The Boys, The Bears, and The Prophet Who Had No Hair: 2 Kings 2:23 – The Rest of the Story[1]
Copyright © Robert E. Cruickshank, Jr. (December 7, 2024)
All Rights Reserved
“Now he went up from there to Bethel; and as he was going up by the road, some young boys came out from the city and ridiculed him and said to him, ‘Go up, baldie! Go up, baldie!’ When he looked behind him and saw them, he cursed them in the name of the Lord. Then two female bears came out of the woods and tore up forty-two of the boys. He then went on from there to Mount Carmel, and from there he returned to Samaria” (2 Kings 2:23-25).
When I was a kid growing up, I used to love to listen to Paul Harvey’s The Rest of the Story.[2] For decades, Harvey would intrigue listeners with stories which included little-known facts about well-known people and events. Aside from his Rest of the Story broadcasts, Harvey also did News and Commentary and spoke regularly at various functions and events. One of his most remembered speeches was his address to the FFA in 1978 entitled “God Made a Farmer.”[3] And that’s exactly how one of the most famous prophets in the Bible started out – as a farmer.
Among the remnant of 7000 Israelites who did not bow their knee to Baal (2 Kg. 19:18), Elisha was busy plowing his father’s field when Elijah found him and passed the mantle on (2 Kg. 19:19). At the time, Elijah himself was fleeing from Jezebel – the evil Harlot Queen of Israel [4]who was responsible for the nation’s nosedive into apostasy. The entire episode underscores the theme of the elite class being drawn to Baal worship while the working class remained loyal to Yahweh. But there is much more to Elisha’s background and importance than the already inspiring archetype of a farmer turned prophet.
Like a Paul Harvey broadcast, we’re going to fast forward to one of the best known and yet most bizarre incidents in Elisha’s life. Shortly after Elijah is taken up in the whirlwind (2 Kg. 2:11), Elisha travels from Jericho to Bethel (2 Kg. 2:18, 23). Along the way, he encounters 42 young lads who mock him saying, “Go up, baldie! Go up, baldie” (2 Kg. 2:23). In reaction, Elisha turns, curses them in the name of the Lord, and two bears come out of the woods and devour them (2 Kg. 2:24). This surely seems like overkill (there’s a pun there) and overreaction to a bunch of juveniles and their juvenile actions. The story is as puzzling as it is perplexing, and certainly doesn’t seem to clue us in on Elisha’s heritage. That is, until you know…the rest of the story.
Baldie and The Boys from Bethel
This episode in Elisha’s career has been characterized as one of the more “odd” and “controversial” events in the Bible.[5] Accordingly, it has become quite the caricature for YouTubers and meme-makers.[6] But the problem is, they’re getting the characters all wrong. Typically, the picture is painted of a temperamental old man calling upon two bears to maul a group of little children for mocking his male-pattern baldness. In turn, the Bible critics make their own mock with captions like “God loves the little children.” But a deeper dive into the text puts their mockery to rest.
