Rewarding Good for Evil

by Mary

“My father, shall I smite them?”

“Thou shalt not smite them. Set bread and water before them that they may eat and drink and go to their master.” (II Kings 6:21, 22)

While playing in the schoolyard, my little brother had been cruelly struck in the face with a stone thrown by a boy much bigger than himself. Bleeding and crying he ran home to Mother who doctored him up. Believing in applying Christian principles to everyday life, and rewarding good for evil, she sent my brother back the next day with a bag of candy to give the boy who had hurt him. That boy did not molest my brother anymore. We children never forgot that practical lesson.

God had smitten with blindness the Syrian host that had come to capture Elisha, after which Elisha had conducted them right into Samaria into the hands of the king of Israel. What an opportunity to defeat their enemy!

“Shall I smite them?” cried the King of Israel excitedly. “Father, shall I smite them?”

Said Elisha of his would-be captors, “Do not smite them, but give them to eat and drink and let them return to their master.”

So he made “great provision” for them, and when they had eaten and drunk, he sent them to their master.

Rewarding good for evil!

“So the bands of Syria came no more into the land of Israel.”