The Chosen Key Word in this Chapter is “Bones” it comes from the Hebrew Word “etsem” which means “bone.”
Elisha delivers one final prophecy from his deathbed, and even his bones carry power afterward. Welcome to Bible Life Basics Chapter Reviews, I am Chris and this is 2 Kings 13.
Jehoahaz succeeds Jehu as king of Israel, continuing Jeroboam’s sins, and God delivers Israel repeatedly into Syrian oppression as a result, though when Jehoahaz seeks the Lord, God provides a deliverer to relieve this pressure somewhat. His son Jehoash succeeds him, also continuing in sin, though he visits the now elderly, dying Elisha, weeping over him and calling him “the chariot of Israel, and the horsemen thereof,” the very words Elisha himself once spoke over Elijah.
Elisha instructs Jehoash to shoot an arrow eastward through an open window, declaring it “the arrow of the LORD’s deliverance from Syria,” then tells him to strike the ground with remaining arrows. Jehoash strikes only three times and stops, and Elisha, angry at this half-hearted response, tells him that if he had struck five or six times, he would have completely destroyed Syria, but now he will only defeat them three times.
Elisha dies and is buried, but the chapter records one final, remarkable miracle. Some time later, as men are hastily burying another body and see a band of raiders approaching, they throw the corpse into Elisha’s tomb, and the moment it touches Elisha’s “bones,” “etsem” in Hebrew, the dead man revives and stands up, a striking final testimony to the enduring power that had rested on this prophet even after his own death. The chapter closes noting that Jehoash indeed recovers Israel’s cities from Syria in three successive victories, exactly as Elisha had predicted based on his limited response.
Jehoash’s half-hearted striking of the ground, stopping at three arrows instead of striking with full, enthusiastic effort, cost Israel a complete victory over Syria that could have been theirs. This small but telling moment shows how even sincere effort, offered with limited enthusiasm rather than wholehearted commitment, can leave real blessing unclaimed.
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