PREDICTING THE RISE OF A POLITICAL LEADER

Scriptural Text: 2 Kings 8:7-15

God uses prophets to predict the rise and fall of political leaders. In the following story Elisha the Prophet came to Damascus under the instruction of the Lord, to carry out a commission which the Prophet Elijah received from God at Horeb, with regard to the Hazael. When Elijah was on the mountain with his head wrapped about with his mantle of anointing, he was told to anoint Hazael king over Syria and thus punish Israel. (I Kings 19:15) Benhadad II of Damascus beseiged Samaria with 32 alies, but Ahab drove him back. (I Kings 20:1-21) A year later, he inflicted an even more severe defeat on him in the Battle of Aphek, capturing him. (v. 22-30) Ahab showed himself foolishly magnanimous in sparing Benhadad II's life, and releasing him. Benhadad II promised to return certain cities which his father captured from Ah's father Omri. Or some think "Basha." ( ch 15:18-22) and made economic concessions by allowing Israelite merchants to open shops in the bazaars of Damascus. Naaman of biblical fame, was the commander of Benhadad II's armies.

Now in this passage, Elisha before his departure had to fulfill this word from the Lord concerning the anointing of Hazael. The Prophet Elisha prophesies to Hazael at Damascus the possession of the throne. What is unusual here, is that Elisha foresees the assassination of the king, by the man he prophesies to. Yet he makes to attempt to manipulate the outcome.

"And Elisha came to Damascus; and Benhadad the king of Syria was sick; and it was told him, saying, The man of God is come hither."

Benhadad II, was the son of Benhadad I. The name "hadad" appears to be related to the Syrian god Rimmon, so Ben-hadads name would mean the "Son of Rimmon." Scripture recounts the events of the 3rd of 4 conflicts Benhadad II fought with the Northern kingdom. Syria, which became a dominant power in the region, had expanded its territory at Israel’s expense under Benhadad I (see the account of Israel’s King Baasha and Judah’s King Asa in 1 Kings 15 and 2 Chronicles 16). Syria was the dominant power of the region from this time until the Assyrians conquered them and destroyed the Northern Kingdom in 721 BC. Elisha arrived in Damascus where King Benhadad lay ill, and the servants of the king announced that Elisha was here.

"And the king said unto Hazael, Take a present in thine hand, and go, meet the man of God, and inquire of the LORD by him, saying, Shall I recover of this disease?"

The king wanted to know the future. Perhaps he felt this would better enable him to prepare in the event of sudden death. He commanded that quite a lavish gift be taken by Hazael to the Prophet Elisha and that he enquire for the king if he will die of the disease, or if his health will return to him?

"So Hazael went to meet him, and took a present with him, even of every good thing of Damascus, forty camels' burden, and came and stood before him, and said, Thy son Benhadad king of Syria hath sent me to thee, saying, Shall I recover of this disease?"

Elisha's ministry was highly respected to warrent such a gift from the leader of this nation. This was equal to a modern day prophet being gifted with a fleet of 40 automobiles, or vanloads of merchandise, by a wealthy mideastern leader. We're not told exactly what this enormous gift consisted of. This seems an extraordinary gift to send to the prophet, who would have to have to lodge the animals somewhere, unload the cargo and deterimne what was to be done with the gift. He could perhaps have sent the gift on to one of the schools of the prophets. But this would run the risk the temptation that Gehazi fell under.

"And Elisha said unto him, Go, say unto him, Thou mayest certainly recover: howbeit the LORD hath showed me that he shall surely die."

This story wwould lead one to believe that some questions may be better off unanswered. Had Benhadad not enquired of the prophet, Hazael would not have learned that the king would die. But he would probably still have been assassinated, for God determined that Hazael would rule in his stead. "And he (Elisha) settled his countenance stedfastly, until he was ashamed: and the man of God wept."

Examples of God using the election of political powers to chasten nations, especially His own people are not uncommon.

And now Jehoahaz of Israel is facing Hazael, because of his own disobedience to the Lord.

Elisha gave Hazael a long, hard look, gazing with a penetrating gave not only into the eyes of the man, but into the realm of the Spirit. What he saw there as revealed by God, so overwhelmed the prophet, that he was overcome and began to weep openly. It seems somewhat unusual that Elisha foresees the future assassination of the king, by the very man standing before him whom he prophesies to. Yet he makes to attempt to manipulate the outcome, by witholding any of this information to share it with what may seem a more reliable source, as far as the king's safety is concerned. Hazael was certainly a reliable source in that he probably returned to the palace in a rush to relay what was advantageous as far as he himself was concerned, and to cause the king to feel a certain sense of relief. He struck as the king had begun to "rest easier."

