Mauled 42 boys for saying “Baldy”?

The text states, “Then he went up from there to Bethel; and as he was going up by the way, young lads came out from the city and mocked him and said to him, ‘Go up, you baldhead; go up, you baldhead!’ ²⁴ 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 lads of their number” (2 Kings 2:23-24). Does God sanction killing little children?

A number of observations can be made:

First, these weren’t little children. This Hebrew expression (ne’urim qẹtannim) should be translated “young men.” Earlier, in the same book, the author uses the term to refer to young soldiers (1 Kin. 20:13-15). Indeed, the term is translated as “young men” (NASB) or “junior officers” (NIV) or “troops” (NLT). Elsewhere, the term refers to young men who were able to get married (2 Sam. 14:21; 18:5) and to Joseph who was age 17 (Gen. 37:2). Consequently, Kaiser^[1] places the ages of the young men, anywhere from 12 to 30 years old.

Second, this was likely a gang of youths. Picture the scene. A group of 42 teenagers (?) surrounds and confronts one prophet. When I was in high school, there was a gang of kids called “the Goons.” They would come to parties as a group, and they would terrorize the people there. In one case, they beat up a person’s father who tried to kick them out of his house! While they were young kids (e.g. high school age), there were so many of them that it felt like anarchy wherever they went. Similarly, running into 42 tough youths on the streets of the ancient Near East would be terrifying.

Third, the term “baldhead” was a severe insult. In our modern culture, it is insulting to make fun of an older man who has lost his hair, but in many scenarios, this is a cause for laughter or even self-deprecation. In Israel, however, this was a severe insult. Isaiah said that baldness was a judgment from God (Isa. 3:17, 24). Kaiser writes, “Natural baldness was very rare in the ancient Near East. So scarce was baldness that it carried with it a suspicion of leprosy.”^[2] Therefore, we need to make sure that we aren’t reading our culture’s standards into this text, but understanding their ancient standards.

Fourth, the expression “Go up!” was a severe insult. This expression was the same language used of Elijah in the beginning of the chapter to refer to him being taken up into heaven (“Elijah went up by a whirlwind”). In effect, they were telling Elisha that they wanted him to be taken away like Elijah. That is, they were wishing he was dead.

Fifth, Elisha didn’t harm them personally. Elisha prayed that God would come and bring a fair judgment on this gang of men.

[1] Walter C. Kaiser Jr. et al., Hard Sayings of the Bible (Downers Grove, IL: InterVarsity, 1996), 233.

^[2] Walter C. Kaiser Jr. et al., Hard Sayings of the Bible (Downers Grove, IL: InterVarsity, 1996), 233.