So, I was doing my daily devos and came across this little gem and had a bear of a time trying to figure out what is happening. I did some research and figured I would put it into a blog for you guys.

Problems we hit here:

1. Child Sacrifice-2 Kings 3:27
2. God Promises Victory, yet Israel, upon seeing the sacrifice of the King of Moab’s son, flees

Implications:

1. God actually honored Moab’s king’s child sacrifice (contrary to Lev. 20:2-5; Deut. 12:31; Deut. 18:10; Jer. 32:35)
2. Other gods besides God exists who actually overpowered the true God (contrary to Deut. 4:25; 6:4; Isa. 45:5)

So what do we do? Well….

Implication 2 (“multiple gods”) cannot be true (the following comes from Handbook of Christian Apologetics by P. Kreeft and R. Tacelli)

1. If God exists, He must exist without limit.
2. If it He is without limit, there cannot be more than one god, for if so there would have been some difference between them.
3. Step 2, if the second half were true, this would involve non-being (a.k.a. the one could not be what the other one was).
4. BUT if that were so, then neither one could be the limitless fullness of being.
5. This would mean what we call “God” is not the ultimate answer to our question about finite being after all.
6. BUT if “God” is the answer to that question, then he must be the limitless fullness of being and cannot be limited by another god outside himself so God must be one.

And Implication 1 (“God honored the sacrifice”) cannot be true either.

1. If God is all-good, He would be consistent with His revealed truth (a.k.a. He would not honor something that He strictly and repeatedly forbade, including instances like Gen. 22-a narrative implicitly teaching this)
2. He would not be good and yet be bloodthirsty, especially to the most innocent in society: children.

Now we go to the text itself: Here is a summary

The King of Moab, once loyal to King Ahab of Israel, now rebels against Ahab’s son, the new king Jehoram. In response, Jehoram aligns with both King Jehoshaphat of Judah and the King of Edom. Jehoshaphat summons Elisha who prophecies that the wadi will be full of pools so that the alliance of the three kings and their armies won’t die of thirst. Elisha also prophecies that just as easy as it is for God to do the impossible and deliver water to them, He will also “hand Moab over to them”.

What is interesting to observe here is that unlike other “Divine conquest commands” found in other parts of the Old Testament, there is not the command for total destruction of human and animal life alike. Instead we find these explicit statements. This battle against Moab involves:

1. conquering “every fortified/choice city”
2. falling “every good tree”
3. stop up “every good water spring”
4. filling with stones “every good piece of land”

The next day, sure enough water does indeed flow without wind or rain and the troops are nourished. On Moab’s side, they see the water as tinted red, and they think the alliance’s troops have turned on each other, and so will be an easy target to defeat. Yet, Israel and her allies drive Moab back and indeed fulfills Elisha’s prophecy by:

1. conquering cities
2. falling every good tree
3. stopping up every good spring
4. filling with stones every good piece of land.

So far so good. Moab is on the back foot, and the king tries a political/military maneuver to break the Edom’s battle line, but it fails. In a last ditch move, the King of Moab sacrifices his firstborn son as a burnt offering on the remaining wall.

What is odd here is vs. 27b-“The fury against Israel was great; they withdrew and returned to their own land”

We had been witnessing a dramatic battle, and just when Israel and her forces seem to have Moab in checkmate, the battle ends and we are left hanging in mid-air asking the question, “Why”? “Why sacrifice your own son?” and furthermore, “Why did Israel suddenly stop?”

The most obvious answer to the first question is that Moab’s king did this in a sincere effort to regain the favor of his god Chemosh, as human sacrifice, although rare, was practiced in the ancient world.

So now, on to the second question, “Why did Israel suddenly stop?” and as a follow up, “Who’s wrath was mentioned in vs. 27?” God’s? Chemosh?

Well, we already established God would not have honored this abhorrent practice (Deut. 12:31; 18:10) and this practice is condemned later in the same book! (2 Kings 16:3; 17:7; 21:6). We also have established there would not have been any other gods, so where do we go?

Well, as Paul Copan writes, the word “wrath” does not always mean divine wrath; it could also mean human-2 Kings 5:11; 13:19 (pg. 96, Is God a Moral Monster?) If you couple that with the fact that both 1) Israel and her allies did fulfill God’s prophecy specifically about the four points mentioned above and 2) there is no divine approval or condemnation about Israel stopping the fight, which accompanies battle narratives sometimes so we do not know how God felt about all this.

Hence with all this in mind, for the answer as to “Why did Israel return to their land after seeing the child sacrifice?”  Remember, Israel under Ahab’s kingly dynasty had fallen into national spiritual apostasy, and with few exceptions, had forgotten about God. The reason they seemed to flee then, is that they were genuinely fearful of Chemosh! They shared many superstitions of the peoples around them (Judg 11:24) and after seeing the child sacrifice, their superstitious notions got the better of them. (George Harton, “The Meaning of 2 Kings 3:27)

The Bible affirms there is only one true God, and He had just proved himself by performing a miracle by providing water with no rain in a dry desert! Yet, similar to the tragic tales of the wilderness wanderings where God’s people see His actions and still turn their backs on Him, we see this played out again in this story.

Was the victory incomplete? Did Israel lose the battle? NO. Even though as far as what could have happen, it looked undone, from the perspective of God, all was complete. For as we have already seen, from the perspective of prophecy, all of the events Elisha had predicted would happen did. Eventually, Moab drops from the historical record around the time of the Persian Empire.

So what do we learn here of God and His people?

God-He is powerful enough to provide for His people, and even though Israel had fallen into apostasy, out of grace and respect for Jehoshaphat of Judah God fulfills through the battle what He had told Elisha to prophesy.

People-Looking at the big picture, this story is also a comment about the spiritual state of Israel. Had the army moved with confidence in God, nothing would have scared them from fighting Moab and overtaking its king. It is another sad story that is illustrating how far away from God that Israel as a whole is shifting. Even after seeing a miracle and then fulfilled prophecy, the army still trembles in the face of a display of wickedness and idolatry rather than trusting God the whole way.