Madmen
A rugged prophet is standing before Hazael, weeping. It does not matter if the king has sent 40 camels laden with gifts. Hazael thinks he is only standing in front of this man to get one answer for King Ben-hadad. Hazael, like all of us, if we were in his position, becomes quite uncomfortable to see such a man stand and weep–a man with a hairy mantle and a voice that pierces the soul. The passage states, “Elisha stared at him with a fixed gaze until Hazael felt ashamed. Then the man of God began to weep.” When Hazael asked, “Why is my lord weeping?” he answered him in this manner:
Because I know the evil that you will inflict on the men of Israel: their strongholds you will set on fire, their young men you will slay with the sword, their little ones you will dash into pieces, and their pregnant ones you will rip open.
–II Kings 8:12, TLV
