>> Jen: Hi faithful listeners, good morning and welcome to the Bible Explained podcast. We're going to be talking about a really bizarre story today where a bear comes out and mauls some youths. So hold on to your seats for this one. How was your guys weekend? I hope you had a really fantastic weekend. Contact me, and let me know what you did. I do love hearing from all of you guys and you'll find my contact information listed in the
description of the episode. And if also, if you have a prayer request that you would like me to pray for, please contact me with that information as well. But let's go ahead and read, uh, Second Kings, chapter two, verses 19 through 25 today. And we're going to get into this very interesting story, actually, two very interesting stories, two miracles that Elisha does in
this short little portion that we'll be reading. So grab your cup of coffee or your cup of tea and I'll be reading out, uh, of the web version as usual. The men of the city said to Elisha, behold, please, the situation of this city is pleasant, as my LORD sees, but the water is bad and the land is barren. He said, bring me a new jar and put salt in it. So they brought it to him. He went out to the spring of waters and threw salt into it and said,
Yahweh says, I, uh, have healed these waters. There shall not be from there any more death or barren wasteland. So the waters were healed to this day according to Elisha's word which he spoke. He went up from there to Bethel. As he was going up, by the way, some youths came out of the city and mocked him and said to him, go up you baldy, go up, you baldy. He looked behind him and saw them and cursed them in Yahweh's name. Then two female bears came out of the woods and mauled 42 of the
youths. He went from there to Mount Carmel, and from there he returned to Samaria. Okay, if you've never heard this story before, you might be like, what the heck just happened? Where the bears come out and maul the 42 youths. But first, let's talk about verse 19. This is the second recorded miracle that Elisha does. It says, the men of the city said to Elisha, behold, please, the situation of this city is pleasant as my LORD sees, but the water is bad and the land
is barren. So you remember that Elisha has just taken over for Elijah. Elijah had been transported up into heaven by a whirlwind, like God just took him. And that left the role of Israel's Prophet to Elisha. So Elisha, who saw Elijah get carried away in this whirlwind, goes back to Jericho to stay there. And as he's traveling back to Jericho, he actually performs his first miracle, which was parting the Jordan river and walking across the Jordan river
on dry ground. So that was the first miracle that Elisha performed. And when I say that Elisha performed these miracles, just to let you know, it wasn't really Elisha performing. Like, obviously God was the one performing them through Elisha, just to throw that out there. But in order to just keep things simple, I will from now on, just say that Elisha performed this miracle, even though obviously God
was the one performing these miracles. But Elisha parts the Jordan river and walks across on dry ground. And some people see him do this, and they're like, well, Elisha is now the new prophet of Israel, obviously, because he just parted the Jordan river and God's spirit is rested on him. So Elisha goes into Jericho, and he's staying there for a few days. And some men come to him, and they're like, look, you know, Jericho has been rebuilt, and everything is going well
here so far. But the water is bad, and our land can't grow anything. So they come to Elisha with this problem, hoping that Elisha can fix it, perform some kind of miracle for them. Now, why would Jericho's water be bad? Well, if you read Joshua chapter six, the entire thing, which I won't read that today, you'll notice that Jericho was kind of a cursed city up until this time. And God had actually told the
Israelites not to rebuild Jericho. But of course, they didn't listen to God because they never listened to God. And there's a curse in Joshua chapter six against anybody who ends up rebuilding Jericho. It says in verse 26 of Joshua 6, at that time, Joshua pronounced this solemn cursed before the LORD is anyone who undertakes to rebuild the city at the cost of his firstborn son, will he lay its foundations at the cost of his youngest, will he set up its gates? And that actually ended up taking
place. The guy who rebuilt Jericho lost both his oldest son and his youngest son while he was building the city of Jericho. So it turned out that that curse ended up being true. And God never really wanted the city of Jericho being rebuilt. But of course, the Israelites did rebuild, uh, the city. So now this city of Jericho is rebuilt, everything's going well, but this curse still remains. That the water is no good. It's bad for growing things. It's causing the
crops to die. So Elisha performs a miracle for the residents of Jericho. He says, bring me a new jar and put some salt in it. So they brought it to him, and he went out into the spring of water and he threw salt into it and said, Yahweh says, I have healed these waters. There shall not be from there any more death or
barren wasteland. Now, I honestly don't know what the significance of throwing the salt into the water was, but a lot of times you're going to see when Elisha performs miracles, because he does end up performing quite a few miracles during his time alive. Some of the things he does doesn't make a lot of sense. I am not sure exactly what the significance of the salt really was. So if you have any ideas about what the significance of the salt
was, I'd love to hear them. So contact me and let me know what you think. But he goes out, he throws salt into the waters, and he says, Yahweh says, I have healed these waters. There shall not be from here on any more death or barren wasteland. So the curse that was on Jericho is now gone. The waters have been healed. People can live in Jericho comfortably. They can farm, they can produce animals. The water is now safe to drink and to cook with. God has healed
those waters. And notice that Elisha says that God was the one who has lifted this curse and healed the waters. And why would God do that? Because He's very merciful to people. He's merciful to His children who are living in Jericho, experiencing bad water. He cares about us. He cares about our health, and He knows that we need to eat. By performing this miracle, God was being loving and merciful to the city of Jericho.
