Life from Dead Bones Text: 2 Kings 13:14-21
Introduction: The Scandal of Partial Obedience
We live in an age that loves the idea of a bargain, especially a spiritual one. We want the maximum benefit for the minimum investment. We want the crown without the cross, the resurrection without the crucifixion, and the victory without the fight. We approach the victorious Christian life like a timid shopper, willing to take what is easily within reach but unwilling to stretch for the prize that is on the top shelf. We want just enough salvation to keep us out of Hell, just enough sanctification to keep us respectable, but not so much that it costs us anything dear.
This passage is a profound rebuke to that kind of thinking. It is a story of contrasts, a story of great power and great weakness sitting side by side. We see a dying prophet, full of the power of God. We see a living king, full of fear and half-hearted faith. We see a symbolic act that promises total victory, followed by a symbolic failure that guarantees only a partial one. And then, just when the story seems to end in the melancholy reality of death and compromise, God gives us a bizarre and glorious exclamation point, a miracle so strange it forces us to reconsider everything.
The central issue here is the collision between God's boundless willingness to give victory and man's cramped, calculating reluctance to receive it. God offers a blank check, and King Joash writes it out for a pittance. This is a story about the tragedy of settling. It is a warning to all of us who have been offered complete victory in Jesus Christ. The power for total conquest is available. The hands of the prophet are on our hands. The question is, how many times will we strike the ground?
The Text
Now Elisha became sick with the illness of which he was to die. So Joash the king of Israel came down to him and wept over him and said, "My father, my father, the chariots of Israel and its horsemen!"
And Elisha said to him, "Take a bow and arrows." So he took a bow and arrows.
Then he said to the king of Israel, "Put your hand on the bow." And he put his hand on it, then Elisha placed his hands on the king's hands.
And he said, "Open the window toward the east," and he opened it. Then Elisha said, "Shoot!" And he shot. And he said, "Yahweh's arrow of salvation, even the arrow of salvation over Aram; for you will strike the Arameans at Aphek until you have consumed them."
Then he said, "Take the arrows," and he took them. And he said to the king of Israel, "Strike the ground," and he struck it three times and stood still.
So the man of God was angry with him and said, "You should have struck five or six times, then you would have struck Aram until you would have consumed it. But now you shall strike Aram only three times."
And Elisha died, and they buried him. Now the marauding bands of the Moabites would enter into the land in the spring of the year.
Now it happened that they were burying a man, and behold, they saw a marauding band; and they cast the man into the grave of Elisha. And when the man touched the bones of Elisha he became alive and stood up on his feet.
(2 Kings 13:14-21 LSB)
The Dying Prophet and the Weeping King (v. 14)
The scene opens with a stark dose of reality.
"Now Elisha became sick with the illness of which he was to die. So Joash the king of Israel came down to him and wept over him and said, 'My father, my father, the chariots of Israel and its horsemen!'" (2 Kings 13:14)
Elisha, the great miracle worker, the man who called down fire, cleansed lepers, and raised the dead, gets sick and dies. This is important. God's power in His servants does not grant them immunity from the consequences of the fall. Prophets are mortal. They inhabit frail bodies of dust. This is not a failure of Elisha's faith; it is the ordinary course of life this side of glory. God's power is made perfect in weakness, and there is no greater weakness than the deathbed.
King Joash, a man who did evil in the sight of the Lord, comes to the prophet's side. In this moment of crisis, with the Aramean threat looming, he has a moment of profound spiritual clarity. He weeps and cries out, "My father, my father, the chariots of Israel and its horsemen!" These are the very words Elisha himself cried out when Elijah was taken up. Joash understands, at least for a moment, that the true defense of Israel is not its army but the presence of God's prophet. The man of God is the nation's true defense system. He is weeping because his spiritual armor is about to die. It is a remarkable confession from a wicked king. He knows where the real power is, even if he doesn't live like it.
A Prophetic Sign-Act (vv. 15-17)
Elisha, on his deathbed, is still on duty. He directs the king in a living parable.
"And Elisha said to him, 'Take a bow and arrows.' ... 'Put your hand on the bow.' And he put his hand on it, then Elisha placed his hands on the king's hands... 'Open the window toward the east,' and he opened it. Then Elisha said, 'Shoot!' And he shot." (2 Kings 13:15-17)
This is not magic; it is a sacrament of war. God works through means. The king must take up the weapons of warfare. Faith is not passivity. But the king's strength is insufficient. The frail, dying hands of the prophet are placed over the strong hands of the king. This is a picture of the gospel. Our work, our effort, our fight, must be empowered by the divine. God's strength is laid over our weakness. Without the prophet's hands, it is just a king shooting an arrow out a window. With the prophet's hands, it becomes a divine ordinance.
