It’s common among Christians to remind each other that in the Old Testament false prophets were to be shunned, condemned and even killed. And, crucially, one of the non-negotiable KPI for a prophet was whether or not what he said came true. So if the ‘prediction’ was false, the prophet should be put to death (Deut 13 and 18, etc.).
I’m no OT expert but in 2 Kings 3 it looks as if Elisha — easily among the top 5 most bad-ass of OT prophets — failed to meet this criteria.
Dude prophesied that Israel would trash the crap out of Moab (see Note 1 on the Mesha stele) and, even though the score was 4–0 at half time, the Moabites threw in some fresh legs (and sacrificed a kid or two) and they won the match 4–6. This appears to be in direct contradiction 2 Kings 3:16–19 when Elisha said that YHWH said that he will “hand over Moab” to Israel.
It certainly looked that way until the very last verse of 2 Kings 3 when the king of Moab sacrificed his kid to the god Molech, occasioning a “great wrath” upon Israel and causing them to withdraw.
Bottom line: Moab was NOT ‘handed over’ to Israel and Elisha’s prophecy is thus not 100% correct i.e it’s wrong (or at the very least should be considered incomplete and misleading).
So how? Why wasn’t Elisha blasted for getting it wrong? How come the old “false prophets must be punished” didn’t apply to him?
A) SOPHISTICATED TRICKERY
Scholars like Westbrook (2005) suggests that Elisha’s prophecy is analogous to the Delphi oracle’s trope to King Croesus of Lydia (recorded by Herodotus) when the former told the King that “an empire would fall”; the king thought it meant his enemy’s empire, but the oracle was really referring to the king’s(!). So, according to Westbrook, the prophet was just playing word-games. Almost like saying, “Yes! Russia’s terror will rain down on Ukraine’s cities and Russia will win a great victory!”, except that okay the missiles landed in Ukraine and Russia’s Women’s Hockey team won Gold in the Winter Olympics! Thus, Westbrook highlights how Elisha was simply “telling the truth” when he said that Israel will ‘strike every fortified city, etc’ — so yeah, Israel ‘struck every fortified city in Moab’ but so what?
In a similar vein, Long, Jr. (2007) suggests that Elisha deceptively led King Jehoram into defeat the way the prophet Micaiah ‘enticed’ King Ahab into a losing war with Syria for the territory of Ramoth-Gilead. Likewise, Sprinkle (2000) suggested that the King shoulda known better because Elisha’s prophecy violates the rules of just war laid down in Deut 20.
Taking a different path, however, Chisholm, Jr. (2011) argues that because Elisha’s prophecy was conditional upon faith, so the fact that Israel lost de facto shows King Jeroham’s lack of trust in YHWH (already alluded to in 2 Kings 3:1–3). He emphasizes how Elisha’s prophecy did mention that Moab would be ‘handed over’ to Israel and you can’t employ literary Delphi-like tricks to wiggle past it (see note 2).
B) WHAT ABOUT THE POWER OF MOLECH?
I concur with Chisholm but also wish to note that none of these four scholars take seriously the power of the pagan Moabite god, usually acknowledged to be the famous child-sacrifice-loving Molech, to challenge and even reverse the will of YHWH. It’s ironic that throughout 1 and 2 Kings, the ability of HUMAN kings to frustrate and sadden YHWH and the prophets is practically the main theme yet scholars refuse to ascribe any power or agency to SPIRITUAL forces.
Because I think that would help render the story less confusing. Yes, Elisha prophesied a victory for Israel (albeit unwillingly) and yes Israel was winning and, ok, the kings’ lack of faith in YHWH didn’t do them any favours but — stop the press — when the Moab king sacrificed his firstborn to his god that unleashed an unbearable wrath (2 Kgs 3:27) upon Israel’s forces which, being led by a subpar faithful king, could not deal with and thus they withdrew. Spiritual forces are real as heck, duh. Yes, about 300 years later, the Babylonians wiped the Moabites off the face of the Mid-East — showing that not every child sacrifice works — but on this occasion the powers of darkness were bad enough to stave off Israeli victory.
C) BACK TO ELISHA…
So, well, how does all of this help us think about why Elisha wasn’t condemned for false prophecy?
1. Maybe the community (which includes the narrator of Kings which some say could be the prophet Jeremiah himself, in which case you’d have a prophet writing about the thing he knows best) understands that a lot of prophecy is ‘conditional’ upon certain other things (like faith) happening; it ain’t a crystal ball with the 100% True Future, it’s more like an upcoming itinerary slash plan slash promise.
2. Maybe the Deuteronomic warning against false prophecy is, like many government and HR rules, “flexible”; yes, if you go around bull-shitting the people sorry you gonna get whacked but if you’re just doing your job (the way Elisha was) then okay we can let certain things slide
3. Maybe the heart of all the key players and the context matter as well; Jehoram wasn’t exactly Jacinda Ardern and the entire tone of 1 and 2 Kings is of a nation hell-bent on warfare and conquest. One could say that God’s plans, mercy and justice was struggling to accommodate to these rulers, his traumatized prophets, the people of Israel and Judah, and the entire region all at the same time whilst having to consider a future writer producing a text to be ‘canonized’ as Scripture. All of this meant that “getting prophecy 100% right” isn’t going to be the #1 priority.
Note 1: The conflict between Israel and Moab is confirmed by the Mesha Stele basically a stone inscription created by the Moabites, and a top-notch archaeological discovery, which even mentions Israel and YHWH and historically confirms the conflict between them and the Omri dynasty of Israel in the 8th century BC.
Note 2: The general commentaries hardly say anything about this specific issue. Walter Brueggemann (2000) suggests it’s plausible that Molech (see pic) defeated YHWH (gasp!) but doesn’t suggest that Elisha’s prophecy went wrong, and doesn’t try to reconcile the poor prophecy with the requisite OT punishment. Monson and Provan (2016) doesn’t even discuss Israel’s defeat by Moab (their book reads more like a picture-encyclopaedia anyway). Niehaus (1992) in his commentary on the Amos doesn’t even imply any withdrawal from Israel and suggests the Mesha stele was fake bragging news (which, in a way, it was bcos the Moabites said “Israel would perish!”). Nelson (1987) acknowledges that the final result was a ‘holy war victory’ for Moab and suggests that it’s a consequence of Israel seeking theological legitimacy for an unjust war, but he doesn’t discuss Elisha’s last-minute-failure prophecy.
References:
Chisholm, R. B. (2011). Israel’s Retreat and the Failure of Prophecy in 2 Kings 3. Biblica, 92(1), 70–80. http://www.jstor.org/stable/42615014
Long, J. C. (2007). Elisha’s Deceptive Prophecy in 2 Kings 3: A Response to Raymond Westbrook. Journal of Biblical Literature, 126(1), 168–171. https://doi.org/10.2307/27638426
Sprinkle, J. M. (2000). Deuteronomic „Just War“ (Deut 20,10–20) and 2 Kings 3,27. Zeitschrift Für Altorientalische Und Biblische Rechtsgeschichte / Journal for Ancient Near Eastern and Biblical Law, 6, 285–301. http://www.jstor.org/stable/44392934
Westbrook, R. (2005). Elisha’s True Prophecy in 2 Kings 3. Journal of Biblical Literature, 124(3), 530–532. https://doi.org/10.2307/30041039
