Posted by (I was asked to lead a Bible study, here’s what I shared.)
In 1472 troops of Charles the Bold of Burgundy were driving across France, leaving destruction and death in their wake. The same fate seemed to await the small town of Beauvais. That is, until a teenaged girl named Jeanne decided to take action. Grabbing a hatchet, she attacked the enemy’s standard bearer and seized the flag. Her actions spurred on the locals, who repelled the invaders. She became known as Jeanne Hachette, and her bravery is commemorated each year in Beauvais, France.
Today, the hatchet is not used as a weapon anymore but in sports. One of the popular growing sports and entertainment now, even in urban places, is axe throwing. In fact, there are places here where you can do this. In the game you will throw an axe into a target, with the bullseye being 6 points and farther from the center is less points. Each game involves 5 throws of an axe. Maybe you have the spirit of the old Viking and want to throw axe.
Our study for this morning is also about flying axes. In our Bible story, the axe head flew, and then it swam. Let’s open our Bibles to 2 Kings 6: 1-7.
And the sons of the prophets said to Elisha, “See now, the place where we dwell with you is too small for us. 2 Please, let us go to the Jordan, and let every man take a beam from there, and let us make there a place where we may dwell.”
So he answered, “Go.”
3 Then one said, “Please consent to go with your servants.”
And he answered, “I will go.” 4 So he went with them. And when they came to the Jordan, they cut down trees. 5 But as one was cutting down a tree, the iron ax head fell into the water; and he cried out and said, “Alas, master! For it was borrowed.”
6 So the man of God said, “Where did it fall?” And he showed him the place. So he cut off a stick, and threw it in there; and he made the iron float. 7 Therefore he said, “Pick it up for yourself.” So he reached out his hand and took it.
The story opened with the sons of the prophet realizing that their place was too small. Who are the sons of the prophet? This was actually a school or an assembly of young people that were being trained to be prophets or workers for God. It’s similar to our current seminaries. The school of the prophets was established by Samuel, and in our story, the current administrator and teacher was the prophet Elisha.
So this young men complained that their school building was too small. Maybe they have more enrollment or recruits, that there were more students and they could not all fit anymore. What a wonderful problem to have, I will say. I pray that one day we will also say that this church is too small for us. That there are no more room for all of us to fit in the pews.
But besides complaining that their place was too small, these young men also were ready to act on the problem. So they plan to build and expand their place of dwelling.
When we have a problem, do we just complain? Or do we act on it? When we realize that there is a problem, let us not just complain but help out to act on it. Think of what we can all contribute for our church. Amen?
So the students asked permission from Elisha that they go near the Jordan river to cut some timber. Nowadays we just go the the lumberyard or to the hardware store to get our wood, right? We don’t have to go out and cut down trees. That’s a lot of work.
So Elisha told them, “Go.” So they got their marching orders.
Brothers and sisters, we also have a marching order. We are all commissioned to go.
Matthew 28:19 says “Go therefore and make disciples of all the nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit.”
Then one of the students asked Elisha, to go with them, and what was Elisha’s answer?
“I will go.”
What I want us to remember in this story is when Elisha send the students to go, he also answered that he will go with them. Part of God’s commission when He told us to “Go,” is His promise to us saying “I will go.” Yes, we will never be alone for God will go with us.
Matthew 28: 20 – ” ‘And lo, I am with you always, even to the end of the age.’ Amen.”
So the sons of the prophet went down Jordan to cut trees. And what did they bring with them, besides bringing with them Elisha, of course? They brought their tools. And even though some of them have no tools of their own, they borrowed tools, like the borrowed axe.
You cannot cut down trees without the axe or the proper tools. You will not go cutting down tree with a butter knife. That will take forever. You need an axe. It better be a sharp axe too. We cannot go without our proper tools. We cannot go out in a battle without our weapon. And what is our weapon when we go out to the world? The Word of God, the Bible.
Hebrews 4:12 – “For the word of God is living and active, sharper than any two-edged sword, piercing to the division of soul and of spirit, of joints and of marrow, and discerning the thoughts and intentions of the heart.”
So when they got to Jordan, they went to work. And then it happened – an axe head flew off the handle, sailed through the air, and plopped into the river.
First of all, does this really happens? It happens frequently that the Bible even protects people involve in this kind of accident. Let’s read in Deuteronomy 19:15:
“As when a man goes to the woods with his neighbor to cut timber, and his hand swings a stroke with the ax to cut down the tree, and the head slips from the handle and strikes his neighbor so that he dies—he shall flee to one of these cities and live.”