The arrow is shot eastward, toward Aram. And Elisha interprets the sign: "Yahweh's arrow of salvation, even the arrow of salvation over Aram; for you will strike the Arameans at Aphek until you have consumed them." The victory belongs to Yahweh. It is His arrow, His salvation. The promise is explicit and total: victory "until you have consumed them." God is not offering a minor skirmish or a temporary reprieve. He is offering complete and total annihilation of the enemy. The terms of victory are laid out, clear as day.
The Test of Faith (vv. 18-19)
What follows is the pivot upon which the whole story turns. The first act was a command and an interpretation. This next act is a test.
"Then he said, 'Take the arrows,' and he took them. And he said to the king of Israel, 'Strike the ground,' and he struck it three times and stood still." (2 Kings 13:18)
The command is open-ended. "Strike the ground." How many times? For how long? Elisha doesn't say. This is where the king's heart is revealed. He is being asked, in effect, "How much victory do you want? How much do you believe the promise I just gave you?" The promise was for total consumption of the enemy. A man who truly believed that would have beaten that ground with a holy fury, striking again and again and again, claiming every ounce of the victory promised.
But Joash strikes three times and stops. It is a polite, measured, reasonable effort. It is the action of a man who is hedging his bets. Perhaps he felt awkward. Perhaps he thought three was a respectable number. Whatever his reason, his action revealed a faith that was shallow and a zeal that was lukewarm. He did what was asked, but no more. He obeyed the letter, but missed the spirit entirely.
"So the man of God was angry with him and said, 'You should have struck five or six times, then you would have struck Aram until you would have consumed it. But now you shall strike Aram only three times.'" (2 Kings 13:19)
Elisha's anger is a righteous anger. It is the frustration of seeing God's lavish gift of grace treated with such casual indifference. The king's lack of faith placed a limit on God's deliverance. Notice, God's power was not diminished, but the reception of that power was. God was offering a six-fold victory, and Joash settled for three. This is a terrifying principle. Our half-heartedness, our spiritual lethargy, our desire for a comfortable, manageable level of holiness can cause us to forfeit the greater blessings and victories God is eager to give. We settle for a truce with certain sins when God has promised total consumption.
Life from Dead Bones (vv. 20-21)
The story concludes with the death of the prophet and one of the most astonishing miracles in all of Scripture.
"And Elisha died, and they buried him... And when the man touched the bones of Elisha he became alive and stood up on his feet." (2 Kings 13:20-21)
Elisha dies. The limited victory is prophesied. The Moabites are still raiding the land. It feels like a chapter of decline and decay. And then, in the middle of a funeral, God interrupts the ordinary course of death. A dead man, hastily thrown into Elisha's tomb to avoid a marauding band, comes into contact with the prophet's bones and is instantly resurrected.
What are we to make of this? This is not an argument for the worship of holy relics. The bones have no magical power in themselves. This miracle is God's own commentary on the preceding events. It is a divine testimony to the superabundant, overflowing power that He had invested in His prophet. The power of God in Elisha was so potent that it lingered in his very bones, a reservoir of life that death itself could not extinguish. It is God's way of saying, "The power I offered you through my servant was a resurrection power, a power of total victory over death. You settled for three strikes, but the power I offer is the power that makes dead men stand up."
This is a staggering foreshadowing of the gospel. Elisha's tomb becomes a place of life. This points us directly to another tomb, the tomb of Jesus Christ, which could not hold Him. And because He lives, all who are united to Him by faith, all who metaphorically "touch" Him, are raised from spiritual death to newness of life. The power that raised that dead Israelite is a dim shadow of the power that raises us with Christ.
Conclusion: Don't Settle for Three
This entire passage confronts us with a vital question. God, in Christ, has shot the arrow of salvation. He has secured a victory over sin, death, and Hell that is absolute and total. He has promised to sanctify us completely. He has given us His Spirit and His Word and commanded us to "strike the ground," to mortify the sin in our lives, to fight for holiness, to advance His kingdom.
The hands of our great Prophet are on our hands. The power is His. But the striking is ours. Will we be like Joash? Will we give three half-hearted blows against our pride, our lust, our bitterness, and then stop, content with a manageable level of sin? Will we settle for a partial victory, a respectable stalemate with the world, the flesh, and the devil?
Or will we believe the promise? Will we hear the prophet's anger as a loving warning and strike the ground five, six, seven times? Will we, with a holy zeal, pursue the total consumption of our sin? Will we fight with the confidence that the power at work in us is not our own, but the same power that brings life from dead bones?
The victory offered to us in the gospel is not partial. It is total. The power available to us is not limited. It is resurrection power. Let us therefore not be timid, but zealous. Let us take up the arrows and strike, and keep striking, until the enemy is consumed, all to the glory of the God who gives life to the dead.