A record of Benhadad II is written in the Annals of Shalmaneser, who records that in the 11th year of his reign he defeated a combination of 12 kings of the Hittites with Benhadad at their head, and slew 10,000 men. Of this there is no record in Biblical history, but it must have been shortly before the tragedy which ended the career of the Syrian king.

"And Hazael said, Why weepeth my lord? And he answered, Because I know the evil that thou wilt do unto the children of Israel: their strong holds wilt thou set on fire, and their young men wilt thou slay with the sword, and wilt dash their children, and rip up their women with child."

Elisha having been the successor of the Prophet Elijah, knew that Elijah had been told to anoint Hazael as king. But here, Elisha did not seem to realize that although God would use this man Hazael, king of Syria, to bring judgment on his own people when they’ve gone astray, the magnitude of that judgment. (1Ki. 19:15-17) It was so difficult for Elisha to bear, that he found himself unable to refrain himself from showing the depth of emotion he felt, even in the presence of this evil man.

"And Hazael said, But what, is thy servant a dog, that he should do this great thing? And Elisha answered, The LORD hath showed me that thou shalt be king over Syria."

ki yaaseh haddabar haggadol hazzeh? But what! Thy servant this dog! That he should do this great work! Hazael remarked to Elisha's face, based onhis understanding of the prophetic word, that only a dog of a man would be capable of such behaviour.

"So he departed from Elisha, and came to his master; who said to him, What said Elisha to thee? And he answered, He told me that thou shouldest surely recover."

The servant Hazael did not relay to the king the entirety of Elisha's prophecy, but merely stated to the fact that the Prophet said that he would recover from his disease, or the king may have taken protective measures against assassination, which was a common occurance in those days.

"And it came to pass on the morrow, that he took a thick cloth, and dipped it in water, and spread it on his face, so that he died: and Hazael reigned in his stead."

The Prophet Elisha informed Hazael of the future of Benhadad II as the Lord had revealed it to him. Benhadad II in all probability was the son of Benhadad I. He is the Hadad-ezer or Hadad idri of the monuments. We see him in scripture for the first time, invading the land of Israel with a large host, in which 32 were tributary kings and horses and chariots. Elisha had disclosed through his prophetic gift, many times to the king of Israel, where Benhadad had pitched his camp.

He also smote with blindness a great host whom Benhadad II had sent with horses and chariots to seize him at Dothan, and led them into Samaria, where he saw them kindly treated and returned to their master (2 Kings 6:8-23) Some time later, Benhadad II again assembled all his host, and laid seige to Samaria. So great was the famine that the women ate their own children due to starvation. The king of Israel sent one of his men to put ELisha to death. But Elisha closed his house against him announcing that on the morrow there would be plenty in the great city. This came to pass, exactly as predicted.

Now in the passage, it had been prophesied that the king Benhadad II would surely die but not from the current ailment, and he, who was his lowly servant would become the king.

Hazael returned to his sick master, and while the man lay helplessly ill in his bed, he immediately set about fulfilling his devious plan to assassinate him. The word "thick cloth" here, speaks of a woolen cloth, which when wet and laid on the man's face, was wet enough to cause him to breathe water into his lungs causing death, or conformed to his nostrils and he smothered or suffocated as he slept.

How many times in enquiring of the Lord as to the outcome of a thing which has happened, is happening currently or which will happen in the future, we find ourselves in a state of perplexity. The disease Elisha stated will not take your life. But your life will surely be taken. Were it not for the fact that the king had placed Hazael in such a trusted position, he may have had more time to enquire exactly what it was that "would" take his life.

It's my opinion that we do not as the people of God to whom prophecies come, delve deeply enough into prophetic words. We receive them, and if they seem complex, sometimes walk away thinking that there is not much we can do, and God will work it out in His own good time.

If a prophecy you receive inadvertently involves those other than you, it would also be wise not to take this lightly, whether the word is positive or negative, as your concerned response does certainly have bearing, and can frequently summon a bit more detail from the Lord.

"And in the fifth year of Joram the son of Ahab king of Israel, Jehoshaphat being then king of Judah, Jehoram the son of Jehoshaphat king of Judah began to reign."

"Thirty and two years old was he when he began to reign; and he reigned eight years in Jerusalem."

