“You couldn’t prove it because you don’t know that it’s true.”

In the middle of the night, I woke up with that statement in my head.

When I questioned where it came from, last week’s “Zach v. God and Elisha” case returned to me.

I hadn’t followed up with Zach the past three times I’ve seen him because I got stuck trying to build my argument. I didn’t want to admit defeat or lose the case. Because if I lost the argument, I would be failing the Lord as a disciple, and I would be failing Zach by not helping him love the Lord.

In round one, Zach was willing to consider the perspective that it may have been a mob of 20-something year old guys who were accosting Elisha.

He had some trouble accepting that the story was not just about name-calling, but deeper malicious intent is much easier to comprehend when one considers how suspicious Elisha’s claim about Elijah’s disappearance must have sounded–especially considering:

• there was essentially a bounty on Elijah’s head by Jezebel
• Elisha was the last one to see Elijah alive
• Elisha was going around wearing Elijah’s cloak and taking over his “prophet business”
• Re-telling the story in modern/relatable terms makes the situation more understandable

Luckily, Zach’s complaint does not call God’s existence into question, Zach’s belief is that the Lord is unjust because he empowered Elisha to curse the group of young men and allowed bears to maul them.

My belief is that Elisha acted in self-defence, but I got stuck because I agreed with Zach…I’m not convinced that Elisha was justified in taking a violent means to protect himself.

So, the problem is… I can’t confidently represent “my clients” because I do think Elisha used excessive force to defend himself. Because with his power, he could have just blinded the guys and gotten away. So, why did Elisha’s confrontation end with mauling? And if it’s Elisha knowingly used excessive force, why did God give him the power and ability–why would the Lord he give power and ability to someone who wasn’t mature enough to wield it or use a non-violent way to protect himself?

Do I think that God was in the wrong for giving Elisha that power?

Not necessarily, no. Because if Elisha was the only one CLOSE to worthy of taking up Elijah’s mantle, well, what else would God do? When the pickings are slim, you kind of got to take what you’ve got.

Someone needed to do the job. And as far as maturity goes, as they continue going down the path of being a prophet and doing prophet’s work, then they’ll obtain wisdom on how to do it right.

For instance, I got hung up Elisha not using non-violent means to escape because I remembered a story from earlier in the Bible. During the judgement of Sodom and Gomorrah, it was angels of the Lord who knew to just blind the people so they could escape. Elisha was a newly appointed prophet, not an Angel of the Lord well-trained in conflict resolution. He was a farm boy. Here’s how his job offer went:

At that time, he didn’t know any better. He was eager, but he came into power very suddenly–only because Elijah had lost his “saltiness” and wanted to retire.

In support of my claim that Alicia didn’t know any better, this was like his third time using his new power. The first time was when he mimicked Elijah using the cloak to make a path through the Jordan. And even when he did that, first he pretty much said, “how does this work?” And then the second time was him purifying the water for the people of Jericho using salt. And this third time was self-defence.

It shouldn’t be overlooked that the Bible typically does not shy away from clearly stating when someone dies. But in this case, it doesn’t say that the mob guys died, so the Lord probably lessened Elisha’s excessive force by NOT killing them. If they died, the book would have said so, not just that they were mauled.

Then he turned around, looked at them, and called down a curse on them in the name of the LORD. Suddenly two female bears came out of the woods and mauled forty-two of the boys. (2 Kings 2:24)

And as the definition of mauling reveals, that doesn’t necessarily mean that they died. It just means that they definitely got hurt.

Elisha probably WAS immature and used excessive force, but God should not be held liable or distrusted for it.