Elisha and the Two Bears
And he went up from thence unto Bethel: and as he was going up by the way, there came forth little children out of the city, and mocked him, and said unto him, Go up, thou bald head; go up, thou bald head. And he turned back, and looked on them, and cursed them in the name of the LORD. And there came forth two she bears out of the wood, and tare forty and two children of them. – 2 Kings 2:23-24
So what’s up with this, huh?
If you believe certain people out there who’ve looked into the background of the Bible as deeply as, say, they’ve looked into subatomic physics, then what we have here is a case of some crusty old prophet getting his shorts in a wad just because 42 little kids called him “bald”. In fact, his shorts got so wadded that he called out two wild bears to kill every single one of them. Now THAT’S one mean old guy.
When you start to think about this story, though, and check things out, it’s not that simple. Let’s do that by asking some questions.
Little kids? He’s killing little kids??
No, he’s not. King James may have been a nice guy sometimes, but he didn’t always get it right.
Certain people may want you to think that Elisha put this move on kids barely old enough to stop watching Sesame Street. That’s flat out wrong. The Hebrew words used here are used in other places in the Bible of boys between twelve and thirty years old. One of those words described Isaac (Genesis 22:12) when he was in his early twenties, and Joseph (Genesis 37:2) when he was seventeen years old. It described army men in 1 Kings 20:14-15.
However old these kids were, though, they were old enough to recognize a prophet of God and insult him - which means whatever the physical age of these "children" was, their cognitive functions were advanced enough so that they should indeed have known better and should be held responsible for what they did.
As an aside, it’s also wrong to picture Elisha as a crusty old man. He went on to live 60 more years, so he must have been about the same age as these kids. (You may say, “Yeah, but he was bald so he had to be old.” We’ll get to that in a minute.)
Hey, but come on. He’s KILLING these kids.
No, that’s not true either. The word used for what was done to them (“tare”) means to break, rip or open. There’s nothing that says anyone was killed here. In fact, the word used could mean as little as a single scratch. In fact, here’s something to think about: Two bears. At least 42 kids. Okay, how did just two bears manage that? Did they go after just two, and meanwhile the other 40 or more just stood there waiting in line for their turn? What this tells us is that these kids didn’t do the smart thing and either run, or even just try to help the first people attacked get away. There’s no way 42 of them got scratched up unless they decided to go on the offensive against the bears. That sounds like a bad case of overconfidence – and like if it hadn’t been there, there’d have been a lot less than 42 people given some sort of scratch.
But all they did was make fun of his bald head!
Not so. There are a lot more serious matters going on here. Look at the context. It says 42 were hurt, but what’s a group of 42 kids doing banded together like this? In fact, if only 42 were hurt, how many were actually in the crowd in the first place? Fifty? A hundred?
But even if there were just 42 and the bears managed to bat a thousand, you have to ask yourself what so many of them were doing together. If you walked outside and there were forty-two young people gathered on the sidewalk calling you any sort of name together, are you going to think there’s nothing else bad going to happen?
Being called “baldy” wasn’t all that was up here. If Elisha was a young man, and he really was bald at this time, he may have shaved his head on purpose as a sign of mourning Elijah, who had just ascended into heaven (notice how they also said, “go on up” – maybe a reference to that ascension). In that case, they may have been making fun of his mourning, so it would be like barging into a funeral and making fun of someone crying over a person who just died that they cared about. Whatever the reason, it’s a sure bet that they had more in mind than name-calling.
In fact, think of this: Life was very hard back then. Today we’d ask, “Why weren’t these kids in school?” Back then we’d ask, “Why aren’t these kids home helping their families plant and harvest crops, watching flocks, or doing what else was needed to survive day by day?” Some scholars have compared this to a modern street gang, and that’s not far off from the truth. No, they wouldn’t be stealing the hubcaps off of chariots or anything like that, but let's try things like robbery and banditry (remember the Good Samaritan story?) and maybe theft of animals from farmsteads. That’s no mere prank in this day and age, but a very serious offense that could lead to the starvation of a family of innocents.
In this day and age, every family member was required to make a contribution in order to help the family survive - because there were no social services, no welfare checks, no supermarkets to stock up from in case your pantry was raided. So we have to ask again: Why were these kids banded together in such large numbers, and then, why were they not at home contributing to the survival of their own families? That they were banded together in such large numbers tells us that they were indeed a back-then version of a street gang --rovers who survived on their own, probably by robbing others of their lives and property; or else hoodlums banded together for the specific purpose of harming Elisha.
If you had 42 or more people coming down on you, I’ll bet you wouldn’t mind some help from a couple of bears.
(By the way, the people of Israel had been warned by God in Leviticus 26:21-22 that God would “send wild animals” against them if they didn’t listen to Him. So they were warned that things like this could happen.)
So let’s sum up what actually happened here. Elisha was walking along just minding his own business. This motivated group of at least 42 young people (of uncertain age, but old enough to know who he was and realize what that meant) insulted and jeered at him for whatever reason – maybe they were challenging his honor (in other words, according to the customs of the day, they were challenging him to defend himself and his reputation as a prophet), or maybe they were just looking for trouble. Elisha sees a threat. He asks God to deliver a just punishment. And that’s what happened.
If that happened to you, I’ll bet your shorts would be in a wad, too.