2 Kings 3

While the next son of Ahab to reign over Israel was better than his father and brother who reigned before him, he was still judged by God to be an evil king. The pattern of false worship that began with Jeroboam continued to the next generation of the northern tribes.

The international affairs of Israel became an opportunity for the king and the people to either seek the Lord or to ignore Him. The crisis before Israel involved the nation of Moab. The king of Israel sought an alliance with brothers to the south in Judah and with the neighboring nation of Edom.

Jehoshaphat was king of Judah at this time, and in the face of the distress that this alliance of three nations faced, he sought a prophet of the Lord who might lead them in hope. The king of Israel had concluded that the Lord had brought them to a place with no water in order to give them all into the hand of Moab. The true Word of the Lord through Elisha was very different. God would provide water and would give victory to Israel and Judah.

The king of Moab was desperate. He sent 700 swordsman to break through the lines of the allied kings of Israel, Judah, and Edom, but they could not. He then sacrificed his oldest son, the heir to the throne, hoping to bring wrath from heavenly realms upon the forces that stood against him.

Shockingly, it worked! We are presented with this disturbing conclusion at the end of the chapter: “And there came great wrath against Israel. And they withdrew from (the king of Moab) and returned to their own land.”

How could this be? We know that God was angry with Israel because of their idolatry. The kings over the northern tribes had led the nation in evil ways, teaching them to worship images that were created by the hands of men. Though God did bring a measure of victory through the Word of Elisha, he limited that victory. That limit of the advance of Israel was understood to have happened in connection with the Moabite king's sacrifice of his own son.

There is no biblical commentary on this event that would provide an authoritative word for us in order to lift our confusion. We do know this: Israel had become like the nations in Canaan that God had thrust out of the land in the days of Joshua. According to the warnings of Moses and the prophets, the Lord would one day do what He had promised. He would send them into exile.

We also know that God's eternal plan was to bring salvation to all the people groups of the earth through a descendant of David, a man who himself had Moabite blood. The Lord Jesus, the long-expected Son of David, would give His own blood in order to bring an astounding victory to those who would call upon His Name from every tribe and tongue and nation.

God did not approve of child sacrifice. The actions of the King of Moab were prohibited according to the Law of the Lord. Yet He used the occasion of this desperate measure to stop the forces of Israel, Judah, and Edom from taking a land that He had not given to them permanently.

We cannot say with confidence what the Lord was doing on that unusual day so long ago when he seemed to fight against Israel through the blood of the son of a Moabite king. But we can testify with confidence to this eternal truth: God sent His own Son to die for the ungodly. While we were yet sinners, Christ died for us.