Be Careful With What You Say

Be careful with what you say.  Elisha succeeds Elijah, and he went up to Bethel.  As he was walking up a path, some boys came out of the city and made fun of him, chanting, “Go up, baldy! Go up, baldy!”  (2 Kings 2:23).  I was reading in Matthew Henry commentary as he speculates this could have been a regular occurrence, so not the first time it had happened.  There was a school there for the prophets, but those in the city may have made fun of them, thereby, prejudicing their children against them, all for hopes of driving the prophets away.  When it comes to the chanting of these particular boys, Matthew Henry states, “It is a wicked thing to reproach persons for their natural infirmities or deformities; it is adding affliction to the afflicted; and, if they are as God made them, the reproach reflects upon him.”   Elisha turned and cursed the boys in the name of the Lord and two female bears came out of the woods and killed 42 of the children.  We should ebe careful about what we say.