Covenant Anchor in a Storm of Sin
Introduction: The Stubborn Grace of God
We live in an age that has a profound misunderstanding of grace. To the modern mind, grace is a sort of sentimental indulgence, a divine willingness to look the other way, to grade on a curve. It is a soft, squishy thing, easily manipulated and frequently presumed upon. But the grace of God in Scripture is nothing of the sort. It is a fierce, rugged, and sovereign thing. It is a granite cliff in a hurricane. It is the immovable object that meets the irresistible force of our sin, and it does not budge. This is because the grace of God is not rooted in our performance, our potential, or our promises. It is rooted in His own character and His own covenant. It is rooted in promises He made to dead men centuries before.
This is the story we come to in 2 Kings. Israel is in a death spiral. King after king has done evil in the sight of the Lord. They have institutionalized idolatry, they have abandoned the law, and they have become, for all practical purposes, indistinguishable from the pagan nations around them. And as a direct result, God has brought the hammer down. He has used the pagan king Hazael of Aram as His rod of discipline, and the oppression has been relentless. By every standard of human justice and fairness, God would be entirely justified in wiping them off the map. He would be right to say, "The covenant is broken, the deal is off. You are on your own."
But that is not what He does. And the reason He does not is the central point of our text. God's memory is longer than our sin streak. His commitment to His own name is greater than our commitment to our own rebellion. What we see here is not a story about the worthiness of Israel, but about the worthiness of God. We see that God's actions in history are not reactive, but covenantal. He is not making it up as He goes along. He is working a plan that He established in eternity past and swore on oath to Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob. This passage is a potent reminder that our security rests not in our grip on God, but in His grip on us, a grip established by an unbreakable, unilateral, and gracious covenant.
The Text
Now Hazael king of Aram had oppressed Israel all the days of Jehoahaz. But Yahweh was gracious to them and had compassion on them and turned to them because of His covenant with Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, and would not bring them to ruin or cast them from His presence until now. Then Hazael king of Aram died, and Ben-hadad his son became king in his place. Then Jehoash the son of Jehoahaz took again from the hand of Ben-hadad the son of Hazael the cities which he had taken in war from the hand of Jehoahaz his father. Three times Joash struck him and recovered the cities of Israel.
(2 Kings 13:22-25 LSB)
Oppression and the Unseen Anchor (v. 22-23)
We begin with the grim reality and the glorious reason it did not have the final say.
"Now Hazael king of Aram had oppressed Israel all the days of Jehoahaz. But Yahweh was gracious to them and had compassion on them and turned to them because of His covenant with Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, and would not bring them to ruin or cast them from His presence until now." (2 Kings 13:22-23)
The first verse sets the historical scene. The oppression was not a brief skirmish; it was a long, grinding affliction that lasted for an entire generation, "all the days of Jehoahaz." This was God's righteous judgment. Israel had sown the wind of idolatry, and they were reaping the whirlwind of Hazael. God had raised up this pagan king as His instrument of discipline, just as He had told Elijah He would (1 Kings 19:15). This is a crucial point: God is sovereign over the good guys and the bad guys. He moves the pieces on the chessboard of history, and both the white knights and the black rooks serve His ultimate purpose. Hazael thought he was building his own empire, but he was simply a tool in the hand of Yahweh to chastise His disobedient children.
Then comes one of the great "buts" of the Old Testament. The situation is bleak, the judgment is deserved, the oppression is total. "But Yahweh..." That conjunction changes everything. The reason for the shift is not found in Israel. They had not suddenly become righteous. They had not launched a great spiritual revival. The reason is found entirely in God. Three words are used to describe His disposition: gracious, compassion, and turned. He was "gracious," meaning He gave them favor they did not earn. He had "compassion," meaning He felt their misery and was moved by it. And He "turned to them," an expression of renewed favor and attention.
And why? The text is explicit. It was not because of their present performance but because of His past promise. It was "because of His covenant with Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob." This is the bedrock. This is the anchor of redemptive history. Centuries earlier, God had made an unconditional promise to these patriarchs to give them a land, to make them a great nation, and to bless the world through them (Genesis 12, 17, 26, 28). That covenant was not a bilateral agreement between two equal parties. It was a unilateral oath sworn by God Himself. God's reputation was on the line. If Israel were to be utterly destroyed, it would look as though God's promises had failed. And God will not allow His name to be dishonored or His promises to be voided.