Even though initially there was a curse on that city, that curse is now gone, and God has healed that water. So very shortly after performing this miracle for Jericho, Elisha leaves Jericho to go to Bethel. Here's what it says, he went up from there to Bethel. As he was going up, by the way, some youths came out of the city and mocked him and said to him, go up, you baldy. Go up, you baldy. He looked
behind him and saw them and cursed them in Yahweh's name. Then two female bears came out of the woods and mauled 42 of the youths. First and foremost, the word here for youths is the Hebrew word nayar. And I'll get to what the word nayar means in a second. But the web version translates nayar as youths. Even if you're not reading the web with me and you have a different version, like the NIV or the kjv. Your version will probably say either youths, boys, little boys, or little children.
That is how the majority of translations translate the word naar. And just for funsies, let's actually read this out, uh, of the King James Version. 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 bearers out of the wood and tare
40 and two children of them. Now, I grew up with the King James Version. I remember reading that story when I was a little kid and being like, wow, this story is kind of scary. It's a little intense. So reading it out of the King James, you might think that this is a story of how little children should not disrespect or make fun of their elders, otherwise God might come and maul them with bears. And that's because the King James Version translates the word naar as little
children. But what does the word nayar really mean? Well, the word nayar has actually many different meanings. It could be translated as boys or young man, or even child or little children. We actually talked about the word na'ar once before, back in the book of 2 Samuel, where David was talking about his son Absalom. If you remember the story of Absalom. Absalom was a young man, he was in his 30s, and he tried to usurp the throne and
kill King David. And King David told his soldiers, do not kill the young man Absalom. And the word used for young man was nahar. And yet absalom was a 30 something year old man when David used that word for him. David also called Solomon a na'ar several times when, uh, David was giving the throne to Solomon. And Solomon was likely in his 20s when he took the throne over from his father. Once again, the word naar was used to describe Solomon.
And there are many other uses like that in scripture where nahar actually is talking more about young men than about young children. But almost as commonly, the word nahar isn't only referring to young men, but it's also referring to servants. For example, if we turn to 1 Samuel, chapter 2, there's a story of Eli the priest. And Eli had two sons who are really nasty people. They were also priests to
God. They were doing really wicked things, disrespecting God disrespecting the temple, having inappropriate relationships with women inside the temple, just doing really terrible things. These two men were considered priests to God and also servants to God. And the word nahar is used for them. That's verse 17 in 1 Samuel, chapter 2. It says the sin of the young men, or nahar was very great in the Lord's sight, for they were treating the Lord's offerings with contempt.
So that's another usage of the word nayar was for the supposed servants of God. And actually, even earlier on in the same chapter, there's another use for the word na'ar. It was talking about these two wicked priests. Their servants were also called nayar. It says, uh, verse 12, Eli's sons were scoundrels. They had
no regard for the LORD. It was a practice that the priests that whenever any of the people offered a sacrifice, the priest's naar would come with a three pronged fork in his hand while the meat was being boiled and would plunge the fork into the pan or kettle or cauldron or pot. Whatever the fork brought up, the priest would take for himself. So there you go. There's another usage of the word nayar, which is servant of the priest.
So as you can see, there is a lot of different usages for the word nayar, not necessarily just meaning young boys. So when I looked through all of the different translations, which I did look through quite a few, I wanted to see if there was any other translation that translated 2 Kings 2 a little bit differently other than young boy or little boy or little child or something like
that. The only one I could find, which I didn't go through every single translation, only the ones I pretty much already knew of. The only translation I could find that translated it a little differently was the Living Bible translation. The Living Bible says from Jericho he went to Bethel. As he was walking along the road, a gang of young men from the city began mocking and making fun of him because of his bald head. So that version translated nayar as young men.
And I would argue that that is a moralogical translation of what we are seeing here in 2 Kings chapter 2. And on top of that, little children coming out to mock Elisha doesn't make a whole lot of sense to me because just knowing the nature of little children, they don't organize themselves that well to go make fun of a priest. Not to mention there is at least 42 of these Nayar coming and mocking
and making fun of Elisha. If there was little children making fun of Elisha, I could definitely see like two or three or four that happened to meet him on the way and make fun of his bald head. I could see that. But 42 little children organizing themselves to go purposefully meet Elisha on the way and make fun of him. That does not make a lot of sense to me. But what about teenagers? They could be considered little children. Well, sure, I think teenagers actually make a lot more sense.
