2 Kings

Yes, this picture is busy and strange. You just try depicting prophecies and miracles.

The book begins with the passing of King Ahaziah, Elijah’s response to being summoned to the king’s deathbed, and Jehoram becoming king. Elijah and Elisha are traveling together in Elijah’s old age when they come to the Jordan. Elijah strikes the water with his mantle, the river parts, and they cross to the other side. There Elijah asks Elisha what he desires before he is taken away. Elisha asks for a double portion, a double likeness of Elijah. If it is to be granted, there will be a sign: Elisha must see Elijah taken up.
In the top left-hand corner, you can see Elijah in yellow, wearing the plaid mantle, being taken up in the whirlwind. You also see the mantle being used to part the Jordan. Both men used it to do that.
Elisha then begins the many wonders that mark his ministry. In that same corner, he is shown kneeling beside a man in blue and holding a pitcher as he purifies the drinking water. The next event is the bears pursuing the young men who mocked him for being baldheaded. And here is where I made one of my artistic blunders: my Elijah seems to have hair. Oops. Possibly I was trying to think through the meaning of the event and forgot not to pencil out his hair. I really cannot say for sure. I also noted that Scripture says two female bears came out, and I seem to have three. Duh. One, two, three bears. Do not take my pictures too closely to heart.
Elisha prophesies concerning the Moab rebellion and then saves a widow from debt by multiplying her jars of oil to sell. You can see her and her son filling jars just above left center in the picture. He then goes to Shunem, where a woman and her husband prepare a room for him during his travels. That scene is drawn on the left edge just above the stone wall. She has her hand on Elisha’s back and is showing him into the house. One of the reasons I chose folk art as my style is that one person can be doing many different things in the same drawing. So even though Elisha is only one man, he appears several times.
Because of the woman’s kindness, Elisha promises that she will have a son, though she had not been able to bear children. She does, and the child grows, but later falls ill to the point of death. Elisha prays, lays himself upon the boy, and God restores the child’s life. In the center of the picture, you see Elisha beside the child’s bed, beseeching God.
Next he cures some men from a poisonous stew. On the right center, you will see three men around a table, one of them holding his throat. From there he heals a leper by telling him to wash in the Jordan. It was not the river that healed him, but obedience. Just above the men and their stew, I also show Gehazi, Elisha’s servant, taking what did not belong to him from the healed leper as payment. You can see him with the leper’s donkey. Because Gehazi kept it for himself, Elisha later transferred the leprosy to him.
Elisha then floats an ax head for a man who had borrowed it and dropped it into the river. You can see the man and the falling ax head toward the top right of the picture. Why is Elisha doing all these individual miracles? At this point I am beginning to think to myself, “kits, cats, sacks, and wives,” how many miracles is Elisha going to do on his way to St. Ives? I hope you know that child’s story.
He then saves the king of Israel by warning him that the Syrians are coming along his path, and when the Syrians try to capture Elisha, God reveals that he is surrounded and protected by an army of angels. God shows both Elisha and the king of Israel who is truly protecting them. When the king asks what should be done with the Syrian army, Elisha tells him to feed them bread and water and send them away. The table of bread is shown lower center, beside the scenes of Elisha praying over the boy and below the men eating stew. After that, the Syrians did not come again into the land of Israel.
Next comes the story that stays in my mind the most from this book. During a famine, two women agree to cannibalize their children: “We will eat my son today and yours tomorrow.” They are drawn just below middle center as two scraggly women placing a skinny child into a boiling pot. The next day, the second woman refuses to cook hers, and the first takes her complaint to the king. Cannibalizing your own child is horrific enough, but imagine how far the social, moral, spiritual, and cultural condition of the nation must have fallen for a woman to feel free enough to bring such a complaint to her king. The king then turns on Elisha.
Sorry this is long, but so much happened.
Next we have the four lepers scaring off an entire army and looting their camp because the Lord caused the Syrians to hear the sounds of chariots and a great army. The lepers are shown at the top right corner, and the soldiers are running away from their tents.
Later, Elisha tells the son of the kind Shunammite woman to go live elsewhere because of a coming famine. They do so, and when they return seven years later, their property is restored to them by the king. Elisha then goes to Damascus and tells Hazael to lie to his king about recovering from illness and then to become king in his place. Go figure that one out.
Another king, Hezekiah, is granted fifteen more years of life after an illness, and he asks for a sign. The Lord causes the shadow on the stairway to move back ten steps. You can see the stairway close to the middle right edge beside the warrior.
This leads into a long line of kings. Jehoram reigns in Judah. Ahaziah succeeds Jehoram in Judah. Jehu reigns over Israel. Jehoram is assassinated. Jehu assassinates Ahaziah. Jezebel is slain. Judgment comes upon the house of Ahab. Jehoahaz succeeds Jehu. Athaliah becomes queen of Judah. Joash reigns over Judah and is succeeded by Amaziah. In Israel, Jehoahaz and Jehoash reign. Some kings are good, but most are bad, and the list continues for several more chapters. The result is that Israel falls before Assyria and Judah falls before Babylon because they rejected God’s covenant to care for them if they obeyed Him.
At one point, Hilkiah finds the Book of the Law in the house of the Lord, and when it is read to the king, reforms are made for a time. In the painting, I have shown many kings falling, some even killing their own sons, some being killed by others, and some slain by foreign enemies.
Now just before Elisha’s death, Joash king of Israel comes to him for advice about war. Elisha tells him to shoot an arrow out of an east-facing window and then strike the arrows on the ground to determine how fully he will defeat the Syrians. Again, I am confused. Then Elisha is buried, and when bands of Moabites invade, some men casting another man into a grave throw him into Elisha’s tomb so they can flee. When the dead man touches Elisha’s bones, he comes back to life and climbs out. So yes, I show some arrows, and I show the man climbing out of the grave, though I do not begin to tell you why.
At the bottom of the picture are the throne of the king and the destroyed house of God. Jerusalem is burned and plundered. The people are carried away, along with the wealth of the land. Only the poorest of the poor are left behind under Gedaliah, who is later killed.
The hand at the bottom of the picture represents whomever you think it should represent: the hand of God, the hand of Elisha, the hand of someone shaking a fist at God, the kings, the conquerors, the poor who became slaves, the lost, or whoever else you feel fits.
Two nations have now become none.