Beginning with the fifth year of Joram, King of Israel. He reigned three years with Jehoshaphat his father, and five years alone.

"And he walked in the way of the kings of Israel, as did the house of Ahab: for the daughter of Ahab was his wife: and he did evil in the sight of the LORD."

This wife was the infamous Queen Athaliah. Through this marriage Ahab and Jehoshaphat were confederates. The friendship continued after Ahab's death.

"Yet the LORD would not destroy Judah for David his servant's sake, as he promised him to give him alway a light, and to his children."

"In his days Edom revolted from under the hand of Judah, and made a king over themselves."

"So Joram went over to Zair, and all the chariots with him: and he rose by night, and smote the Edomites which compassed him about, and the captains of the chariots: and the people fled into their tents."

"Yet Edom revolted from under the hand of Judah unto this day. Then Libnah revolted at the same time."

"And the rest of the acts of Joram, and all that he did, are they not written in the book of the chronicles of the kings of Judah?"

"And Joram slept with his fathers, and was buried with his fathers in the city of David: and Ahaziah his son reigned in his stead."

"In the twelfth year of Joram the son of Ahab king of Israel did Ahaziah the son of Jehoram king of Judah begin to reign."

"Two and twenty years old was Ahaziah when he began to reign; and he reigned one year in Jerusalem. And his mother's name was Athaliah, the daughter of Omri king of Israel."

In 2 Chron 22:2, we read forty and two years old. The original means that Ahaziah was the son of two and forty years, namely of the house of Omri, of whose seedhe was on his mother's side. He walked in the ways of that house, coming to ruin with it.

"And he walked in the way of the house of Ahab, and did evil in the sight of the LORD, as did the house of Ahab: for he was the son in law of the house of Ahab."

"And he went with Joram the son of Ahab to the war against Hazael king of Syria in Ramoth-Gilead; and the Syrians wounded Joram."

Ahaziah went with Joram to wrestle Ramath-gilead out of the hands of the Syrians, which belonged to Israel and Judah. Ahab had endeavored to do this before, and was slain there. (1 Kings 22:3)

"And king Joram went back to be healed in Jezreel of the wounds which the Syrians had given him at Ramah, when he fought against Hazael king of Syria. And Ahaziah the son of Jehoram king of Judah went down to see Joram the son of Ahab in Jezreel, because he was sick."

Hazael is first mentioned in Bible history as the high officer in service to Ben-hadad II, king of Syria (2 Kings 8:7, 1 Kings 19:15). Sent by his sick sovereign to inquire of the Prophet Elisha, who was then in Damascus, he asks for the king whether he will recover of his sickness or not. The king sent him with a gift for Elisha consisting of "even of every good thing of Damascus, forty camels' burden," and stood before the man of God with his master's question of life or death." To the question pertaining to life or death, Elisha made the following seemingly strange response:

"Go, say unto him, Thou shalt surely recover; howbeit Yahweh hath showed me that he shall surely die."

The Prophet Elisha looked steadfastly at Hazael and weeping, explained that he, Hazael would be the perpetrator of horrific crimes against humanity, which included cruelties against the children of Israel: "Their strongholds wilt thou set on fire, and their young men wilt thou slay with the sword, and wilt dash in pieces their little ones, and rip up their women with child" (2Ki 8:12).

Hazael protested against the very thought of such atosities, but Elisha assured him that Yahweh had revealed to him that he was to be king of Syria.

No sooner had Hazael delivered to his master the answer from the Prophet Elisha, than Hazael's treacherous purpose began to take shape, and he set about the task of hastening King Ben-hadad's end. "He took the cover, and dipped it in water, and spread it on his face, so that he died, having smothered: and Hazael reigned in his stead." (2Ki 8:15). The reign which began under such sinister auspices proved a long and successful one, and brought the kingdom of Syria to the zenith of its power.

Hazael soon found occasion to invade Israel. At Ramoth-gilead, which had already been the scene of a fierce conflict between Israel and Syria when Ahab met his death, Hazael encountered Joram, the king of Israel, with whom his kinsman, Ahaziah, king of Judah, had joined forces to retain that important fortress which had been recovered from the Syrians (2Ki 9:14,15). The final issue of the battle is not recorded, but Joram received wounds that obliged him to return across the Jordan to Jezreel, leaving the forces of Israel in command of Jehu, whose anointing by Elisha's deputy at Ramoth-gilead, usurpation of the throne of Israel, slaughter of Joram, Ahaziah and Jezebel, and vengeance upon the whole house of Ahab are told in rapid and tragic succession by the sacred historian (2Ki 9; 10).