For starters, Elisha wasn’t the feeble geezer he’s made out to be. In fact, he “was still quite a young man at this point in the story, living about 60 years after this event (through the reigns of four more kings and into a fifth’s reign: Ahaziah, Joram, Jehu, Jehoahaz, & Jehoash/Joash).”[7] In other words, he wasn’t exactly an “old monk” and was probably closer in age to his taunters than their parents.[8]
This band of taunters from Bethel are called “small boys” in the ESV, “young lads” in the NASB, and “little children” in the KJV. Consequently, the internet parodies depict the “horror” of “bears mauling a gaggle of preschoolers.”[9] Aside from meme-makers and YouTubers, even scholarly literature depicts the “shocking” and “cruel” behavior of a “fearful” prophet whose “reaction seems disproportionately harsh.”[10] “The tale is so notorious,” writes Eric Ziolkowski, “that an agnostic character in a best-selling science fiction novel can retell it, citing the biblical book and chapter where it occurs, to help illustrate why he disdains traditional Western religion.”[11]
The novel to which Ziolkowski refers is Robert A. Heinlein’s classic, Stranger in a Strange Land. Published in 1961, the book “centers on a human raised on Mars who comes to Earth and challenges customs relating to sex, death, religion, and money. The book became an icon of the 1960s counterculture, and it won the prestigious Hugo Award for best novel in 1962.”[12] The relevant line comes when the main character, Valentine Michael Smith, tells a group of school-aged young girls:
“Damn it, look it up! That’s not the only shock in store for anybody who reads the Bible. Consider Elisha. Elisha was so all-fired holy that touching his bones restored a dead man to life. He was a bald-headed old coot, like myself. One day children made fun of his baldness, just as you girls do. So God sent bears to tear forty-two children into bloody bits. That’s what it says—second chapter of Second Kings.”[13]
The problem is that this strange rendition of the incident is about as fictional as the fictional character whose rendering it. Nonetheless, Heinlein’s counterculture take on Elisha’s encounter has strangely made its way into today’s culture. But strange as it may seem, the real Biblical account is nothing like the Sci Fi novel, the popular videos, and the memes.
From Boys to Men
Looping back to the English translations of 2 Kings 2:23, the phrase rendered “small boys,” “young lads,” and “little children” is a combination of two Hebrew words – qatan na’ar. A perusal through their usage elsewhere in the Old Testament strongly suggests that Elisha wasn’t facing off with a bunch of school kids at the playground.
In Genesis 29:18, qatan is used of Rachael, who was old enough to be wed at the time. In Genesis 42, it is used repeatedly of Joseph when he was a ruler in the land of Egypt. In Judges 1:13, it is used of Othniel, Caleb’s younger brother who captured the city of Debir (cf. vv. 11-12). In 1 Samuel 16:11, the word is used to describe David, who was old enough to tend sheep and strong enough to become Saul’s armor bearer (1 Sam. 16:21). In 2 Kings 18:24, it is used of the Assyrian official Rabshakeh, who is sent to bargain with king Hezekiah when the Assyrians came up against Judah (cf. vv. 13-23). In 1 Chronicles 12:14, it refers to the youngest of the Gadite army who was “a match for 100 men.” In 2 Chronicles 22:1, it is used of Ahaziah, who becomes king when he is 22 years old (2 Chr. 22:2).
The same can be said of the other word that appears in Hebrew phrase in 2 Kings 2:23. In Genesis 37:2, na’ar is used of Joseph when he was 17 years old. In Joshua 6:23, this word is used in reference to the “young men” who were spies for Joshua in in the city of Jericho. In Judges 9:54, the word is used of Abimelech’s armor bearer, who draws his sword and kills him at Abimelech’s request. In 1 Samuel 2:17, the word describes the sons of Eli – whose “sin” was “very great before the Lord.” In none of these instances are we looking at pre-teens or underaged children. According to Joel Burnett, the term na’ar is usually “applied to an unmarried male who has not yet become the head of a household.”[14]
Accordingly, we see both words combined (qatan na’ar) to describe David when he fought Goliath (1 Sam 16:11; 17:3),[15] and Solomon when he takes the throne while betrothed to Pharaoh’s daughter (1 Kg. 3:7).[16] At this point in time, Solomon had already begun construction on his own house as well as the house of the Lord (1 Kg. 3:1). As Michael Heiser puts it, these passages aren’t describing “grade-schoolers” and “toddlers.”[17]
Cutting Loose with More than Verbal Abuse
The normal Old Testament word for “mock” is la’ag, and it basically means to verbally ridicule or make fun of. For example, “…I have become a laughingstock all the day; everyone mocks (la’ag) me” (Jer. 20:7). 2 Kings 2:23, however, kicks it up a few notches and uses the stronger and rarer word qalas, which “suggests intense action.”[18] In fact, it can connote “verbal malice” with intent “to harm.”[19] For instance, consider Habakkuk’s usage of the word in conjunction with the dreaded and feared Chaldean war machine:
“All of them come for violence. Their horde of faces moves forward. They gather captives like sand. They mock (qalas) kings, and rulers are an object of laughter to them. They laugh at every fortress, Then heap up dirt and capture it” (Hab. 1:9-10).
