It’s been a season of hard—a long season of all things heavy and arduous, burdensome and complicated. Chronic illness is like that. Just when you think you have it managed, just when it tricks you into thinking you have it under control, it’ll put you in your place. Never discreet, it obtrusively reminds that there is no choice and there is no freewill in disease. It’s something I’ve painfully witnessed in the lives of others recently, too—in those I especially love who are fighting battles of their own.
So, there was something I needed to hear this week. And maybe you need it too. It was a seemingly random verse in the middle of 2 Kings chapter 3. Well, it’s technically a couple of verses, I guess. Because to fully understand verse 17, you need verse 16. Don’t miss verse 16.
[Elisha] said, “Thus says the LORD, ‘Make this valley (the Arabah) full of trenches.’ For thus says the LORD, ‘You will not see wind or rain, yet that valley will be filled with water, so you and your cattle and your other animals may drink. This is but a simple thing in the sight of the LORD; He will also hand over the Moabites to you.
—2 Kings 16–18 AMP
Here’s what is happening in chapter 3: Mesha king of Moab revolts against King Joram of Israel. In response, King Joram mobilizes all Israel. Not only that, but he sends a message to Jehoshaphat king of Judah, asking him to join forces with him. Jehoshaphat agrees. The two decide to attack Moab from the south through the Desert of Edom. Given the route and already under Judah’s control, the king of Edom joins and marches with them.
I don’t know why they chose to attack from the south, through the desert. It wasn’t the quickest, most linear, or most direct route. Rather, it was a long, roundabout march. Maybe it was the best military strategy. But scripture tells us that after just seven days, those three armies find themselves and their animals without water stranded in the desert.
Joram is indignant. He is furious. In verse 10, he says: Has the Lord called us three kings together only to hand us over to Moab?
Well, maybe? But Jehoshaphat suggests they seek God’s word in the matter.
Elisha the prophet is there. The kings go to him. And he tells them in verse 17 what God says of the situation: You will see neither wind nor rain, yet this valley will be filled with water.
God promises to meet their need. He will bring provision. And, in verse 18, He tells them He will ensure victory over their enemy.
There is so much here in these few verses. But of everything—even more than the victory—what speaks to me is this: God brings the water. He provides. How he does it won’t been seen or known or witnessed. They won’t see progress. But in the middle of the desert, He will bring water.
He promises. It will happen. But there’s verse 16. Don’t miss verse 16. The first words of Elisha’s prophecy are instruction: Make this valley full of ditches.
They have to dig. Thirsty, desert-stranded men certainly don’t want to dig ditches in the dry ground. They are already boiling hot, dog-tired, weak, weary. But in the mere strength of what they had, they were to dig. The men had to prepare for the blessing. They had to do the work to receive provision. They were to get and be ready for the water. And there’s this: The more ditches, the bigger the ditches, the more water they would receive.
In the unseen, in the unknown, in the pitch-black, in the dry place, God is still working. But there’s our part: we must go in obedience and with the strength we have, carrying with us expectation that what we have asked will come to pass—that what we need will be met fully, completely, abundantly. We ask and trust and prepare and wait. We dig.
