Passage

2 Kings 2.23-24

Book: 2 Kings · ASV / WEB / KJV / YLT

Immediate context (±2 verses)

ASV

21. And he went forth unto the spring of the waters, and cast salt therein, and said, Thus saith Jehovah, I have healed these waters; there shall not be from thence any more death or miscarrying. 22. So the waters were healed unto this day, according to the word of Elisha which he spake.

23. And he went up from thence unto Beth-el; and as he was going up by the way, there came forth young lads out of the city, and mocked him, and said unto him, Go up, thou baldhead; go up, thou baldhead. 24. And he looked behind him and saw them, and cursed them in the name of Jehovah. And there came forth two she-bears out of the wood, and tare forty and two lads of them.

And he went from thence to mount Carmel, and from thence he returned to Samaria. (2 Kings 2:21-25, ASV)

WEB

21. He went out to the spring of the waters, and threw salt into it, and said, “Yahweh says, ‘I have healed these waters. There shall not be from there any more death or barren wasteland.’” 22. So the waters were healed to this day, according to Elisha’s word which he spoke.

23. He went up from there to Bethel. As he was going up by the way, some youths came out of the city and mocked him, and said to him, “Go up, you baldy! Go up, you baldy!” 24. He looked behind him and saw them, and cursed them in Yahweh’s name. Then two female bears came out of the woods, and mauled forty-two of those youths.

He went from there to Mount Carmel, and from there he returned to Samaria. (2 Kings 2:21-25, WEB)

KJV

21. And he went forth unto the spring of the waters, and cast the salt in there, and said, Thus saith the LORD, I have healed these waters; there shall not be from thence any more death or barren land. 22. So the waters were healed unto this day, according to the saying of Elisha which he spake.

23. And he went up from thence unto Bethel: and as he was going up by the way, there came forth little children out of the city, and mocked him, and said unto him, Go up, thou bald head; go up, thou bald head. 24. And he turned back, and looked on them, and cursed them in the name of the LORD. And there came forth two she bears out of the wood, and tare forty and two children of them.

And he went from thence to mount Carmel, and from thence he returned to Samaria. (2 Kings 2:21-25, KJV)

YLT

21. and he goeth out unto the source of the waters, and casteth there salt, and saith, 'Thus said Jehovah, I have given healing to these waters; there is not thence any more death and sterility.' 22. And the waters are healed unto this day, according to the word of Elisha, that he spake.

23. And he goeth up thence to Beth-El, and he is going up in the way, and little youths have come out from the city, and scoff at him, and say to him, 'Go up, bald-head! go up, bald-head!' 24. And he looketh behind him, and seeth them, and declareth them vile in the name of Jehovah, and two bears come out of the forest, and rend of them forty and two lads.

And he goeth thence unto the hill of Carmel, and thence he hath turned back to Samaria. (2 Kings 2:21-25, YLT)

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Setting

Speaker: the narrator of 2 Kings
Audience: Israel, in the Elisha cycle
Location: on the road from Jericho up to Bethel
Time period: the ninth century BC, at the start of Elisha's ministry

Theological reading

Go up, thou bald head... and there came forth two she bears out of the wood, and tare forty and two children of them. This is among the most frequently cited difficult texts in the Hebrew Bible and it should not be handled by pretending it is easy.

Three lexical points genuinely bear on it and none of them dissolves it. The word rendered children is ne'arim, which has a wide range and is used elsewhere of men of military age; the King James children is misleading, though the narrower qetannim is attached to it here and does push the age down, so the honest statement is that the group is young but not necessarily infants. The verb rendered tare is baqa, to split or rip; the text does not say the forty-two died. And the taunt is not about hair. Baldness carried associations with the prophetic office and with leprous uncleanness, and go up almost certainly mocks the ascension of Elijah that has just occurred in the same chapter.

The setting is the interpretive key. Bethel was one of the two rival cult centres established by Jeroboam, the site of a golden calf, and the narrative has just described Elisha receiving Elijah's mantle. A large group coming out of that city to jeer a newly commissioned prophet to go up after his master is a scene of organised contempt for the prophetic word at the centre of state-sponsored apostasy, not children teasing a stranger about his appearance.

Even with all of that granted, the severity remains, and treatments that end on a note of resolution have overclaimed. What the context establishes is that this is a judgment scene at an apostate cult centre rather than an arbitrary act, which is a real answer to the charge of caprice and is not the same as making the passage comfortable.

Key words

Theologically-loaded Greek or Hebrew words in this verse may have entries in the lexicon. Curated to roughly 100 contested terms across the corpus, not every word; see Lexicon Roadmap.

H8034 - shem, shem, Strong's H8034
H3068 - YHWH, YHWH, Strong's H3068

Quoted in

Arguments and defeaters:

Concepts:

People:

Elisha, via 2 Kings 2.23-25

Why these four translations

ris3n chose ASV, WEB, KJV, and YLT for two reasons together. They are the most literal English translations available (formal-equivalence: word-for-word renderings that preserve the Hebrew and Greek grammar rather than smoothing it into modern dynamic-equivalence idiom). And they are in the public domain in the United States, which means fair-use quotation at any length requires no publisher license. Modern licensed translations (NASB95, ESV, NIV) restrict volume of quotation under their copyright terms, so they are not used at stub-level coverage here. NASB95 appears only on hand-curated rich passage hubs under Lockman Foundation's fair-use allowance.

The four:

ASV (American Standard Version, 1901). The basis of the modern critical-text English tradition.
WEB (World English Bible, contemporary). Public-domain revision in the ASV line, in current English.
KJV (King James Version, 1611). Reformation-era, Textus Receptus base.
YLT (Young's Literal Translation, Robert Young, 1862). Hyper-literal preservation of Hebrew and Greek grammar; useful for word-study work even where English reads stiff.

See Bibles for the full per-translation history, translators, textual basis, strengths, and weaknesses.