This is pertaining to the city of refuge. During the ancient times the law was an “eye for an eye and a tooth for a tooth” so the punishment was equal to the crime. So when you kill somebody, the family of the victim can kill you to avenge their loved one’s death. But God provided protection for accidental killing. If you killed someone unintentionally, like with your flying axehead, then you may run to the city of refuge.
There were 6 cities of refuge during the time of the Israelites which were strategically located where you can claim sanctuary and the relatives or family avengers cannot touch you if it was really proven that the killing was an accident. That’s another topic I want to study for another time.
Not only in the Biblical times that flying axe head happens, even in the more recent times, it still happens. In the English language we have the idiom “fly off the handle” which means to lose one’s temper suddenly and unexpectedly. Where do you think this idiom “fly off the handle” came from? Yes, from flying axe heads that happen accidentally.
It was unfortunate that the axe head flew and sank into the river, but it was still fortunate that it did not hit another student or Elisha and killed them, right? Nevertheless the axe head got lost.
So the young man who had the axe shouted, “Alas, master! It was borrowed.”
Was he over dramatic? What’s the big deal? Is this really a crisis worth of a performing a miracle?
I’m sure someone among them can swim and retrieve the axe, right? But we are talking about the Jordan river. It is murky and muddy. You cannot see its bottom. Remember Captain Namaan of the Syrian army does not want to dip in that river when Elisha told him so to heal him of his leprosy?
The name Jordan, comes from the Hebrew word Yarden which means to go down. It is named so because it is continuously descending from an altitude of about 10,000 feet in Mount Hermon then it flows about 155 miles and ends up in the Dead Sea. Jordan river is the lowest river in the world as it ends in the Dead Sea which is the lowest point in the world at 1400 feet below sea level. Jordan river descends more than 11000 feet from its source to its end. Perhaps it was dragging the mud on its banks as it flowed down.
Few years ago, we were blessed to go and visit the river Jordan. It was really muddy. There were some in our group that got baptized during our visit. For me, I just went to edge and dip my hand, and my friends you cannot see anything in the water. Even if is one feet under the surface, you cannot see it. It is really murky.
Photo below is me dipping my hand at the Jordan River.
So what if the axe head cannot be found, it can be easily replaced, right? Just go to Home Depot or Lowe’s. Maybe today, but not during that time.
The axe was made of iron. The Iron Age was between 1200 to 600 BC, and that was the time when people from different cultures started making tools and weapons from iron and steel. Elisha lived around 800 BC, so definitely during the Iron Age. Producing iron and making iron tools was an expensive process at that time.
I read a commentary that losing a borrowed axe at that time is like borrowing someone’s car and getting into an accident and totally wrecking the car in our current times. Then that’s a big deal, right? This young prophet, definitely don’t have the money to replace it.
Besides being expensive, during that time when this happened, there was a war between Israel and Syria, so all the blacksmith are producing weapons, so it may be hard to get a blacksmith to make an axe to replace the lost one right away.
You know that there are laws and rules in the Bible that anything you borrowed must be returned, and if it got lost or if what you borrowed was injured or dies, like when you’re borrowing a horse, then you should make a full restitution. You can find that in Exodus 22.
Now we can understand better, that this young man was not just being overdramatic. It was really a big deal of a problem.
Elisha then asked, “where did it fall?” He was asking as he did not know where it is. Again, this is river Jordan. It is muddy and murky, you cannot see the bottom. But the young man, most likely know and saw how the axehead sailed through the air and where it landed on the river. And he showed Elisha the exact place.
That was this young man’s participation in the miracle. He has to lead Elisha to the right place. I believe that when we ask, we also have to do our part. First of all we have to ask and pray, but perhaps we need to be specific in our prayer. What exactly do we need? Just like Elisha asking, where did it fall?
Elisha then cut a piece of wood and threw it at the site where the axe head sank. Elisha uses common things to perform miracles. In the healing of waters in Jericho, he placed salt at the spring and the water became good. In the toxic stew, he put flour in the stew, and it counteract the poison, and the stew could be eaten. Here he got a stick and used it for the miracle. Common things that are readily available for him to perform the miracle.
