2 Kings 2:23–25, King James Version
Italic words were supplied in the English translation for clarity.
2 Kings 2:23–25
Mockery, curse, and the mauling by bears
Bethel's mockery is not a children's tale
On the road to Bethel, a gang of youths comes out and jeers, "Go up, you baldhead." The taunt aims at Elijah's departure and at the prophet who now walks in his place. Bethel is Jeroboam's shrine city, not a playground. Elisha turns, calls down a curse in the Lord's name, and two bears come from the woods and maul forty-two of them. He then goes to Carmel and returns to Samaria.
This scene is not a baptism of children, not a warrant to harm the young, and not a cute lesson about playground manners. It is a hard judgment on public contempt for the prophetic office at a calf-shrine. The text names a mauling; it does not invite readers to imitate bears, curses, or violence against anyone they find disrespectful.
How this should shape us
Treat contempt for God's word as spiritually serious without turning this passage into a weapon against children or opponents. Mockery of holy things is not harmless theater, and neither is copying the judgment.
Teach it back
Explain 2 Kings 2:23–25 in your own words. Include its movement, one source-supported detail, one material uncertainty, one affected or obscured person, and one misuse the complete context rules out.
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Go deeper
The explanation above is meant to stand on its own. Open these notes only if you want language, history, disagreements, or source locations.
Where careful interpreters disagreeThe strongest options and their difficulties
Where do careful interpreters disagree?
Best judgment: The group's age, the force of the insult, Bethel's political setting, the relation between curse and attack, and proposed imperial echoes are disputed; the mauling remains morally disturbing and is not commanded for imitation.
How certain? probableResearch trail and exact locationsThe source record behind this section
Supports: Exact reader-facing KJV wording, paragraph metadata, supplied-word markup, and complete verse coverage for this thought unit.
2 Kings 2:23–25, pinned eng-kjv2006 USFM corpus
Supports: Hebrew wording, morphology, names, royal formulas, clause relationships, older-English controls, and translation limits.
Open Scriptures MorphHB v.2.2, commit 6a5db284c715c18b239422e57bb89684e6a19f00, wlc/2Kgs.xml, Masoretic words and morphology for 2:23–25
Supports: A unit-bounded translation comparison plus only the lexical, grammatical, textual, historical, or older-English notes actually printed for these verses; silence is not treated as evidence.
NET Bible 2 Kings PDF, printed pp. 627–629, translation and translator notes for 2:23–25
Supports: Unit-level literary, compositional, historical, and theological orientation used as one concise scholarly synthesis rather than consensus.
Dietrich, '1 and 2 Kings,' Oxford Bible Commentary (2001), printed pp. 249–253, exposition covering 2 Kings 2:23–25
Supports: Only the abstract-visible proposal connecting the bear scene to Assyrian imperial discourse about children; not a consensus ethical or historical solution.
McAffee, Biblical Interpretation 31.5 (2023), official abstract and metadata for pp. 602–623
Sources for This Section
These records identify the source, the claim it supports, and the exact location used. A source remains evidence to evaluate; it does not replace the biblical text.
Biblical text
King James (Authorized) Version — eng-kjv2006
eBible.org and CrossWire Bible Society
USFM archive eng-kjv2006_usfm.zip; source files dated 2026-08-19; downloaded 2026-08-24; archive SHA-256 aec1b3b26c622fd3d963d2bbac963016b9513246ffbfa20da00bb100372ea007; normalized corpus SHA-256 09aef51d90488aa7b9722b3fd9a93f4b25f6bf2064c5fd798fb39673c300ddf2.
Supports: Exact reader-facing KJV wording, paragraph metadata, supplied-word markup, and complete verse coverage for this thought unit.
Exact location: 2 Kings 2:23–25, pinned eng-kjv2006 USFM corpus
Open source ↗hebrew text and morphology
Open Scriptures Hebrew Bible: 2 Kings
Open Scriptures
Open Scriptures, release 2.2
Supports: Hebrew wording, morphology, names, royal formulas, clause relationships, older-English controls, and translation limits.
Exact location: Open Scriptures MorphHB v.2.2, commit 6a5db284c715c18b239422e57bb89684e6a19f00, wlc/2Kgs.xml, Masoretic words and morphology for 2:23–25
Open source ↗translation and translator notes
NET Bible: 2 Kings with translators' notes
Biblical Studies Press
Biblical Studies Press, 2006
Supports: A unit-bounded translation comparison plus only the lexical, grammatical, textual, historical, or older-English notes actually printed for these verses; silence is not treated as evidence.
Exact location: NET Bible 2 Kings PDF, printed pp. 627–629, translation and translator notes for 2:23–25
Open source ↗scholarly commentary chapter
1 and 2 Kings
Walter Dietrich
The Oxford Bible Commentary, Oxford University Press, 2001
Supports: Unit-level literary, compositional, historical, and theological orientation used as one concise scholarly synthesis rather than consensus.
Exact location: Dietrich, '1 and 2 Kings,' Oxford Bible Commentary (2001), printed pp. 249–253, exposition covering 2 Kings 2:23–25
Open source ↗peer reviewed scholarly article abstract
Reading Elisha's She-Bears as a Response to the Assyrian Imperial Discourse on Children
Matthew McAffee
Biblical Interpretation 31(5), pp. 602-623, 2023
Supports: Only the abstract-visible proposal connecting the bear scene to Assyrian imperial discourse about children; not a consensus ethical or historical solution.
Exact location: McAffee, Biblical Interpretation 31.5 (2023), official abstract and metadata for pp. 602–623
Open source ↗