As Wayne Jackson says, “The term does not suggest innocent conduct.”[20] The use of qalas in 2 Kings 2:23 raises threat level from mere names that “will never hurt me” to the level of “sticks and stones.” And it certainly seems that the boys from Bethel fully intended to break Elisha’s later to become famous bones (cf. 2 Kg. 13:21). Aiming for more accuracy with regard to the Hebrew being translated into Greek, the Lucianic Recension of the Septuagint attempts to capture the full force of the Hebrew word behind the Greek text by adding, “and they stoned him.”[21] While this editorial choice may or may not be justified,[22] there is justification for wanting to capture original nuances that often get lost in translation.[23]
Either way, the full force of the word paints a somewhat different picture of the encounter, to say the least. Basically, Elisha was badly outnumbered (forty-two to one) by a gang of adolescent thugs. Hence, the prophet was acting in self-defense amid an ambush. And, as Dr. Greg L. Bahnsen has shown, people do have a God-given, Biblical right to defend themselves – with lethal force if necessary.[24] Facing impossible odds, Elisha calls upon the God who gave us that right to act on his behalf. As Edersheim points out: “It should be noticed that it was not Elisha who slew those forty-two youths, but the Lord in His Providence, just as it had been Jehovah, not the prophet, who had healed the waters of Jericho.”[25] In short, the band of boys from Bethel learned the hard way that if you mess with God’s prophet, you get the bear at the end of the day!
But the question begging for an answer is: why were they messing with Elisha in the first place? What was it about Elisha that made them react this way? Who, exactly, was Elisha?
From Moses to Joshua to Elijah to Elisha
While it’s beyond the scope of this article, scholars have noted the numerous parallels between Elijah (Elisha’s predecessor) and Moses.[26] Accordingly, the last miracle that Elijah performs before being taken up is parting the waters of the Jordan (2 Kg. 2:8). With this in mind, the first thing that Elisha does after taking up Elijah’s mantle is part those same waters (2 Kg. 2:13-14). Before Elijah and Elisha, a similar miracle happens for Joshua who tells the people: “The Lord your God dried up the waters of the Jordan before you until you crossed, just as He had done to the Red Sea which until we crossed” (Josh. 4:23). When Elisha parts the waters and crosses over, he’s not just taking up Elijah’s mantle. He’s crossing over to walk in a long line of tradition – stretching right back to Moses himself.
When the sons of the prophets at Jericho saw this water-parting miracle, they got it right away and acknowledged Elisha as a true prophet (2 Kg. 2:15). Next, the second miracle that Elisha performs is to heal the bitter waters of the land (2 Kg. 2:19-22). This is another clear echo back to Moses (Exod. 15:23-25) reinforcing Elisha’s standing as a prophet in the Moses tradition. At this point in the narrative, enter the boys from Bethel. It’s obvious that they don’t share the eagerness of Jericoh’s prophets to accept the new Moses. So, they ridicule Elisha’s lack of hair? Things still don’t seem to add up. What does hair, or the lack thereof, have to do with anything?
Of course, we’ve all seen artists’ renditions of Moses with long, flowing, white hair. This may or may not have been the case. We can’t know for sure. We do know that Elisha’s predecessor, Elijah, was known as “a hairy man” (2 Kg. 2:8). But Elisha’s challengers are challenging more than the fact that he was “follicly challenged.” This is where Elisha’s ancestry and his family’s connection to Moses’s time fit together like hand in glove. And this is why Elisha takes the gloves off. With this taunt, “Go up, baldie,” Elisha’s background comes to the foreground, and it all has to do with one of his ancestors getting sucked into the ground.
