For the true story, see 2 Kings 2:23-25.
Last year I learned a lesson that I will never forget. The scars on my right hand remind me of what happened every time I see them, and the
hand still hurts a lot of the time, which makes me remember too.
But there is something else that brings the lesson to mind even more forcibly: the look that people give me when they meet me for the first time. The people of Bethel know me and are used to how my face looks, but Bethel is a popular place for visitors from all over Israel who come to worship the golden calf that Jeroboam the son of Nebat made. Visitors don’t know me, and it’s easy to recognise the
horror on their faces when they catch sight of me for the first time.
I don’t have to see my face, unless I look at the reflection in a still pool, and I haven’t done that for months – nowadays I always make sure that I disturb the surface of the water before looking down. Feeling the shape of my face is bad enough; I still remember how my cheeks used to be smooth, and my forehead too. Now, I can trace the path of each of her claws, and I feel again the
fear that raced through my veins as she stood up on her hind legs and swung her paw at me.
There was no time to dodge and no strength great enough to resist her. Those terrible claws raked across my forehead and down my face, and the blood immediately began to pour out. I screamed and put my hands to my face, trying to hold it together, and so it was my right hand that caught the force of her next blow. The weight of that blow threw me backwards and spun me
around to fall face down in the dust of the road, where I lay, helpless, shaking with terror and unable to see anything because of the blood and dirt that filled my eyes. Lying there, I waited for her to continue her attack, waiting for the next hammer blow, the tearing, shredding impact of her claws. But nothing more came. My friends tell me that she ignored me and ran to attack another boy. For me, there was nothing but fear and blood and dust and
pain.
Two blows; that was all. Just a few short moments of irresistible violence, but they changed my life forever.
It took months for me to recover my sight completely, and for months after that I wasn’t sure that I really wanted to keep living. Constant pain and permanent disfigurement destroyed all optimism and life seemed bleak indeed.
But I was not the only one suffering.
Two bears and forty-two
boys. Every one of us boys was injured by those bears, but I don’t think anyone managed to hurt the bears in the slightest. Later, many hunters went out to search for them, but they found nothing, so no retribution was ever meted out.
Everybody in Bethel was talking about the event, and agreeing that it was a one in a million chance – two bears going completely crazy at the same time. All sorts of explanations were suggested: some said that the bears must have
been defending their cubs; others suggested that the bears were fighting each other and we simply got in the way; and still others suggested that the bears must have been afraid that we were attacking them. The one thing that everyone agreed on was that it was not our fault, that it was just a freak accident and no-one was to blame.
But I know better.
It really was a major catastrophe for the town. Forty-two boys in the group, and every one of them
was injured. Some less, some more – but all will wear scars for the rest of their lives. Some of the injured boys were brothers, but even so, there were still more than 30 families affected. If you count parents, siblings, grandparents and neighbours, it adds up to hundreds of people who were closely connected to at least one boy who was injured by those two bears.
The damage inflicted varied enormously. Some boys have only minor scars, although the pain
and suffering were not minor at the time. But some only barely survived after spending weeks in bed when their wounds turned septic. I suppose it was quite amazing that none of us died.
But through it all, we were constantly fed the message, “It’s not your fault”. Yet we all knew that it wasn’t true.
To get you to understand the facts, I need to tell you a bit more about what happened. The details are important and make all the
difference between a random attack and a targeted punishment.
Just before harvest started that year, I and some of my friends had little to do in Bethel one afternoon, so we went out of the town and wandered down the road to look for some fun. We scrambled around on the rocks near the bottom of the hill, and took turns throwing stones at various targets.
Other young lads were doing the same that afternoon, and gradually we sort of coalesced into bigger
and bigger groups until there were 42 of us in one big group, all sitting on the rocks near the road, talking and laughing.
At least, that’s how it started.
Then some of the boys started making comments about the travellers who passed by. Quiet comments, trying to be clever. For example, one man with large ears was described as “donkey ears”, but he didn’t hear, and no-one got hurt.
