We now return to a couple of the kings of Israel, and true to form "they did evil in the eyes of the Lord", the hallmark of the kings of Israel.
Jehoahaz continued in the sins of Jeroboam, and so led Israel to continue sinning as well. Both Jehoahaz and the people of Israel suffered as a result. So we see that it matters what leaders do. Leaders can set those under them on good or an evil path. Our own leaders have a lot to answer for, and if we are in any positions of leadership we need to recognise that we have a great responsibility.
At the same time the people were responsible for their own actions as well. They did not have to follow the lead of the king. We have a duty to submit to authorities, but we have a greater duty to obey the Lord, and when the two come into conflict we must chose the Lord.
So Hazael and Ben-Hadad were allowed to have power over Israel.
It then says that Jehoahaz turned to the Lord for help and the Lord answered, even though Israel did not turn away from most of her sins. The Lord is more merciful than we ever imagine. People paint a picture of God as vengeful and talk about hell as being unjust. At the last judgement there will be no one who is surprised at the sentence, the only surprise will be that God was willing to be so merciful for so long.
Little is said about the Jehoash, the important thing is that he did evil in the eyes of the Lord. The other events are recorded in the Annals of the Kings of Israel. Now look at our own lives. What is really important? We worry about all sorts of things, but what really matters is whether or not we living a life worthy of the Lord (Eph 4:1).
Elisha is about to die. Jehoash seems to be concerned about Elisha. It is not clear how genuine this concern was. Maybe he realised that Elisha was a man of God and suspected that having a man of God was the only thing that was preserving Israel at all. Elisha tells the king to shoot some arrows, which he did. This was a sign of victory over the Arameans, Then he told the king to strike the ground, which he did, but only three times. Elisha wanted him to have struck the ground six times. Now he didn't say this explicitly, but the inference is that Jehoash was really just humouring the prophet, not acting out of committed obedience to the word of God.
Even in death Elisha continued to have a miraculous effect. Some towns were retaken from Israel's enemies.
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