But even with teenagers, you know, I'm one of the youth leaders at my youth group, we can't organize the teenagers to do anything. Like, we tell them to circle up for lesson, and they make like, a triangle, and then half the kids are, like, sitting behind other kids, and we're just like, what did you not understand about circling your chairs to listen to the lesson?
So I don't know if 42 teenagers could organize themselves either to go visit Elisha, but it's possible these could have been teenagers that came and made fun of Elisha, because teenagers back in the days of Elisha, quite honestly would be considered young men. They would honestly already be thinking about marriage, if not already married and already living in a house themselves. You know, people just grew up
a lot, uh, earlier back in these days. So, yes, I suppose teenagers could make sense for this situation. But if I could give my two cents, which I suppose I have been this whole time, I would imagine that these people confronting Elisha here were probably closer to young men and even maybe holding a position of servant of some sort. We saw in 1 Samuel that God referred to Eli's sons, you know, those terrible priests, as Nahar. So could these boys or
men be a servant of some sort? It's very possible they could have actually had the title of servant. And they organized themselves, at least 42 of them, to go meet Elisha on the way and make fun of him and attack him for his bald head. But even so, even if these young men were just making fun of the way Elisha looks because he's balding or something, why would Elisha curse them and send a bear to maul them?
Like, doesn't it say in Scripture to turn the other cheek? So what was Elisha thinking in this situation? Well, notice what these youths say here. They say, go up, you baldy. Go up, you baldy. You'll remember that last week we talked about Elisha going up into heaven by a whirlwind, and that so many people actually knew about this. This was not a secret thing. There was a bunch of people coming up to Elisha and being like, hey, did you know that your master was
going to be taken away from you today. And Elisha's like, yes, I knew. I've been told this a hundred times that Elijah is going to be taken away from me today by a whirlwind. So it was public knowledge that Elijah was taken up by a whirlwind. So then when these youths come up to Elisha and they say, go up, you baldy. Go up, you baldy, they're actually making fun of what happened to Elijah and telling Elisha, hey, go join your master. Go up with him. We don't need you here. Go up with Elisha.
So not only were they making fun of Elijah and Elisha, but they were insulting his new position as the prophet of Israel. Which makes me think that these youths did have some sort of position themselves that felt, uh, threatened by Elisha's new position as prophet. We saw in 1st Samuel that na'ar could refer to a priest or a priest's servant. So could these young men from Bethel have been priests, servants or servants from some sort
of idolatrous temple in Bethel? Because Bethel was one of the hot, uh, spots for idolatry in Israel at this. At this time period. So it's very possible that these young men had some sort of ulterior motive to meeting Elisha on the way to make fun of him and to insult his new ministry because they felt threatened or they were just mocking God in general. But, of course, this is all speculation because Scripture doesn't go into a lot of detail with this story. It's really only two
verses. So I'm definitely speculating a lot when it comes to this passage. And I do want to throw that out there, that this is. Most of this is my opinion, because Scripture doesn't really talk about this. But it does make sense that these people were, firstly, not little children. Secondly, were insulting the ministry and prophetic nature of Elisha and also very likely mocking God. And thirdly, were getting violent with Elisha as well. But the whole thing with making fun of Elisha's
appearance. Some people say that they were making fun of the bald spot on Elisha's head that the priests would shave at the top of their head, um, back in the days of Elisha to show that they were a priest. Or it could just be, honestly, they were making fun of Elisha's appearance because he was going bald. I don't know. But we do know that these young men, these youths, were mocking God for ordaining Elisha as the next prophet of Israel. So Elisha looks behind him. He sees these men and
he curses them in Yahweh's name. And soon after, two female bears come out of the woods and mauled 42 of those youths. And it doesn't say specifically if the youths died or not from this mauling. I would imagine that some of them very likely did die. Just because you're mauled doesn't necessarily mean that you die. But I would imagine that a good portion of these youths did in fact die from the mauling of that
bear. Uh, of those bears, rather. So this was God immediately pouring judgment out on, um, this gang of boys harassing one of his prophets and possibly getting violent with one of his prophets. So Elisha gets out of that situation very safely, and he leaves Bethel, because clearly Bethel wasn't very safe for him. It says he goes from there to Mount Carmel, and from there he returned to
Samaria. So he did not stay in Bethel very long because Bethel, it sounds like, was very unfriendly towards him. Faithful listeners, I hope you have a fantastic and wonderful rest of your day. I will see you guys tomorrow for an episode from Second Corinthians. Until then, happy listening and God bless.