed plays a large role here too. But there's also this kind of spiritual arrogance that is part of what's going on with Gehazi. Because he wants to, I mean, he really wants to in some way punish this Gentile. You know, how dare this Gentile come and receive this gift and not give anything back you know he uh he's not part of the people of god uh not to mention the fact that he's part of an enemy nation to the north and so

he definitely needs to to sacrifice something uh to to make sure he realizes what a great gift he has received from from the god of israel yeah and and you think that he should give that gift to you Yes. I mean, that's profoundly arrogant. It's like, what did you do? Right. You didn't do anything here. Didn't do anything.

No, you just happened to be in the vicinity. This didn't strike me until, I guess it was last week when I was working my way through this, that this whole kind of second half of the story makes Jesus' use of this story in Luke 4 even more fitting. You know, so he when Jesus is preaching in his hometown of Nazareth, of course, he reads Isaiah and the people are all marveling at the gracious words that are that are coming from his mouth. But then Jesus turns around and says, you know, there were a whole lot of widows in the in the time of Elijah and Elisha. But it wasn't to any of those Israelite widows that the prophet went. It was to a widow outside Israel. and I guarantee you there were plenty of people suffering from leprosy or skin disease in the

time of Naaman the Syrian yet it wasn't wasn't any of those that were healed but it was the Gentile it was it was Naaman and of course how do his fellow Jewish townspeople react well they're filled with rage because the way that Jesus has used these stories which they knew but use these stories to accent the fact that very often the gifts of God drop outside of the land of Israel into the laps of other people. And in that sort of way, Gehazi sort of is the embodiment of what the townspeople of Nazareth will be like later on. Because he thinks, you know, how dare this Gentile receive these gifts? Just like the people in Nazareth are thinking the same thing when they drive jesus away and uh try and cast him off the the side of the hill yeah you gotta love it when

jesus makes a a biblical point uh a theological point using scripture that like everyone is like super upset with but no one can argue with because it's like sitting right there in front of your face yeah there's no what are you gonna say there's no arguing this point right no no yeah I mean, it's like right there in the Bible. So, yeah, I mean, you can see how Luke 4 was, you know, that example that he used in Luke 4 is especially appropriate, given the second half of this story and then what befalls Gehazi after he has done what he did to take the gifts away from Naaman. All right, well, that takes us to the end of this chapter. So we'll get to a fairly short section here at the beginning of 2 Kings 6.

It's only seven verses. So this is when we have the raising of an axe head from the waters of the Jordan. So, you know, I think I'll just read all of it. It's fairly short. So read it, and then we'll talk about parts of it. Now the sons of the prophets said to Elisha, see the place where we dwell under your charge is too small for us. Let's go to the Jordan and each of us get there a log and let us make a place for us to dwell there. And he answered, go. Then one

of them said, be pleased to go with your servants. And he answered, I'll go. So he went with them. And when they came to the Jordan, they cut down trees. But as one was felling a log, his axe head fell into the water, and he cried out, Alas, my master, it was borrowed. Then the man of God said, Where did it fall? When he showed him the place, he cut off a stick and threw it in there and made the iron float. And he said, Take it up. So he reached out his hand and took it. I don't know if I've mentioned this much on the podcast, but I really like the translation and the commentary by Robert Alter, who is a Jewish scholar. He does a good job of trying to capture

some of the nuances of the Hebrew in English and provides a lot of good, usually helpful, footnotes with regard to the text and some of the Hebrew. But I was checking his translation commentary out this morning on this, and he disappointed me because when he talks about this, he says that what's happening here

is nothing but pure magic. That was his way of describing what happened, which I could not disagree with more vehemently for a number of reasons. Number one, the prophets never worked magic. It doesn't work that way. Magic involves the manipulation of deities to do your will, and that's never what is going on with the prophets. And this is not just a case of some hocus pocus. Everything that happens here is consistent with the way that God does miracles, Old Testament and New Testament. A word is spoken, an element, and then the outcome.

Don't say magic. I'm sure there's a lot of people, I'm sure you go to commentaries, and they'll try to bring out some deeply theological point here. or they're trying to spiritualize this in a way that stretches it too thin. And maybe Chad's going to reveal something incredibly theologically important from this. When I read this story, Chad, unless you've got something like that, what I see is that sometimes God will perform a miracle just to help someone out. and it seems to me that these guys are going and they're doing some work it's work that elijah's fine with this dude borrowed an axe to do this work the head of this thing like came off and was

like well you know fell into the into the river and that's a real problem for him because it's not like nowadays you don't just go down and pick up another axe head down at the store or whatever this is i just run down to home depot and pick up another axe so yeah no problem yeah i mean this is these kind of things are are worth something and and and they're hard to come by and they're expensive to buy and all this kind of stuff and so as i read this i see elisha god through elisha helping a guy out just this is very just to me this is very practical and uh it's just a miraculous thing where this guy was like very relieved yeah and i think that's uh that's pretty much the the point of this story i mean so you're

gonna see especially in uh the the section that follows this versus eight and following and then in the next chapter two um where elisha is heavily involved in what today we would call international politics i mean he's dealing with kings he's dealing with armies he's uh he's got But he's got some big stuff going on, right? He's dealing with some major, major political issues and political leaders. But before you get to that, what you see at the beginning of this chapter is here's a prophet. And there's a bunch of, you know, prophetic acolytes or prophetic students or whatever you want to call these sons of the prophets. This group that's gathered around Elisha.