The Ups and Downs of Being a Korahite
In the book of Exodus, we’re introduced to Korah (Exod. 6:21) who goes on to oppose Moses in Numbers 16. Together with 250 leaders of the congregation (Num. 16:2), Korah openly challenges Moses’s authority claiming that Moses has “gone far enough” (Num. 16:3a). Targeting both Moses and Aaron, Korah exclaims, “Why do you exalt yourselves above the assembly of the Lord?” (Num. 16:3b). Most Bible readers are familiar with the rest of the story on this one. The earth opens up and Korah and his henchmen are swallowed alive into Sheol (Num. 16:31-33).
All is well that ends well for Moses and Aaron. But the story doesn’t end there. Korah and his cronies are swallowed alive, but the sons of Korah survive (Num. 26:11). In successive generations, the Korahites go on to redeem their family name.
As Hope Bolinger says, “Even though Korah lives in infamy throughout the Bible (Jude 11), his family legacy does not.”[27] As time goes on, some of Korah’s descendants become gatekeepers, guards, and custodians in the tabernacle (1 Chr. 9:19-23). Some of the Korahites had the responsibility for “things baked in pans” and prepared the “showbread” for each Sabbath (1 Chr. 9:31-32). Other Korahites were among “the mighty men” who helped David “in war” (1 Chr. 12:1, 6). By and large, Korah’s descendants are best known for their song writing and musical talent, giving us the Songs of the Sons of Korah – some of the most beautiful and brilliant Psalms in the Hebrew Psalter (Ps. 42, 44-49, 84-85,87-88). Despite their father’s fall from fame, Korah’s descendants redeemed their family name.
And that family name has everything to do with the name calling aimed at Elisha on his way to Bethel. “Go up Baldie (qereach),” they jeer. The name “Korah” (qorach) literally means “bald” or “bald one.” In Jewish tradition, Korah would become known as the “Hairless Heretic”[28] – the archvillain who challenged Moses’s leadership.[29] Commenting on Elisha’s hecklers in 2 Kings 2, David C. Mitchell writes,
“It is a strange tale. One always feels like one is missing the point. Is it only to tell us that Elisha had a bald patch? Or is it to show, as some say, that Israel’s prophets were tortured? But that idea is uncorroborated elsewhere and seems hardly relevant here. Perhaps something has been overlooked. Korah basically means ‘bald’. The small boys’ taunt of ‘Baldhead’ is קֵרֵחַ —pronounced kereah or perhaps even koreah…while ‘Korah’ is קֵרֵחַ . Both words are identical in derivation…‘to make bald’ or ‘bare’—identical in unpointed script, and similar in sound.”[30]
Next, Mitchel puts it together: “…if Kereah was a jibe against the Korahite Elisha, everything clicks into place,” and the “elusive point of the story appears.”[31] It is another showdown between the prophets of YHWH and idolatrous Israel.”[32] But in this particular showdown, they are questioning Elisha’s very legitimacy as a prophet of YHWH to begin with. How could he lay claim to the prophetic line of Moses when it was Elisha’s own ancestor who opposed Moses? And their taunt, “go up, baldie,” is a veiled threat. Korah went down – all the way down into Sheol. The implication is that they are going to take him down, just like his ancestor, and Elisha is free to try and save himself if he can.
Vastly outnumbered and seemingly with no hope in sight, the turning point comes when Elisha turns around (2 Kg. 2:24). In an ever so ironic twist, it’s this son of Korah’s attackers who’ve inherited Korah’s legacy of opposing a true prophet of God. And the two she-bears from the woods even out the odds. Just as Moses called upon the Lord and the earth opened its mouth swallowing Korah and his men (Num. 16:28-33), Elisha calls upon the Lord and the bears swallow them. To drive the rhetorical point home, the writer of 2 Kings uses the same word for the ground being “torn open” (baqa) in Numbers 16:31 to describe Elisha’s assailants being “torn open” (baqa) in 2 Kings 2:24. In sum, past events are essential to understanding the turn of events in the Elisha story.
