2 Kings 2 · a question people ask
Why did Elisha curse them, and was it right?
The chapter tells it in two verses. As Elisha went up to Bethel, "some youths came out of the city and mocked him, and said to him, “Go up, you baldy! Go up, you baldy!”" (2:23). "He looked behind him and saw them, and cursed them in the LORD’s name" (2:24), and two female bears came out of the woods (2:24). The chapter gives no reason beyond those words and no comment after them. Christians agree on what it says. They read the curse in two main ways, each resting on verses.
How Christians read it
Where Christians differ, Favor sets out the main views side by side and doesn't pick one.
The LORD's answer to contempt for his prophet
Those who hold this view note that Elisha cursed them "in the LORD’s name" and that the bears came (2:24), and they read the bears as the LORD's own answer. They read the mocking as contempt for the prophet the LORD had just shown to be Elijah's successor, before whom the sons of the prophets "bowed themselves to the ground" (2:15). They set it beside what later Scripture says of Judah: "they mocked the messengers of God, despised his words, and scoffed at his prophets, until the LORD’s wrath arose against his people" (2 Chronicles 36:16).
2 Kings 2:24 · 2 Kings 2:15 · 2 Chronicles 36:16
Told without a verdict
Those who hold this view note that at the spring Elisha spoke with "The LORD says" (2:21), while at Bethel the chapter says he "cursed them in the LORD’s name" (2:24) and gives no word from the LORD. They note too that where 2 Kings judges what someone did, it says so in plain words, as in the next chapter: "He did that which was evil in the LORD’s sight" (3:2). Here it gives no such word, so they read the chapter as telling what happened without saying whether Elisha did right.
2 Kings 2:21 · 2 Kings 2:24 · 2 Kings 3:2
The verses
“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 the LORD’s name. Then two female bears came out of the woods and mauled forty-two of those youths.”