Joash’s Arrows
In 2 Kings 13, Joash (King of Israel) goes to visit Elisha as he is dying. As he mourns that Elisha is dying, Elisha has one last prophecy to give to the King regarding the nation he leads. First, he instructs him to fire an arrow out of the window. He tells the king that arrow is symbolic of the victory God intends to give him over Syria.
After this, he instructs the king to take the arrows and strike the ground.
And he said, “Take the arrows,” and he took them. And he said to the king of Israel, “Strike the ground with them.” And he struck three times and stopped. Then the man of God was angry with him and said, “You should have struck five or six times; then you would have struck down Syria until you had made an end of it, but now you will strike down Syria only three times.”
2 Kings 13:18-19
This passage used to bother me. He wasn’t commanded to strike the ground any particular number of times. He wasn’t even told beforehand that it would represent how thorough his victory was going to be. Looking back at the conversation, the latter should have been at least somewhat obvious to him because of the symbol another arrow had just played. Still, it struck me that he was angry for the king doing what he was told not just once but three times!
Joshua’s Javelin
Recently, I was reading through the book of Joshua. It is a recording about Israel’s conquest of the Promised Land. In chapter 8, they had just suffered a defeat at the hands of the men of Ai. However, God is instruction Joshua to get a band of men together and go back into battle with them again. They had just been demoralized in a crushing defeat, and now he was being commanded to lead them right back out!
He has a very specific purpose for Joshua in this fight. Though it might seem like a trivial or symbolic thing only, God commands him to hold up his javelin.
Then the Lord said to Joshua, “Stretch out the javelin that is in your hand toward Ai, for I will give it into your hand.” And Joshua stretched out the javelin that was in his hand toward the city. 19 And the men in the ambush rose quickly out of their place, and as soon as he had stretched out his hand, they ran and entered the city and captured it. And they hurried to set the city on fire.
Joshua 8:18-19
It would seem the work is done then right? He’d called the ambush and that ambush was successful. They’d taken the city and all that was left was wiping out what was left of the men who had come out for battle.
But Joshua did not draw back his hand with which he stretched out the javelin until he had devoted all the inhabitants of Ai to destruction.
Joshua 8:26
Even after the battle was won, he kept at the post God had given him until the entire task of bringing God’s judgement to Ai was completed. It reminds me of the time when Moses held up his hands all day in support of the armies of Israel in Exodus 17. In his weakness, he sat on a rock and other men helped him by holding up his hands until the battle was done. These were men that were wholly committed to total victory.
Commitment to Victory
This reminded me of all the Kings of Israel whom God would command to destroy wicked civilizations and devote them entirely to destruction who would try to take some of the nations (livestock, riches, or people) for themselves after defeating them in war. Every time, God would respond with anger. They were commanded to wipe the culture off the Earth and so nothing but total destruction was acceptable.
Whether the command is an action with clear impact or somewhere God has placed you in support of others, we must keep at it until total victory. It’s not enough to do something until you see positive momentum and then rest on the laurels. There’s no “good enough” until Christ is king over the whole Earth and sin is gone.
We cannot get the victory without Christ but just because God will provide and has promised the victory doesn’t mean we can stop manning the stations in which God has placed us until it is achieved. It doesn’t matter if you’re a soldier seeing the victory first hand or a leader God has told to smack some arrows on the ground who may not even fully understand the purpose. We need to keep at all that God commands until the victory is won.
God’s purpose will ultimately be fulfilled regardless of our faithfulness but if we desire to honor God we will do as he commands with a commitment to the final victory over this fallen world without ceasing. Even when it seems like it’s not necessary for victory. Even when it seems like defeat is coming regardless. Because the anger of God is far more serious than any consequence of doing as he commanded in every situation could ever be.