From Zero to Hero
From his humble beginnings as a hard-working farmer in his father’s field, to his honorable legacy working as a prophet of Yahweh, Elisha worked to ensure his family name was healed.
Joining the ranks of other Korahites, like those who penned so many beautiful Psalms, Elisha guaranteed that the incident in Numbers wouldn’t be the only mark Korah’s name left on the pages of the Bible. Korah may have been a zero, but his descendants are numbered among the heroes. Interestingly enough, Elisha’s enemies numbered 42, and the Songs of the Sons of Korah begin with Psalm number 42.
As we’ve seen, those 42 enemies weren’t the grade-school children they’re made out to be in the modern memes. The comedians and critics think the incident on the way to Bethel leaves a black mark of its own upon the Bible. But they’re not familiar enough with the Bible to even know what’s really going on in the Bible. Knowing what’s packed into the story is the key to unpacking the story. And now you know…the rest of the story!
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[1] Many thanks to the following individuals for their feedback and proofreading of the early drafts of this article, none of whom are responsible for any errors that remain: Brett Prieto, Patricia Bailey, Chris Petersen, Steve Magua, and Terry Swift. If I’ve forgotten anyone, let me know!
[2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Rest_of_the_Story
[3] https://www.americanrhetoric.com/speeches/paulharveysogodmadeafarmer.htm
[4] For a great novel telling the tale, get Brian Godawa’s Jezebel: Harlot Queen of Israel (Chronicles of the Watchers, Part 1) https://www.amazon.com/Jezebel-Harlot-Israel-Chronicles-Watchers-ebook/dp/B07ZPJF2VP . For the Biblical and Ancient Near Eastern background to the novel, get Godawa’s companion book, The Spiritual World of Jezebel and Elijah: Biblical Background to the Novel Jezebel: Harlot Queen of Israel https://www.amazon.com/Spiritual-World-Jezebel-Elijah-Background-ebook/dp/B07ZPJK5S3/ref=sr_1_1?crid=17WY10F1XAGYP&dib=eyJ2IjoiMSJ9.XnYSQSbUEJ3XjZkb57hmKhMViUd2lETbijjUVeBbXTHGjHj071QN20LucGBJIEps.UhmIkmPvW2vvEoi_UotFnDFUZXVaSlMf9VtXL-xFA3U&dib_tag=se&keywords=the+spiritual+world+of+Elijah+and+Jezebel+Brian+Godawa&qid=1733600307&s=digital-text&sprefix=the+spiritual+world+of+elijah+and+jezebel+brian+godawa+%2Cdigital-text%2C76&sr=1-1
[5] Britt Mooney, “Why Did Elisha Call a Bear to Maul Boys?” (June 13, 2024) https://www.biblestudytools.com/bible-study/topical-studies/why-did-elisha-call-a-bear-to-maul-boys.html
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=C2jmT35fygc
[6] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PyIskARTVBo
[7] Jason A. Staples, “A Bald Man, Two Bears, and Forty-two ‘Children’: Misinterpreted Bible Passages #6” https://www.jasonstaples.com/bible/a-bald-man-two-bears-and-forty-two-children-misinterpreted-bible-passages-6/
[8] Staples, Ibid.
[9] As Dr. Elizabeth Mitchell puts it. See: “Elisha, Little Children, and the Bears” https://answersingenesis.org/bible-questions/elisha-little-children-and-the-bears/?gad_source=1&gclid=EAIaIQobChMI2YORzrWBigMVSUn_AR2T7wQKEAAYASAAEgKfrPD_BwE
[10] Julie Faith Parker, Valuable and Vulnerable: Children in the Hebrew Bible, especially the Elisha Cycle (Atlanta, GA: Society of Biblical Literature, 2013), p. 94.
[11] Eric J. Ziolkowski, “The Bad Boys of Bethel: Origin and Development of a Sacrilegious Type” (History of Religions 30/4, 1991), p. 334.
[12] https://www.britannica.com/topic/Stranger-in-a-Strange-Land
[13] Robert A. Heinlein, Stranger in a Strange Land (New York, NY: Ace Books, 1961), pp. 347-348.