Therefore, He "would not bring them to ruin or cast them from His presence until now." This phrase "until now" is fascinating. It signifies that God's patience, while vast, is not infinite within the terms of the old covenant structure. There is a limit. He is restraining the full consequences of their sin for a time, holding back utter destruction because the covenant promises have not yet reached their fulfillment in Christ. This is a stay of execution, not a full pardon. It reminds us that God's grace in the Old Testament was always pointing forward to the final settlement that would be made at the cross. He was forbearing with their sin, holding it back, until the time when that sin would be dealt with once and for all in the person of His Son.
Sovereign Transitions and Partial Victories (v. 24-25)
God's grace is not just an abstract feeling; it manifests itself in the dirt and grit of history, in the changing of kings and the shifting of borders.
"Then Hazael king of Aram died, and Ben-hadad his son became king in his place. Then Jehoash the son of Jehoahaz took again from the hand of Ben-hadad the son of Hazael the cities which he had taken in war from the hand of Jehoahaz his father. Three times Joash struck him and recovered the cities of Israel." (2 Kings 13:24-25)
The first step in Israel's relief is the death of the oppressor. "Hazael king of Aram died." Just like that. The great scourge of Israel, the mighty conqueror, breathes his last. God, who raises up kings, also puts them down. His timing is perfect. The instrument of judgment had served its purpose, and so it was removed from the board. His son, Ben-hadad, takes his place, and we can infer from the subsequent events that he was a lesser man than his father, a weaker ruler.
This political change creates the opportunity for Israel's king, Jehoash (or Joash), to act. And he does. He goes on the offensive and recovers the cities that his father had lost. The tide begins to turn. The oppression is lifted. But notice the detail: "Three times Joash struck him." This is not a random number. It is a direct fulfillment of the prophetic sign-act that had just occurred at the deathbed of Elisha earlier in this very chapter (2 Kings 13:18-19). Elisha had told Joash to strike the ground with arrows. Joash, in a fit of half-hearted faith, struck the ground only three times. A furious Elisha told him that his partial obedience would result in partial victory. He would defeat Aram three times, but he would not utterly destroy them.
And here we see it come to pass exactly as prophesied. God is gracious because of His covenant, but the extent to which His people experience the blessings of that grace is often conditioned by their faith and obedience. Joash gets deliverance, but it is a limited deliverance. He gets relief, but not final victory. This is a picture of a lukewarm faith. He believed enough to get started, but not enough to go all the way. He wanted God's help, but he was not zealous for God's full purpose. This is a standing warning to the church in every age. God's promises are sure, but we can truncate our own enjoyment of them through a timid, half-hearted, calculating faith that is content with three victories when God was offering to give us six.
The Gospel According to 2 Kings
This small slice of history in a backwater kingdom thousands of years ago is a brilliant illustration of the gospel. For we too were under a relentless oppressor. We were held captive by a tyrant far more terrible than Hazael, the tyrant of sin and death. We were oppressed "all the days" of our lives in rebellion, and God's judgment against us was entirely just. There was nothing in us that merited a reprieve. We were spiritually bankrupt, rebellious, and hostile to God.
"But God..." This is the turning point of our story as well. "But God, being rich in mercy, because of the great love with which he loved us, even when we were dead in our trespasses, made us alive together with Christ, by grace you have been saved" (Ephesians 2:4-5). Why did He do this? Not because of our performance, but because of His promise. He did it because of a covenant, an eternal covenant made within the Trinity before the foundation of the world. He did it because of the covenant promises that find their "Yes" and "Amen" in Jesus Christ.
God looked upon us in our miserable state, and He was gracious. He had compassion. He turned His face toward us. He did this because of a promise He made not to Abraham, but to His own Son, who is the true seed of Abraham. And in the fullness of time, God dealt with our oppressor. On the cross, Jesus Christ met the true Hazael, Satan himself, and He disarmed him, making a public spectacle of him, triumphing over him by the cross (Colossians 2:15). The tyrant is dead. His power is broken.
And now, we are called to take back the territory. We are called, like Joash, to fight. But unlike Joash, we are not to be content with partial victories. We are not to strike the ground three times and quit. We are called to a whole-hearted faith, to pursue holiness, to mortify sin, to take every thought captive to the obedience of Christ. God has promised us not just three victories, but total victory. He who began a good work in us will bring it to completion at the day of Jesus Christ (Philippians 1:6).
The covenant with Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob was the anchor that held Israel fast through the storms of their own sin. It kept them from being utterly destroyed. But that covenant was a shadow. The reality is the new covenant in Christ's blood. If the shadow was that strong, how much more secure is the substance? Our hope does not rest on our fluctuating faith or our spotty obedience. It rests on the unshakeable, unbreakable, eternal covenant of grace, sealed with the blood of the Son. God was faithful to a rebellious Israel because of a promise He made to their fathers. How much more will He be faithful to us, who have been united by faith to His beloved Son?