Whatever was the issue of this attack upon Ramoth-gilead, it was not long before Hazael laid waste the whole country East of the Jordan--"all the land of Gilead, the Gadites, and the Reubenites, and the Manassites, from Aroer, which is by the valley of the Arnon, even Gilead and Bashan" (2 Kings 10:33; compare Am 1:3). Nor did Judah escape the heavy hand of the Syrian oppressor. Marching southward through the plain of Esdraelon, and following a route along the maritime plain taken by many conquerors before and since, Hazael fought against Gath and took it, and then "set his face to go up to Jerus" (2 Kings 12:17). As other kings of Judah had to do with other conquerors, Jehoash, who was now on the throne, bought off the invader with the gold and the treasures of temple and palace, and Hazael withdrew his forces from Jerusalem.

Israel, however, still suffered at the hands of Hazael and Ben-hadad, his son, and the sacred historian mentions that Hazael oppressed Israel all the days of Jehoahaz, the son of Jehu. So grievous was the oppression of the Syrians that Hazael "left not to Jehoahaz, of the people save fifty horsemen, and ten chariots, and ten thousand footmen; for the king of Syria destroyed them, and made them like the dust in threshing" (2 Kings 13:1-7). Forty or fifty years later Amos, in the opening of his prophecy, recalled those Syrian campaigns against Israel when he predicted vengeance that was to come upon Damascus. "Thus saith Yahweh .... I will send a fire into the house of Hazael, and it shall devour the palaces of Ben-hadad" (Amos 1:3,4).

Already, however, the power of Syria had passed its meridian and had begun to decline. Events of which there is no express record in the Biblical narrative were proceeding which, ere long, made it possible for the son of Jehoahaz, Joash or Jehoash, to retrieve the honor of Israel and recover the cities that had been lost (2 Kings 13:25). For the full record of these events we must turn to the Assyrian annals preserved in the monuments. We do read in the sacred history that Yahweh gave Israel "a saviour, so that they went out from under the hand of the Syrians" (2 Kings 13:5).

The annals of the Assyrian kings give us clearly and distinctly the interpretation of this enigmatic saying. The relief that came to Israel was due to the crippling of the power of Syria by the aggression of Assyria upon the lands of the West. From the Black Obelisk in the British Museum, on which Shalmaneser II (860-825 BC) has inscribed the story of the campaign he carried on during his long reign, there are instructive notices of this period of Israelite history. In the 18th year of his reign (842 BC), Shalmaneser made war against Hazael. On the Obelisk the record is short, but a longer account is given on one of the pavement slabs from Nimroud, the ancient Kalab. It is as follows: "In the 18th year of my reign for the 16th time I crossed the Euphrates. Hazael of Damascus trusted to the strength of his armies and mustered his troops in full force. Senir (Hermon), a mountain summit which is in front of Lebanon, he made his stronghold. I fought with him; his defeat I accomplished; 600 of his soldiers with weapons I laid low; 1,121 of his chariots, 470 of his horses, with his camp I took from him. To save his life, he retreated; I pursued him; in Damascus, his royal city, I shut him up. His plantations I cut down. As far as the mountains of the Hauran I marched. Cities without number I wrecked, razed, and burnt with fire. Their spoil beyond count I carried away. As far as the mountains of Baal-Rosh, which is a headland of the sea (at the mouth of the Nahr el-Kelb, Dog River), I marched; my royal likeness I there set up. At that time I received the tribute of the Syrians and Sidonians and of Yahua (Jehu) the son of Khumri (Omri)" (Ball, Light from the East, 166; Schrader, COT, 200 f).

From this inscription we gather that Shalmaneser did not succeed in the capture of Damascus. But it still remained an object of ambition to Assyria, and Ramman-nirari III, the grandson of Shalmaneser, succeeded in capturing it, and reduced it to subjection. It was this monarch who was "the saviour" whom God raised up to deliver Israel from the hand of Syria. Then it became possible for Israel under Jehoash to recover the cities he had lost, but by this time Hazael had died and Ben-hadad, his son, Ben-hadad III, called Mari on the monuments, had become king in his stead (2 Kings 13:24,25).

Tom Campbell is married to Alana, lives in Washington state and they have six children.

Email: thomas.campbell1@worldnet.att.net