[14] Joel S. Burnett, “Going down to Bethel: Elijah and Elisha in the Theological Geography of the Deuteronomistic History” (Journal of Biblical Literature 129.2, 2010), p. 295.
[15] Stager, “The Archaeology of the Family in Ancient Israel,” BASOR 260 (1985), p. 26.
[16] See: Burnett, Ibid.
[17] Michael Heiser — What’s the Significance of Elisha & the Bears (2 Kings 2:23–25)? https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SIqWUFEjzDo
[18] Parker, Valuable and Vulnerable, p. 94.
[19] Parker, Ibid.
[20] Wayne Jackson, Elisha and the Lads of Bethel (Apologetics Press) https://apologeticspress.org/elisha-and-the-lads-of-bethel-1147/
[21] See: Parker, Ibid., p. 94. A recension is an edit on an existing work. For the Bible, this is usually distinct from a retranslation (https://hermeneutics.stackexchange.com/questions/4347/recensions-of-the-septuagint ).
[22] Lucian of Antioch was competent in both Greek and Hebrew and was known for his passion to retain accuracy by enriching the text with nuances that may gotten lost in wooden translation (see: “The Lucianic Recension” [chapter 14] in Natalio Fernández Marcos, The Septuagint in context: introduction to the Greek version of the Bible [London/Boston: Brill, 2000], pp. 223-230). A good example is the way in which Lucian amends the LXX of Isaiah 24:1 “where the Hebrew has ‘ the moon shall be confounded, and the sun ashamed’, while the Septuagint renders ‘the brick shall waste away and the wall shall fall’. Lucian kept the
latter reading and added from Symmachus a literal translation of the Hebrew” (Bruce M. Metzger, “The Lucianic Recension of the Greek Bible,” Chapters in the history of New Testament textual criticism [London/Boston: Brill, 1963), p. 195.
[23] According to Jim West, the Lucianic version of 2 Kings 2:23 “may reflect a metathesis of Hebrew ‘saqal’ to stone.’ Thus Lucian would have here a doublet, one reflecting Hebrew ‘qalas’, ‘to mock’ and the other ‘saqal,’ ‘to stone’” (“Beware the Angry Prophet: 2 Kings 2:23-25” [Quartz Hill School of Theology Zwinglius Redivivus, March 2013], p. 6).
[24] A Gun Control Debate Part 1 — Dr. Greg Bahnsen vs. Dr. James Atwood https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tzT9PL-sjEY
A Gun Control Debate Part 2 — Dr. Greg Bahnsen vs. Dr. James Atwood
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hGKmqJR_RjI
[25] Albert Edersheim, The Bible History: Old Testament (Grand Rapids, MI: Eerdmans), p. 107.
[26] For example, Satterthwaite, Philip E. “The Elisha Narratives and Coherence of 2 Kings 2-8.” Tyndale Bulletin 49.1 (1998): 1-28; Burnett, Joel S. “Going down” to Bethel: Elijah and Elisha in the theological geography of the Deuteronomistic History.” Journal of Biblical Literature 129.2 (2010): 281-297.
[27] Hope Bolinger , “The Other Psalmists: Who Were the Sons of Korah?” (March 5, 2020) https://www.biblestudytools.com/bible-study/topical-studies/the-other-psalmists-who-were-the-sons-of-korah.html
[28] See: Biale, David. “Korah in the Midrash: The Hairless Heretic as Hero.” Jewish History 30 (2016): 15-28.
[29] See: Magonet, Jonathan. “The Korah Rebellion.” Journal for the Study of the Old Testament 7.24 (1982): 3-25.
[30] David C. Mitchell, “God Will Redeem My Soul from Sheol: The Psalms of the Sons of Korah” (Journal for the Study of the Old Testament, Vol 30.3, 2006) , p. 373.
[31] Mitchell, Ibid.
[32] Mitchell, Ibid.
