Elisha
and the rude boys of Bethel
The
final piece of evidence concerning juvenile delinquency in the Hebrew Bible is
in 2 Kings 2. The prophet Elisha, on his way to Bethel, is accosted by a throng
of children who jeer him and call him “baldy.” Elisha curses them whereupon
some bears come out of the woods and maul the children. Verses 23-25 read as
follows:
From
there he went up to Bethel. As he was going up the road, some little boys came
out of the town and jeered at him, saying, “Go away, baldhead! Go away,
baldhead!” He turned around and looked at them and cursed them in the name of
the Lord. Thereupon, two she-bears came out of the words and mangled forty-two
of the children. He went on from there to Mount Carmel, and from there he returned
to Samaria.
The
action by Elisha, and the ensuing cruel punishment, has troubled both ancient
and modern commentators alike. Both groups interpret the story as a fable.
Arising out of the discussion of this passage in the Talmud (BT Sotah 46b-47a),
two of the terms used in the story have entered the later language as an idiom connoting
an imaginary tale or a complete fabrication. Thus the Hebrew phrase lō’ dubbîm
welō ya’ar literally means “no she-bears and no forest,” and describes
something completely imaginary, a cock-and-bull story. There were really no
she-bears, nor was there really a forest, it is all made up!
In
the same vein modern scholars have interpreted the story as a Bubenmärchen
(literally, a boys’ folktale), a type of folktale used to frighten the young into
respect for their elders (J. A. Montgomery, Kings, ICC [Edinburgh, 1951,
355). The question that concerns us is: are these boys juvenile delinquents?
Mere taunting of prophets or others does not appear to us as delinquency, but
the author of the story, and presumably his listeners, may possibly have
thought it a grave enough offense—even if only fictional—to warrant such a
severe penalty. In this respect it parallels the severe penalties which were stipulated
for showing contempt to parents. Apparently contempt of parents has to be
interpreted in its widest sense as contempt of elders in general, which would then
certainly include such authority figures as prophets. (David Marcus, "Juvenile
Delinquency in the Bible and the Ancient Near East," Journal of the
Ancient Near Eastern Society 13, no. 1 [January 1981]: 51)
