Open His Eyes

A young man walks out of the house at dawn and finds the whole city ringed with an enemy army sent to arrest his master. He does what any of us would do: he panics. What the old prophet says to him, and what he prays, is the shortest lesson in the Bible on the difference between what is true and what you can see. It also ends with a feast for the enemy, which nobody expects.

The man who heard the bedchamber

Elisha had asked his master Elijah for one thing before the chariot came: "I pray thee, let a double portion of thy spirit be upon me" (2 Kings 2:9). What he got was a ministry of small, strange, domestic miracles: a widow's one pot of oil that filled every borrowed jar in the street until "there is not a vessel more. And the oil stayed" (4:6); a Syrian general told to go and wash in a muddy river, furious that the cure was so ordinary, until his own servants asked him, "if the prophet had bid thee do some great thing, wouldest thou not have done it? how much rather then, when he saith to thee, Wash, and be clean?" (5:13). Bread multiplied, an axe head floated, a dead boy warmed back to life. And war intelligence.

"Then the king of Syria warred against Israel, and took counsel with his servants, saying, In such and such a place shall be my camp" (6:8). And every time, Israel's army was somewhere else. The king of Syria decides he has a traitor, and his servant tells him the truth: "None, my lord, O king: but Elisha, the prophet that is in Israel, telleth the king of Israel the words that thou speakest in thy bedchamber" (6:12). So the king does the sensible thing. He sends an army after one old man. "Therefore sent he thither horses, and chariots, and a great host: and they came by night, and compassed the city about" (6:14).

Alas, my master

Notice what Elisha does not do. He does not pray for the army to leave. He does not pray for a way out. He prays that the boy will see what is already there. The chariots of fire were on the mountain before the servant woke up, before the Syrians arrived, before anybody prayed anything; the only thing that changed at "open his eyes" was the servant. And what he sees is the same thing Elisha had seen the day his own master was taken up: "My father, my father, the chariot of Israel, and the horsemen thereof" (2:12). The old prophet had been looking at that sight for years. He simply asked that the boy be allowed to look too.

Chrysostom's word for the boy is "imperfect," and he means it kindly: not yet finished. He had been told the truth and could not take it in, so he was shown it. That is most of us, most mornings.

Set bread and water before them

Then the story turns in a direction no one sees coming. Elisha prays a second time, and the Syrian army is struck with a blindness that leaves them able to walk but not to recognise, and the prophet walks out to them and says, in effect, wrong town, follow me, and leads the entire enemy host ten miles into Samaria, the capital, and prays again: "LORD, open the eyes of these men, that they may see. And the LORD opened their eyes, and they saw; and, behold, they were in the midst of Samaria" (6:20). Surrounded, this time by Israel. The king of Israel can hardly believe his luck: "My father, shall I smite them? shall I smite them?" (6:21).

"And he answered, Thou shalt not smite them: wouldest thou smite those whom thou hast taken captive with thy sword and with thy bow? set bread and water before them, that they may eat and drink, and go to their master" (6:22). Feed them. The army that came to kill him, sat down at a table in the enemy capital and fed, and sent home. "And he prepared great provision for them… So the bands of Syria came no more into the land of Israel" (6:23). A feast ended the raids. Eight hundred years before anyone said "love your enemies," a prophet who could have had them all killed put bread in front of them instead, and it worked.

Where this lands

The chariots were always there. That is the first thing, and the psalmist knew it: "The angel of the LORD encampeth round about them that fear him" (Psalm 34:7); Hebrews calls them "ministering spirits, sent forth to minister for them who shall be heirs of salvation" (Hebrews 1:14). Paul's prayer for the Ephesians is Elisha's prayer for the servant, almost word for word: "The eyes of your understanding being enlightened; that ye may know what is the hope of his calling" (Ephesians 1:18). Not a change in the facts. A change in the eyes.

And the One the chariots serve knew they were there too. In another garden, at night, with another armed party come to arrest one man, He said to the disciple who drew a sword: "Thinkest thou that I cannot now pray to my Father, and he shall presently give me more than twelve legions of angels?" (Matthew 26:53). The mountain was full that night too. He did not call them. He let Himself be taken, so that the enemy host, which is all of us, could be led blind into the city, have its eyes opened, and be set at a table and fed. Fear not. They that be with us are more. And the way He chose to win was to put bread in front of the people who came for Him. He still does.

Related: Angels, Hope, Abide, day three: Elijah, and Naaman, 2 Kings 5. Scripture from the King James Version, linked to BibleHub; the words of God are marked in gold, the words of Christ in purple.