The Blame Shifters Text: 2 Kings 6:32-33
Introduction: The Tyrant's Tantrum
We live in a world that is allergic to personal responsibility. When things go wrong, when the consequences of our own foolishness and rebellion come home to roost, the first instinct of fallen man is to find someone else to blame. The first man, Adam, blamed his wife, and by implication, the God who gave her to him. And his sons have been perfecting the art of blame-shifting ever since. Our passage today is a master class in this particular brand of sinful folly. We are in the middle of a horrific famine in Samaria, a famine that God has sent as a covenantal curse for Israel’s rampant idolatry. The situation is dire, so dire that mothers are boiling their own children for food. And the king of Israel, Jehoram, a man steeped in the wicked traditions of his father Ahab, finally has his great theological insight. He decides who is to blame. And it's not him. It's not his idolatrous policies. No, it is God, and by extension, God's prophet, Elisha.
This is how tyranny always works. The state creates a crisis through its own sin and incompetence, and then, when the people are suffering, it points its finger at the righteous and at God Himself. The king's response is not repentance, but rage. It is not humility, but homicidal fury. He wants to solve a problem of the heart by taking off a head. This is the logic of the world. It is the logic of every godless revolution. When the consequences of your rebellion against God become unbearable, you don't repent. You double down. You try to kill the messenger who speaks God's truth. You try to silence the voice of God Himself.
But as we will see, God's prophet is not intimidated. The man who has seen the heavenly armies is not frightened by one earthly king, especially not a king who is flailing about in a self-inflicted disaster. Elisha sits calmly in his house with the elders, and with supernatural insight, he exposes the king's foolish and wicked plot. This passage is a collision of two worldviews: the world of the frantic, blame-shifting tyrant, and the world of the serene, God-trusting prophet. It is a lesson in where to place the blame, and where to place your trust, when the world is falling apart.
The Text
Now Elisha was sitting in his house, and the elders were sitting with him. And the king sent a man from his presence; but before the messenger came to him, he said to the elders, “Do you see how this son of a murderer has sent to take away my head? Look, when the messenger comes, shut the door and hold the door shut against him. Is not the sound of his master’s feet behind him?” While he was still speaking with them, behold, the messenger came down to him and he said, “Behold, this evil is from Yahweh; why should I wait for Yahweh any longer?”
(2 Kings 6:32-33 LSB)
The Prophet's Calm (v. 32a)
We begin with a scene of remarkable tranquility in the midst of chaos.
"Now Elisha was sitting in his house, and the elders were sitting with him." (2 Kings 6:32a)
Outside the walls of this house, a city is starving. People are desperate. The king is in a murderous rage. But here, in the presence of God's prophet, there is order. Elisha is not pacing the floor. He is not wringing his hands. He is sitting. And he is not alone; he is with the elders. This is a picture of the church in the midst of a collapsing culture. The world outside is frantic, panicked, and looking for scapegoats. But the people of God are to be found gathered, sitting under the authority of God's Word, represented here by the prophet. They are calm because their God is sovereign. They are not surprised by the calamity, because God had warned them for centuries in His law that this is exactly what would happen if they turned to idols. The world sees chaos, but the man of God sees the covenant being worked out with terrifying precision.
This is a profound lesson for us. When our nation spirals into madness, when the consequences of our collective apostasy begin to bite, the place for the righteous is not in the frantic mobs on the street, but gathered together, calmly receiving the Word of the Lord. Our peace does not come from our circumstances, but from our God, who rules over all circumstances.
The Tyrant's Folly Exposed (v. 32b)
Into this calm scene, the king's frantic rage intrudes, but Elisha is already a step ahead of him.
"And the king sent a man from his presence; but before the messenger came to him, he said to the elders, “Do you see how this son of a murderer has sent to take away my head? Look, when the messenger comes, shut the door and hold the door shut against him. Is not the sound of his master’s feet behind him?”" (2 Kings 6:32b)
Elisha demonstrates the gift of prophecy. God gives him a supernatural word of knowledge. Before the king's hitman arrives, Elisha knows he is coming and what his mission is. This is not parlor-trick fortune-telling. This is God demonstrating to the elders, and to us, that He is in complete control. The king thinks he is acting in secret, but there are no secrets before the Lord of hosts. The king's most private counsels are public knowledge in the courts of heaven.
Notice how Elisha identifies the king: "this son of a murderer." This is a direct reference to his father, Ahab, who was infamous for his murder of Naboth to steal his vineyard. But it's more than just a statement of parentage. In Hebrew thought, to be the "son of" something is to share its character. Elisha is saying that King Jehoram is not just the biological son of a murderer; he is a chip off the old block. He has the same murderous heart, the same tyrannical impulse. When things don't go his way, his solution is to kill the one who speaks the truth. This is the spirit of Cain, the spirit of Ahab, and the spirit of every godless ruler who cannot bear to be told he is wrong.