When God uses us, he uses common things that are readily available for us. Maybe it is your knitting kit that He will use to bless others. Maybe it is your stethoscope that he’ll use. Maybe it is your electric drill or your hammer that God will use to bless others. Or perhaps it is your mop and broom. Whatever is in your hand, God can use them to bless others.
When Elisha threw the stick into the water, the miracle happened. The iron axehead floated! How? It defied the law of nature and physics.
According to physics, an object floats when it displaces a volume of water that has a mass equal to the mass of the object. Sorry, I’m a science geek. Density is mass per unit volume. If an object is more compact, or denser, than water, it will sink in water. If the density of an object is less than the density of water, the object will float in water.
Did God changed the density of the iron, that it became like a styrofoam? Or did God changed the density of the water of Jordan that it became more dense than the iron?
We were also blessed to visit the Dead Sea, where the river Jordan ends. The Dead Sea is one of the saltiest body of water in the world. It is almost 10 times saltier than the ocean. It is impossible to sink in the Dead Sea. When I waded in the water, I don’t have to do anything. I laid in the water and I floated. The Dead Sea has a density of 1.24 kg/L.
The density of iron is is 7.87 kg/L. That is still 7 times more dense than the Dead Sea. Even in the Dead Sea, the iron axe head will sink. There’s no natural explanation for the axe head to float, that’s why it is a miracle.
When the axe head floated, Elisha told the young man, “pick it up,” and so the young man pick it up. That was his another participation in the miracle. He has to retrieve the floating axe head. The same with us. When we pray, we have to claim His promise. We have to claim His answer. We have to do our part, even if it very simple. That is just merely claiming God’s promises, for He already did everything for us.
So what was this miracle teaches us? I have read and listened to some interesting allegory made from this story. Such as saying that the axe head represent man’s soul, and the river Jordan is the judgement, and the stick is the cross of Jesus. Interesting. How about we just take this story at its face value. No allegory. That this story teaches us that God is concern even with the small needs of our lives.
Elisha have healed Naaman from leprosy, raised the Shunnamite’s child from the dead, healed a bad water for the city of Jericho, save the city of Samaria from being captured, – big miracles for big problems. But he also made an axehead float for the young man who borrowed the axe, who have no money to replace it. A miracle even for a small problem.
With all the wars that is happening in the world today – like in Gaza, in Ukraine, in Somalia – that God has to intervene, does He have time to hear about the misunderstanding between you and your daughter?
God has to quiet down many storms, hurricanes and earthquakes and save people from the disaster from all the calamities going on this world, will He stop to curb your dizziness or your headache?
With the economy of many countries crashing, and many people starving due to famines, and many people displaced from the wars, does God care that you don’t have money for gas?
The resounding answer is yes! God cares even about our small needs. That is what this story is teaching us.
Matthew 10: 29-31 says: 29 Are not two sparrows sold for a copper coin? And not one of them falls to the ground apart from your Father’s will. 30 But the very hairs of your head are all numbered. 31 Do not fear therefore; you are of more value than many sparrows.
If God cares about the sparrow, He definitely cares for you.
I would like to end with this story.
The popular gospel hymn “His Eyes is On the Sparrow” was written by Civilla Martin. This was obviously inspired by the scripture in Matthew 10: 29. But there’s another famous hymn that she has written.
This hymn was inspired when Civilla and her husband, Walter Stillman Martin, a minister, were spending time in New York in a Bible Training School. Mr. Martin was invited to preach at a church some distance away from the Bible school. That morning when Mr. Martin was supposed to preach, Mrs. Martin became suddenly ill, making it impossible for her to accompany her husband. Mr. Martin seriously considered cancelling his speaking engagement, since he would be gone for a considerable time and would not be able to care for his sick wife. Just then, however, their young son spoke up and said, ‘Father, don’t you think that if God wants you to preach today, He will take care of Mother while you are away?’
Mr. Martin went and preached that day and returned that evening to find his wife much improved. In fact, while he had been gone, Mrs. Martin prepared a new text that was inspired by their son’s statement. Before retiring to bed that evening, Mr. Martin wrote the music to his wife’s text. And the hymn “God Will Take Care of You,” was created.
“God Will Take Care of You”
by Civilla D. Martin
Be not dismayed whate’er betide,
God will take care of you;
beneath his wings of love abide,
God will take care of you.
God will take care of you,
through every day, o’er all the way;
he will take care of you,
God will take care of you.
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(*photos taken from the web, except the photo of me in the Jordan river)