And one of them is in a pickle. yeah you know because first of all yeah like we said i you can't just run down to lowe's or home depot and get a replacement um this is a big deal iron was not easy to come by i mean it because i mean if nothing else it shows you because he had to borrow it right it's not like this guy had an axe or you know a bunch of axes you just grab one of them and when axe head flew off he's like oh shoot well i'll go grab another one out of my out of my shop had to borrow it and uh the laws of the torah require it's not not addressing you know this particular instrument particularly but they do so you do say i believe it's exodus exodus 22 that if you you know if you borrow something

yeah here it is exodus 22 14 and 15 if something is borrowed and then you lose it so you borrow your neighbor's ox or donkey or whatever it might be and it dies or it's injured well then you who barred it you got to make full restitution yeah you can't simply say you know i can't go to your to your place dan and say you know what i need to plow but you know my my ox is is down he's got something wrong with this so it's gonna bar your ox and you're like yeah sure and then i use it and then your ox breaks his leg or dies i can't say man i'm really sorry but your ox is dead you know um hopefully you'll be able to get another one i gotta pay you back yeah so that's that's the way the law worked uh i mean we're we're like that today you know if i borrow something from you

and i break it well i'm going to replace it but this guy couldn't even afford an act we have more resources than they have back then right we have more resources this guy doesn't even have an act to begin with so he doesn't have money uh and now what's he gonna do he's so he's in a bad place and well you can see it too i mean they the language that he used it says he says he cried out alas my master it was borrowed now if i borrowed my neighbor's whatever i mean i borrow his chainsaw or whatever and then like something bad happened to it i would be like oh crap but like i don't know if like if someone was um you know if they were documenting it they would say And then Daniel cried out, alas, you know, it was barred.

Like I would start freaking out because it was borrowed. No, I'd just be like, well, that's going to be a bummer. I'm going to have to replace that or, you know, whatever. But this is obviously this guy is a little beside himself about this. Yeah. Yeah. So it's a great situation where you see this deep concern on the part of not just the profit, of course, but the God of the prophet for the very real individual needs of someone who is in dire straits.

So what does he do? Well, he says, where did it go? He said, well, right there is where it fell. So he kind of reverses gravity, I guess you could say. He throws a stick in, which is probably going to float. You know, most sticks are going to float. And that results in the iron floating as well. So it floats to the surface.

He grabs it. he's, he's good to go. So, I mean, it is a miracle like a lot of the other miracles in the sense that you have a word and you have the means that's used here. It's a stick that's thrown in. That's the means. And then you have the divine outcome. He says, take it up. He reached his hand. He took it and all was good. He was able to continue with what he, what he planned to do with it to begin with. So that's this kind of individual compassionate focus. And it's not really divorced from the bigger context that we're going to see in the narrative that follows, which we'll not really be able to get into that much at this point. But you're going to see

in verses 8 and then really through the rest of the chapter, where in this bigger scenario also, the prophet acts with compassion, which I think is a great reminder. Sometimes we have a kind of a picture of the Old Testament prophets as these like fire-breathing preachers, you know, they're always fire and damnation, you know, cursing this nation and really just lambasting the people of Israel. And yes, some of that goes on, but it's a good counterpoint to that to see that in the case of, well, not just Elisha, but Elijah before him, man, when they see people in need, they reach out. Then we see a widow who's starving. Well, they feed her. When they see a widow's son who's died, well, then they resurrect that child. When they see someone like this son of the prophet

who's in need, well, they reach out and take care of him. And then as we'll see in the next episode, In the case of a whole army of the enemy that we're going to attack, rather than destroying them, he's like, well, why don't you take care of them? Why don't you give them some food and water? Why don't you make a feast for your enemy before you send them away? So these are great examples of how God used the prophets to work good, to work acts of mercy on behalf of those who were in need. Yeah, that's great. it also tells you that uh the jordan was deeper than apparently this is true yeah yeah yeah if it's like if it was like it is a lot of times a couple feet deep well you could probably find it

yeah walk around in the water and you could find that exit you just drop this in the very deepest part of the jordan like it's gone apparently uh so yeah i don't know i'm not like chad i haven't been to the jordan recently but from what i've heard uh most of the jordan not that deep not that deep not that not that wide uh the only problem with dropping an accent might be the fact that it's so muddy it's not like you may be able to look through a clear bubbling brook in the rocky mountains and see oh there's the acid no it's more it's more like the the creeks here in texas that i'm familiar with where if it's more than six inches deep you're not going to see the bottom of it yeah it's too muddy yep all right we'll leave it right there uh next week

We will get into Elisha getting his politics going, and we'll see how he does with horses and chariots and things of that nature. But we will have to wait until next week for that. Chad, I will see you then. All right. We'll see you then. Oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh.