The Story of the Bible
- Автор: Hurlbut Jesse Lyman
- Год: 1904
- Язык: английский
- Год: Heritage History
- Жанр: Культурология
Электронная книга - «The Story of the Bible». Краткое содержание книги:
When King Ahab was dead, the king of Moab rose against Israel, and tried to set his land free. Then King Jehoram sent for King Jehoshaphat of Judah, and these two kings gathered their armies, and made war on Mesha, the king of Moab. They led their armies southward through Judah, and then through Edom, on the south of the Dead Sea, and from Edom into the land of Moab; and with them was the king of Edom, who was under the king of Judah.
While they were on their march they found no water, either for the army or for the horses And the king of Israel said, "Alas! The Lord has brought together these three kings, only to let them fall into the hands of the king of Moab!"
But the good King Jehoshaphat said, "Is there not here a prophet of the Lord, so that we may ask of him to show us the Lord's will?
And one man said, "Elisha, the son of Shphat, is here; the man who poured water on the hands of Elijah, and was his servant."
And Jehoshaphat said, "The word of the Lord is with him; let us see him."
And the three kings went to find Elisha; but Elisha said to the king of Israel, "Why do you come to me? Go to the idol-prophets of your father Ahab and your mother Jezebel, and ask them!"
And the king of Israel said to Elisha, "You must help us; for the Lord has brought these three kings together, to let them fall into the hands of the king of Moab"
Then said Elisha, "As surely as the Lord of hosts lives, before whom I stand, if Jehoshaphat, the king of Judah, were not here, I would not look on you nor speak to you. But now bring me one who can play on the harp, a minstrel."
And while the minstrel made music on his harp, the power of the Lord came upon Elisha, and he said, "thus saith the Lord, ‘Make this valley full of ditches For the Lord tells me that you shall not see any rain, nor hear any wind, yet the valley shall be filled with water; and you shall drink, and your cattle and your horses also shall drink. And the Lord shall give the Moabites into your hand; and you shall take their cities, and cut down their trees, and stop their wells, and shall conquer their land."
And it came to pass as Elisha had said. They dug ditches in the valley, and the next morning they found them full of water, enough for all the host. And when the men of Moab saw the water in the light of the sun, it was red like blood. They said, one to another, "That is blood; the three kings have quarreled, and their armies have killed each other; now, men of Moab, hasten to take the camp of the three kings, and all the treasure that is in it!"
So the men of Moab came rushing unguarded and without their arms. But the army of Israel and of Judah, and of Edom, met them, and slew them, and won over them a great victory From that place they went on laying waste the land of Moab, until the cities were taken, and the whole land was made desolate. And Mesha, the king of Moab, was in such distress, that, hoping to please the god of his land, who was called Chemosh, he took his oldest son, who was to have reigned in his place, and killed him, and offered him up as a burnt-offering. But all was in vain, for the Moabites were still held under the power of the Israelites. The story of this war between Israel and Moab is written not only in the second Book of Kings in the Bible, but also on a stone pillar, which was set up by the king of Moab afterward. This pillar was found in the land of Moab not many years ago, and the writing upon it was read, showing that the history of this war as given in the Bible is true.
The Pot of Oil and the Pot of Poison
II Kings iv: 1 to 7; iv: 38 to 44; vi: 1 to 7.
In many places in the land of Israel there were living families of people who listed to the teaching of the prophets, and worshipped the Lord. Thy were among the seven thousand in Israel who never bowed their knees to the images of Baal, as we read in Story Five of this Part. Elisha went through the land meeting these people, and teaching them, and leading them in their worship. They were called the "sons of the prophets," and among them were some to whom God spoke, men who themselves became prophets of the Lord.
The wife of one of these men, the sons of the prophets, came one day to Elisha, and said, "O man of God, my husband is dead; and you know that he served the Lord while he lived. He was owing some money when he died; and now the man to whom he owed it has come, and he says that he will take my two sons to be his slaves, unless I pay the debt."
For in those lands, when a man owed a debt, he could be sol, or his children, that the debt might be paid. Elisha said to the woman, "What shall I do to help you? What have you in the house?"
"I have nothing in the house, answered the woman, "except a pot of oil."
Then Elisha said to her, "Go to your neighbors and borrow of them empty jars, and vessels, and bowels; borrow a great many. Then go into the room, and shut the door upon yourself and your sons; and pour out the oil into the vessels, and as each vessel is filled set it aside."
The woman went out, and borrowed of all her neighbors vessels that would hold oil, until she had a great many. Then she went into the house, and shut the door, and told her sons to bring the vessels to her one by one; and she poured out oil, filling vessel after vessel until all were full. At last they said to her, "There is not another vessel that can hold oil."
And then the oil stopped running. If she had borrowed more vessels there would have been more oil. She came and told Elisha, the man of God; and he said, "go and sell the oil; pay the debt, and keep the rest of the money for yourself and yours sons to live upon."
At another time Elisha came to Gilgal among the mountains, near Bethel, and with him were some of these men, the sons of the prophets. It was a time when food was scarce, and they sought in the field for vegetables and green things to be eaten. One may by mistake brought a number of wild gourds, which were poisonous, and threw them into the pot to be cooked with the rest of the food.
While they were eating they felt suddenly that they had been poisoned, and they cried out, "O man of God, there is death in the pot! The food is poisoned!"
Then Elisha took some meal, and threw it into the pot with the poisoned food.
They did so; and there was no longer any poison in the food.
At one time a man came bringing to the prophet a present of loaves of barley-bread, and some ears of new corn in the husks. There were with Elisha said to his servant, "Give this to the people for their dinner."
The servant said, "What, should I give this for a meal to a hundred men?"
And Elisha said, "Yes, set it before them, and let them eat. For thus saith the Lord, ‘They shall eat, and shall have enough, and shall leave some of it"
So he gave them the food; and every man took as much as he wished, and some was left over, according to the word of the Lord.
Once a company of these sons of the prophets went down from the mountains to a place near the river Jordan, and began to guild a house; and Elisha was with them. As one of the men was cutting down a tree the head fell off from his axe, and dropped into the water. In those times iron and steel were very scare and costly. The man said, "O my master, what shall I do? For this was a borrowed axe!"
Then Elisha asked to be shown just where the axe-head had fallen into the water. He cut off a stick of wood, and threw it into the water at the place. At once the iron axe-head rose to the surface of the water, and floated, as if it were wood. The prophet said, "Reach out and take it," and the man took the iron, fitted it to the handle, and went on with his work.