An All-Knowing God
3/5/26 Bible Thought (2 Kings 8)
Main Idea: The God of Heaven sees all and knows all, even before any of it happens.
A Look at the Text:
As we turn to today’s chapter, we see familiar faces with an unfamiliar timeline.
We are again introduced to the Shunammite woman from chapter 4, and also Gehazi, Elisha’s servant, from chapter 5. It seems chronologically like this chapter’s events occurred earlier, but topically, they fit here best in the retelling of Elisha’s ministry in Israel.[1]
In chapter 8, God brought a famine on the land for a period of seven years (2 Kings 8:1). Thankfully, Elisha warned the Shunammite woman ahead of time, and so she went to sojourn in the land of the Philistines. Then, when the famine ended, she returned to Israel to try to reobtain her house and land.
It just so happened that as she went to appeal to the king, Gehazi, Elisha’s servant, was there telling the king about this very woman and how Elisha raised her son from the dead!
Through this, God met her need, and the king restored her land.
Then, we see the scene shift. After this, the prophet Elisha met with a messenger from the king of Syria. The king wanted to know if he would be cured of his present illness.
Interestingly enough, the message was that yes, his sickness would be cured; however, the messenger was going to be king. Following this, the messenger assassinated the king and ruled in his place.
Bringing it Home:
There is a common thread woven through these very different stories: the God of Heaven knows and orchestrates the future.
In fact, His all-knowingness goes so far that He even knows the exact possible outcomes that could happen if history were to move differently, even though He knows they won’t actually happen!
God spoke through Elisha so clearly that the king of Syria would recover from his illness. In effect, the illness wouldn’t take his life. However, something else would. God knew that the sick king was destined to get better if things were to go differently. He also knew how they were actually going to go down, too.
The all-knowingness of God should quell our anxieties regarding the future. Even things that could happen but won’t are exhaustively known by Him.
He knows every decision we will make and the outcomes of those decisions. He even knows how things would go differently if we were to make different decisions than those we are going to make. Yet, at the same time, he knows that we will not be making those other decisions, even though we haven’t decided upon them yet!
This is the God who is in control, behind the scenes, orchestrating all things according to His sovereign will. The God who brings famines and ends them. The God who raises up kings and kingdoms and likewise provides for destitute women who lost their homes.
Challenge:
How might my worries for the future be arrested by a greater appreciation for the God who knows the future and is never surprised?
Let us rest in the fact that He knows all that is coming before it comes, and His plans will never be upset.
[1] Andrew C. Bowling, “2 Kings,” in CSB Study Bible: Notes, ed. Edwin A. Blum and Trevin Wax (Nashville, TN: Holman Bible Publishers, 2017), 565.