I didn’t get involved at first, because I don’t
really like that sort of thing: it’s not showing the respect we should show to others. Nevertheless, the comments got gradually louder, and having 41 others there in support made us all so much braver. Then a man with a limp heard when my friend called him a cripple. It wasn’t even a clever thing to say, but I didn’t do anything to stop it. I just laughed with the rest of them while the man hurried past as quickly as he could, looking scared.
The
harassment of passers-by quickly worsened, until every passing traveller was sneered and jeered at. If any of our parents had been present, we would have quickly felt the heavy hand of their disapproval, but we were unsupervised and out of control.
I wasn’t happy, but I didn’t do anything to stop it by word or action: just provided tacit support, and sometimes even joined in. I am very ashamed to admit it. Afraid to make a stand for good, I joined the crowd in
evil. At least I could have left.
But I didn’t.
After about an hour of this, a man of medium height walked up the road near us, heading towards the gates of Bethel.
He was strong and muscular – a man whom I wouldn’t have dared to laugh at if I had been alone. His dark beard suggested that he was not particularly old, but despite that, he was bald. A small ruff of curly hair decorated the back of his head where it joined his
neck, but apart from that, he was completely bald!
With a laugh, one boy said to his neighbour, as they sat together on a rock, “Look at him, he’s as bald as a brick!”
“Baldy,” called his friend, and it caught on.
“Go away, you bald-headed bed-knob,” sneered another.
It spread until we were all joining in – yes, I’m ashamed to admit that I joined in too.
“Go away, you bald-head,” I
shouted.
The man had turned and looked at us when the verbal onslaught began, but he neither turned to flee nor came running at us brandishing the long staff he carried.
Instead, he stopped and stood still, clasping his staff in both hands and looking up at us.
We were working ourselves up into a frenzy of shouting, and I think we might even have run at him or started throwing stones if he hadn’t suddenly held up a hand. It was an
imperious gesture and we all instantly stopped shouting.
“You boys should show more respect to your elders and to Yahweh, the living God. He has sent me, Elisha, as a prophet to take the place of the great prophet Elijah, and now you are cursed in the name of Yahweh, the God of Israel.”
That was all he said. Then he turned away and walked back down the road, back towards the main north-south road, as if he had decided he didn’t want to go to a town
that had people like us in it.
His words calmed us down all of a sudden, I can tell you. A prophet had cursed us! We sat for a few moments in silence, looking at each other uneasily and wondering what would happen as the figure of Elisha walked down the hill and disappeared around a corner.
Then the horror began.
As Elisha disappeared from view, two she-bears came running out of the forest that approached the road on the opposite
side. I jumped off the rock, hoping to escape up the hill away from the road. I expected the bears to leave us alone and soon return to the forest, but their every movement suggested aggression. No lumbering, lolloping movements either, such as I had seen with bears in the past; instead, they were among us within moments, making lightning-fast lunges at any boy within reach.
I was not the first to be struck, and from the screams that continued for what seemed
like years afterwards, I must have been far from the last. But those two blows have taught me more than anything else in my life.
Was it just a random attack? Of course not. Nobody’s fault? Nonsense.
I spent a lot of time with my face and hand bandaged. A lot of time unable to see, but still able to think. It was hard to admit, even to myself, that I had got what I deserved. I had known that what we were doing
was wrong, and yet I had gone along with the crowd, joined in the worst of the jeering.
Now I had been cursed by Yahweh’s prophet. Would the curse end with the disfigurement I had suffered, or was more punishment still to come?
None of the other boys seem to feel things the way I do. Given the chance, many of them would do just the same again – except that now they might take a sling with them for safety.
But I? I must seek
forgiveness. I recognise my sin and desperately want to find the prophet and tell him that I have repented. Yahweh is the God of our fathers, and I want to worship him seriously from now on, not be cursed by him.
Will Elisha forgive me?
I have heard that he is at Samaria at the moment, and that is at least a day’s walk away.
Even my parents don’t really understand what I want to do, but they have given me permission anyway.
Tomorrow, I am setting off for Samaria. I must find Elisha.
