READ: 2 Kin. 3:1–27: So the king of Israel, the king of Judah, and the king of Edom went to battle … no water … thus says the LORD: “Make this valley full of ditches” … the land full of water … the sun on that water … red as blood … they stopped up all the springs of water … the king of Moab saw that the battle was too fierce for him …
After the death of Ahaziah, his brother Joram comes to power. He too is ungodly, though less so than his father Ahab and mother Jezebel. He stops the worship of Baal but holds fast to the sins of Jeroboam.
Together with the God-fearing king Jehoshaphat of Judah, and the heathen king of Edom, he wants to resist the threat of Moab. Jehoshaphat proposes to consult a prophet of the LORD, as he has done before.
When they have no water, they ask Elisha for counsel. Elisha wants nothing to do with Joram. He consults the LORD only for the sake of King Jehoshaphat. To confirm this, he invokes God’s name (v. 14).
Then, at God’s direction, Elisha performs a miracle. They must dig ditches, and God Himself will fill them with water. Moreover, He will deliver Moab into their hands. They must strike this people and make their life impossible. The water comes at the moment the priests offer the grain offering in the temple at Jerusalem.
This indicates that God has been entreated and is gracious to His people (compare Elijah on Carmel, 1 Kin. 18:36). The king of Moab and his army are misled by the red color of the water, thinking it to be the blood of slaughter, so that they meet the Israelites unprepared. When they flee, they are pursued into their own land and killed.
The Israelites also devastate the land of Moab as directed by Elisha: they throw stones on the fields, stop up the water sources, and cut down all good trees. The land becomes uninhabitable. What the king of Moab then does with his firstborn is so dreadful that Israel withdraws home (v. 27).
Was it right what they did to Moab (cf. Deut. 20:19,20)?
Singing: Ps. 44:1