2 Kings 13 - NIV Cultural Backgrounds Study Bible
13:5 The Lord provided a deliverer for Israel. The identity of this “savior” who rescues Israel from their extremity in the face of Damascene assaults is not made explicit in the text. However, it seems likely that we are hearing a veiled reference to the resurgence of Assyrian interest in Syria and Palestine that results in a measure of relief for Israel as Assyria begins to occupy the attention of Damascus again in the north. The first explicit evidence of this interest can be found in the Saba’a Stele of Adadnirari III, which speaks of a campaign in the west in 806 BC during which the Assyrians besiege Damascus and exact tribute.
This appears to have been one of several campaigns west of the Euphrates during the first half of Adadnirari’s reign, although several of these military expeditions were probably organized by provincial governors rather than by the king himself. The paucity of the records for Adadnirari’s reign makes it difficult to be certain about their exact number and date.
13:7 like the dust at threshing time. This simile is drawn from agricultural practice. In separating the grain from the remainder of the crop, the crop was threshed and then winnowed (see note on Ru 3:2). The threshed material was thrown into the air to allow the breeze to blow away the chaff, or “dust.” Jehoahaz’s armed forces have been scattered just like chaff on the breeze.
13:15–19 Perhaps in the background of this part of the story lie ancient beliefs about omens and their importance as conveyors of divine messages. These beliefs gave rise to the widely practiced art of divination. The diviner would attempt to read significance out of unusual natural phenomena or out of divinatory rituals. One form of divination, known as belomancy, involved arrows that could be used in various ways. For example, a number of different instructions might be attached to a set of arrows, which were then fired. The instruction on the arrow that flew the farthest, or was found first, would be obeyed. Alternatively, the instructions on the first arrow drawn from a quiver would be taken, or the arrows could be thrown to the ground and the practitioner would travel in the direction they pointed as they settled.
13:21 threw the man’s body into Elisha’s tomb. Tombs in ancient Israel were often dug out of soft rock or located in caves. They did not present to people in a hurry the difficulties of access that more modern, Western forms of burial do. Cave tombs are in fact much more frequently attested in the southern Levant of the tenth to the eighth centuries BC than during any previous or subsequent periods.
13:25 Three times Jehoash defeated him. It was during the reign of Hazael’s successor Ben-Hadad III that Israel began to recover territory, as Ben-Hadad was preoccupied by the Assyrian threat to his north. At the same time, it is evident that Israel itself did not entirely escape Assyrian attention. Both the Calah and the Tell er-Rimah inscriptions of Adadnirari claim that tribute passed from Israel to Assyria in this period, and the Rimah inscription explicitly mentions Jehoash of Israel as a tribute-payer. Yet the Assyrian threat and the infighting among the various Syrian kingdoms nevertheless allowed for a limited Israelite recovery vis-à-vis Damascus. Jehoash’s successes were later spectacularly exceeded by his son Jeroboam II, once the Assyrian threat had entirely (if temporarily) receded.
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