Verses 10-21
2 Kings 13:10-Ecclesiastes : . The Reign of Joash or Jehoash of Israel.— During this reign Elisha died. He is represented, as in 2 Kings 6, as Israel’ s champion in the great war with Syria, “ the chariots of Israel and the horsemen thereof” ( cf. 2 Kings 2:12).
2 Kings 13:16 f. The action is a piece of sympathetic magic ( cf. Exodus 17:9-2 Kings :, Joshua 8:18; Joshua 8:26), but it is something more. The Hebrews thought of the prophetic word as achieving its own fulfilment ( Isaiah 55:10 f., Ezekiel 37:4-2 Samuel :). Still more would this be so with the prophetic act, for such the king’ s act was made by Elisha’ s participation. It is not mere symbolism, it does not simply announce the future, it sets in motion the forces which are to create the future. Hence the prophet’ s anger at the king’ s slackness, when two or three more arrows would have sealed Syria’ s doom. The eastward direction is rather strange. Damascus, the object to be hit, lay more to the N. than the E. On Aphek see 1 Kings 20:26 *.
2 Kings 13:21 . In primitive psychology the bones of the dead are often believed to retain the psychical powers possessed in life. See ERE, ii. 791f.— A. S. P.]
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