SUFFERING WITH THE KING JAMES BIBLE

 There's a text in the King James Bible that has provided fodder for the critics of Scripture and needlessly so. The verse concerns an incident in the life of the great prophet Elisha just after the translation of his mentor Elijah to heaven without seeing our ancient enemy physical death. 

We read in II Kings 2 these words: "And he went up from thence unto Bethel: and as he was going up by the way, there came forth little children out of the city, and mocked him, and said unto him, Go

up, thou bald head; go up, thou bald head. And he turned back, and looked on them, and cursed them in the name of the Lord. And there came forth two she bears out of the wood, and tare forty and two children of them." (KJV)

Wait. What? "Little children" being cursed by the prophet for a harmless teasing and they get ripped apart by bears for that? Did not the translators see something wrong with that scenario? Did they not connect any dots back to the Exodus and realize that God did not hold anyone under the age of 20 responsible for the rebellion on the way to the land of promise. That text alone would have told them that something was amiss with the translation, "little children."

Had they only turned back to Genesis 37:2, they would have figured it out. In that text, they would have found the same Hebrew word that they translated "little children" and found that it specifically referred to a young adult of 17. Hardly a "little child." It was a word used of those young men in Israel who were qualified for the draft, again, hardly a "little child." 

Elisha was confronted with young adults, pagans, who were threatening him, mocking the translation of God's prophet by chanting, "Go up, you baldhead! Go up, you baldhead!” They were a pagan, idol-worshiping mob, outnumbering him and capable of killing him. This incident occurred in Bethel, a center of idolatry in Israel; it was one of the places where the golden calf was. 

Elisha's approach triggered a mass demonstration against him by many young men.  "Baldhead" is a term of disrespect. The idolaters challenged Elisha to "go up" to heaven as Elijah had done—if Elisha could!

These youths were typical of a nation that mocked the messengers of God, hated God's Word, and belittled His prophets. Elisha wasn't motivated by personal pride but by a desire for God's glory, He pronounced God's curse on them for their disrespect of His prophet and Himself. 

They had been warned that God is not to be mocked and that warning came in Leviticus 26:21-22: "Yet if you show hostility toward Me and are unwilling to obey Me, I will increase the plague on you seven times according to your sins. I will also let loose among you the animals of the field, which will deprive you of your children and eliminate your cattle, and reduce your number so that your roads become deserted."

The translators of the King James unwitting wrote a disastrous translation, that has caused a misunderstanding for hundreds of years.