And Elisha said to him, “Take a bow and some arrows.” So he took himself a bow and some arrows. Then he said to the king of Israel, “Put your hand on the bow.” So he put his hand on it, and Elisha put his hands on the king’s hands. And he said, “Open the east window”; and he opened it. Then Elisha said, “Shoot”; and he shot. And he said, “The arrow of the Lord’s deliverance and the arrow of deliverance from Syria; for you must strike the Syrians at Aphek till you have destroyed them.” Then he said, “Take the arrows”; so he took them. And he said to the king of Israel, “Strike the ground”; so he struck three times, and stopped. And the man of God was angry with him, and said, “You should have struck five or six times; then you would have struck Syria till you had destroyed it! But now you will strike Syria only three times.”

II Kings 13:15-19 NKJV

What do you hope to give as your last instruction before death? What is your attitude toward evil? What do you remember of Aphek? A hypothetical, a spiritual, and a geography question, seemingly unrelated, but in this text connected. 

At least two places in Israel had the name Aphek and they were the locations of great historical events. The first was near Jerusalem and sometimes in control of the Philistines. In I Samuel 4 it was the place where the Philistines entered battle with Israel and eventually took the Ark of the Covenant while killing Eli’s sons Hophni and Phinehas. This seems to be the same place in I Samuel 29:1 where the Philistines gathered and defeated the Israelites, killing Saul and Jonathan. Aphek in the South was the location of some of Israel’s greatest defeats. 

However, there was another Aphek in the North of Israel, east of the Jordan river near to the Israel – Syria border. A great event took place at this Aphek in I Kings 20 when Ben-Hadad’s army, having been defeated once, came up to fight against Israel again in the II Battle of Ben-Hadad run. When they went up to fight, they went up to Aphek. There the heavily outnumbered Israelites had God fighting for them and they killed 100,000 Syrians. The remaining Syrians fled into the city of Aphek where God caused a wall to fall. This wasn’t any small town palisade but a massive wall which held no fewer than 27,000 soldiers. When God caused it to fall, 27,000 Syrian soldiers fell dead. Aphek in the North was the location of the Israel’s greatest victory.

Like we remember the great military victories of Yorktown, Fredericksburg, Gettysburg and D-Day, so Elisha and Joash remembered the victory at Aphek. As his dying instruction, Elisha used the sign of an arrow being shot east towards Aphek. Like the arrow flew out the window so the arrow of the Lord would go forth and deliver Israel from Syria at Aphek. To show that this was the fight of the Lord on behalf of Israel, Elisha put his own hands on the king’s hands as he shot the arrow. 

But there was a second and related sign – striking the ground with arrows. It was evident from the first sign that the Lord was teaching Joash something about his war with Syria. Rather than using all the arrows to strike the ground repeatedly, the King struck the ground just three times. He was lackadaisical about the sign just as he was indifferent about truly defeating the Syrians. The king who did much evil was less than concerned about defeating evil. So he struck the ground with just three arrows or three times stirring up the righteous anger of Elisha at his ungodly attitude towards evil. 

What is your attitude towards your sin? What is your attitude towards evil? What are your affections (dispositions) towards sin? Do you hate sin and forsake it because it is displeasing to God? Or do you pray about sin in the morning and care less about it all the day long? Do you hate it when you do it but then pay scant attention to the means of grace God has given for your sanctification and victory? The picture God paints in this portion of Kings is one of Godly and ungodly attitudes towards sin. In Elisha’s final act, he teaches us to use all the ammunition, tools, resources, armor, that God has given us to fight against sin. Evil King Joash teaches us that the evil man cares little about evil and only halfheartedly fights against it when it is in front of him. 

Until the day of our death or the Lord’s return we are in a spiritual warfare. Not against cities like Aphek or nations like Syria but spiritual forces like the world, flesh, and the devil. The lusts of the eyes, the lusts of the flesh, and the pride of life ever creep up upon us seeking to make us fall. We must not use half the ammunition God has given us and strike lightly, a few times, at sin and temptation but rather we must fight with all our might. God has given us great tools of this spiritual warfare: truth, righteousness, the gospel of peace, faith, salvation, the Word of God, and prayer. Will we gird our waists with truth and wear our helmets of salvation but leave our sword and prayer somewhere else? If we do so we will find evil abounding. While our head has protection our heart is vulnerable and we have nothing with which to fight back. 

Through Elisha’s final words, God calls us to fight the good fight – with all our might. God by His grace has given us the means to fight sin – word, sacraments, and prayer. God has given us the reason to fight sin – because it is displeasing to God. God has given us the call to fight sin – resist the devil and he will flee from you. So then, let us not seek to serve God with half of our being, but with our whole heart, soul, strength, and mind. Do not fight for a small loss, do not fight for a draw, do not fight for a limited victory, fight that you might be able to withstand in the evil day, and having done all to stand! Trusting in Christ and using His gracious means, fight sin in order to win!

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