Elisha's True Prophecy in 2 Kings 3

Abstract

2 Kings 3 recounts the story of rebellion against Israel by the king of Moab. Israel, together with its allies Judah and Edom, leads punitive expedition that invades and occupies most of the rebel territory. The rebellion is ultimately successful, however, after Israel abruptly breaks off its siege of the Moabite king's last stronghold and returns home. The reason given is great anger that befell them after the Moabite king sacrificed his son on the city wall. The biblical account leaves two mysteries unsolved: why Israel, on the brink of victory, gave up the fight, and why the prophet Elisha, who had foretold and on whose predictions the allied armies relied, made false prophecy. It is the second question that I wish to address in this note.1 The discomfort of commentators with the failed prophecy is illustrated by Burke O. Long, who writes that certain thematic inconsistencies, or tensions, lurk beneath the surface of the narrative. He then invokes the customary stock-in-trade of the biblical commentator-the incompetent redaction of two inconsistent traditions. The oracleactualization narrative, which demanded total victory, shaped but failed to eliminate the stubborn vestige of an earlier tradition recounting incomplete victory.2 Incomplete victory is euphemism, as is Long's earlier description of the outcome as a less than total defeat of Moab.3 The plain fact is that Israel lost the war. For Joe M. Sprinkle, this does not mean that Elisha's prophecy failed. His reasoning is that Israel was being punished for violating the rules of law laid down in Deut 20:1-20 by cutting down fruit trees and not offering peace terms. What Elisha did not say was that after Israel fulfilled these prophecies, YHWH would judge them for doing what Elisha predicted they would do.4 Assuming that Sprinkle is correct in regarding Israel's conduct as violation of the rules of war, and assuming that Deuteronomy's laws applied,5 his interpretation is still to be rejected, because it does not conform to the text of the prophecy. Sprinkle states: Indeed, the narrator does portray Elisha's prophecies as coming true: the trenches dug by the Israelites did fill with water apart from rain. . . . Moreover, Israel did strike and destroy cities, [emphasis added] cut down fruit trees, stop up wells, and ruin fields with stones just as Elisha predicted (3,19.25).6 That is not what is predicted in 2 Kgs 3:19. The text explicitly refers to every fortified city, and Qir-Hareshet was certainly fortified city. The prophecy as explained by Sprinkle did not come true, because divine punishment intervened too soon, when the last stronghold was still standing. It is my view that Elisha's prophecy was fulfilled to the letter. Given Elisha's patent hostility to King Jehoram, it is not surprising that he wished to see Israel's campaign fail.7 He did not, however, offer deliberately false prophecy. Such tactic was possible on the part of YHWH, but would have been explicitly stated, as in the case of the prophet Micaiah in 1 Kgs 22:19-23. Elisha made true prophecy: it was the misfortune, or misguidedness, of King Jehoram, that he failed to interpret the words of the prophecy correctly. Elisha made number of consecutive predictions: 1. The wadi will fill with water lor you to drink (v. 17). 2. He shall give Moab into your hand (v. 18). 4. You will fell every good tree (v. 19). 5. You will stop up all the wells (v. 19). 6. You will spoil all the good fields with stones (v. …