Elisha's instructions are simple and practical: "shut the door and hold the door shut against him." He is not telling them to take up arms. He is simply telling them to refuse to cooperate with the king's wicked order. This is a form of righteous civil disobedience. The king has sent a man to perform an unlawful execution, and Elisha and the elders are right to refuse him entry. They are obeying God rather than man.
And then Elisha reveals something else: "Is not the sound of his master’s feet behind him?" The king is so impatient, so eager to see the prophet dead, that he is following right behind his own messenger. He couldn't even wait for the news. This reveals the frantic, irrational nature of his rage. He is a man completely undone by his circumstances, lashing out like a cornered animal.
The Blasphemous Complaint (v. 33)
Finally, the messenger arrives, and with him, the king himself. He speaks the line that is the very heart of this passage.
"While he was still speaking with them, behold, the messenger came down to him and he said, “Behold, this evil is from Yahweh; why should I wait for Yahweh any longer?”" (2 Kings 6:33)
Here we have the central lie of the unrepentant heart. The king says two things, one of which is true and one of which is a damnable lie. First, the truth: "Behold, this evil is from Yahweh." He is correct. God is sovereign over this famine. As God says elsewhere, "Does disaster come to a city, unless the LORD has done it?" (Amos 3:6). This is not some random act of nature. This is the covenant-keeping God of Israel bringing the curses of Deuteronomy 28 down upon a rebellious people. They had chosen the curse, and God was faithfully giving them what they chose. So far, the king's theology is sound, if incomplete.
But then comes the lie, the blasphemous conclusion: "why should I wait for Yahweh any longer?" This is the logic of a fool. He correctly identifies God as the source of his calamity, but he draws precisely the wrong conclusion. The right response to being disciplined by God is repentance. It is to say, "This evil is from the Lord because of our sin, therefore let us humble ourselves and cry out to Him for mercy." But the king's response is to say, "This evil is from the Lord, therefore He is my enemy. He is a cruel tyrant, and there is no point in trusting Him or waiting for Him to act."
He blames God for the consequences of his own sin. He is like a rebellious teenager who gets grounded by his father and then complains about what a terrible father he has. He doesn't see the famine as a just punishment designed to bring him to repentance; he sees it as an arbitrary act of divine malice. And because he sees God as the problem, his solution is to give up on God entirely. "Why should I wait for Yahweh?" is the cry of the faithless. It is the anthem of the apostate. It means, "I'm done with God. His promises are empty. His character is cruel. I'm going to find my own solution." And his immediate solution, of course, was to kill God's prophet.
Conclusion: The Patience of the Saints
This scene sets up the dramatic deliverance that is to come in the next chapter. But the lesson for us here is profound and deeply relevant. We are living in a nation that has, for generations, sown the wind. We have legalized the murder of the unborn, celebrated sexual perversion, and taught our children to be godless materialists. And we are now beginning to reap the whirlwind. Our society is coming apart at the seams. And as things get worse, you will hear the cry of King Jehoram everywhere.
Some will rightly say, "This trouble is from the Lord. This is a judgment from God." But many of them will draw the same wicked conclusion: "Therefore, God is not good. Why should we wait for Him?" They will blame God for the mess they made. They will look for political saviors, technological fixes, or revolutionary violence. They will try to solve a spiritual cancer with a political band-aid. And they will hate the true prophets of God who insist that the only way out is the way down, the way of repentance and humble faith.
Our task, as the church, is to be like Elisha and the elders. We are to be sitting, gathered, and calm in the storm. We must have the spiritual discernment to see the foolishness and rage of the world for what it is. And we must have the courage to hold the door shut against its wicked demands. But most of all, we must reject the king's blasphemous question. When the world asks, "Why should I wait for Yahweh any longer?" our answer must be clear.
We wait for Yahweh because He is sovereign, and He is good. We wait for Him because this calamity, which He has sent, is not the random flailing of a cosmic tyrant, but the loving discipline of a Father. We wait for Him because He has promised that if we humble ourselves, He will heal our land. We wait for Him because He is the only one who can bring bread out of starvation, and life out of death. We wait for Him because He has already sent the ultimate deliverance. The world was starving in its sin, and God sent His own Son, the Bread of Life. And though wicked men, sons of murderers, took His head, God raised Him from the dead on the third day.
Therefore, we wait. We do not wait passively, but actively, in faith, in prayer, and in obedience. We wait with the confident expectation that the God who is sovereign over the famine is also sovereign over the feast to come. We wait for the Lord, we are of good courage, and He shall strengthen our hearts. We wait, I say, on the Lord.