2 Kings 13:10-19
"10 In the thirty-seventh year of Joash king of Judah, Jehoash the son of Jehoahaz began to reign over Israel in Samaria, and he reigned sixteen years. 11 He also did what was evil in the sight of the Lord. He did not depart from all the sins of Jeroboam the son of Nebat, which he made Israel to sin, but he walked in them. 12 Now the rest of the acts of Joash and all that he did, and the might with which he fought against Amaziah king of Judah, are they not written in the Book of the Chronicles of the Kings of Israel? 13 So Joash slept with his fathers, and Jeroboam sat on his throne. And Joash was buried in Samaria with the kings of Israel.
14 Now when Elisha had fallen sick with the illness of which he was to die, Joash king of Israel went down to him and wept before him, crying, “My father, my father! The chariots of Israel and its horsemen!” 15 And Elisha said to him, “Take a bow and arrows.” So he took a bow and arrows. 16 Then he said to the king of Israel, “Draw the bow,” and he drew it. And Elisha laid his hands on the king's hands. 17 And he said, “Open the window eastward,” and he opened it. Then Elisha said, “Shoot,” and he shot. And he said, “The Lord's arrow of victory, the arrow of victory over Syria! For you shall fight the Syrians in Aphek until you have made an end of them.” 18 And he said, “Take the arrows,” and he took them. And he said to the king of Israel, “Strike the ground with them.” And he struck three times and stopped.19 Then the man of God was angry with him and said, “You should have struck five or six times; then you would have struck down Syria until you had made an end of it, but now you will strike down Syria only three times.”"
Again we see the selectiveness of the divinely inspired commentary on Israelite history. The sixteen years of Joash’s (Jehoash) evil reign in the northern kingdom are passed over in a single verse, but one supremely significant incident is given us - his final encounter with El- isha. This tells us that the really important moments of any man's life are those in which he has dealings with God and the things of God. For it is then that the possibility of faith is created and, from the human standpoint, faith is the most important thing in the world. The story of the smiting of the ground by Joash gives us an instance of the exercise of faith and also of its limitations. It is possible to lose so much of the blessing of God because our faith does not, or cannot, rise to claim it. Jesus said, 'According to your faith be it unto you.' It is a solemn fact that what God wills for us and what we experience are often separated by a wide gap through our failure to lay hold upon it through lack of faith. In this connection we should note the link between Joash's evil life and his puny faith. Faith is conditioned by moral categories, and evil living is like a wasting disease which saps the vitality of the soul and makes faith a shrunken thing that eventually becomes incapable of claiming anything from God. Christ's words, 'To him that hath it shall be given, and from him that hath not shall be taken away, even that which he hath' applies to faith as much as to anything.