Good evening, and welcome to EBible Fellowship’s Bible study in the book of Genesis.  Tonight is study #28 in Genesis 37, and we are continuing to look at a passage in 2Kings 6 because the city of Dothan is mentioned here.  Outside of our passage in Genesis 37 where this word is mentioned twice, this is the only other place we find this word.  Of course it is the same word as “Dathan,” and we have discussed that, but as far as referencing a city, this is the only other place in the Bible where we read of the city of Dothan, so let us read 2Kings 6:15-19:

And when the servant of the man of God was risen early, and gone forth, behold, an host compassed the city both with horses and chariots. And his servant said unto him, Alas, my master! how shall we do? And he answered, Fear not: for they that be with us are more than they that be with them. And Elisha prayed, and said, JEHOVAH, I pray thee, open his eyes, that he may see. And JEHOVAH opened the eyes of the young man; and he saw: and, behold, the mountain was full of horses and chariots of fire round about Elisha. And when they came down to him, Elisha prayed unto JEHOVAH, and said, Smite this people, I pray thee, with blindness. And he smote them with blindness according to the word of Elisha. And Elisha said unto them, This is not the way, neither is this the city: follow me, and I will bring you to the man whom ye seek. But he led them to Samaria.

I will stop reading there.  Last time we were discussing the type of “blindness” that the army of the Syrians were struck with, and I pointed out that they had no difficulty in following Elisha to Samaria.  If they had been struck with physical blindness, that would not have been a simple matter.  If you recall, Saul of Tarsus was struck with blindness on the road to Damascus, and we read in Acts 9:3-9:

And as he journeyed, he came near Damascus: and suddenly there shined round about him a light from heaven:  And he fell to the earth, and heard a voice saying unto him, Saul, Saul, why persecutest thou me? And he said, Who art thou, Lord? And the Lord said, I am Jesus whom thou persecutest: it is hard for thee to kick against the pricks. And he trembling and astonished said, Lord, what wilt thou have me to do? And the Lord said unto him, Arise, and go into the city, and it shall be told thee what thou must do. And the men which journeyed with him stood speechless, hearing a voice, but seeing no man. And Saul arose from the earth; and when his eyes were opened, he saw no man: but they led him by the hand, and brought him into Damascus. And he was three days without sight, and neither did eat nor drink.

You see, he was struck with physical blindness, and they had to lead him by the hand.  Now that is just one man, but can you imagine if it were a host of thousands that had been struck with physical blindness?  If it were physical blindness, how could Elisha and his servant lead them anywhere?  It would have been chaos.  But they had no problem following him.  Once they were smitten with “blindness,” Elisha said to them, “This is not the way, neither is this the city: follow me…”  You see, the nature of their blindness was not physical, or they would not have been able to follow him.  The nature of their blindness had to do with their understanding.  They could no longer understand that they had come the right way, found the right city and the right man.  They were confused about it.  We are not told anything from their perspective, but they must have been (confused) because they believed Elisha, and they followed him to Samaria. 

We saw in Ephesians 4 where God spoke of the wicked, or unsaved people, of the world having their “understanding darkened.”  Notice the contrast with what happened with the young man when Elisha said, “JEHOVAH, I pray thee, open his eyes, that he may see,” and he saw the horses and chariots of fire covering the mountain.  On the other hand, these enemy soldiers had their eyes “closed,” so that they do not understand or comprehend, and this follows God’s Gospel program wherein He divided the human race.  For those that He saved, He gave understanding so that they would see.  Remember what Jesus said in Luke 24 after He had risen from the dead, and He encountered two men on their way to Emmaus?  We read in Luke 24:30-32:

And it came to pass, as he sat at meat with them, he took bread, and blessed it, and brake, and gave to them. And their eyes were opened, and they knew him; and he vanished out of their sight. And they said one to another, Did not our heart burn within us, while he talked with us by the way, and while he opened to us the scriptures?

You see, the opening of their eyes and the opening of the Scriptures go hand in hand.  Then it says in Luke 24:44:

And he said unto them, These are the words which I spake unto you, while I was yet with you, that all things must be fulfilled, which were written in the law of Moses, and in the prophets, and in the psalms, concerning me. Then opened he their understanding, that they might understand the scriptures,

They were given eyes of understanding.  That is what “seeing” is all about in the Bible.  Turn to Ephesians 1:17-18:

That the God of our Lord Jesus Christ, the Father of glory, may give unto you the spirit of wisdom and revelation in the knowledge of him: The eyes of your understanding being enlightened; that ye may know what is the hope of his calling, and what the riches of the glory of his inheritance in the saints,

The Lord must “give unto you the spirit of wisdom and revelation in the knowledge of him,” and then we read, “The eyes of your understanding being enlightened.”

We have a common expression in the English language when someone is speaking to another person about something, and the hearer nods his head and says, “I see.”  Why do we say that?  It is because we recognize that to understand something is “to see it.”  It is a form of sight in a way.  And to not understand something, we use the expression, “I do not see it.  I do not understand what it is  you are trying to tell me. I just cannot figure it out.  I just do not see it.” 

And that is how it is with the Bible when God was saving sinners, which is all past now because we are in the Day of Judgment.  But when God saved a sinner, He gave the sinner “eyes to see,” and “ears to hear.”  And what that means is that when they come to the Bible after becoming saved, they have eyes of understanding.  They will hear the truth and begin to understand the truth, and they will “see it” in that sense.

On the other hand, for the ungodly that entered into the churches and  called themselves Christians, but there had been no change in their heart, they can read the same Bible, but they cannot “see it.”  They cannot understand the deep things of God, or the spiritual things of God, the parabolic things, the mysteries of the kingdom of heaven.  God intentionally hid these things so that the blind cannot see them.  That is why Christ said in Matthew 13:13:

Therefore speak I to them in parables: because they seeing see not; and hearing they hear not, neither do they understand.

They cannot see spiritual things, and this comes very much into play at the time of the end.  And this is what God means in Matthew 24 when He speaks of the Great Tribulation, the time He would open the Scriptures that had been sealed up.  Before going to Matthew 24, let us go to Daniel 12:9-10:

And he said, Go thy way, Daniel: for the words are closed up and sealed till the time of the end. Many shall be purified, and made white, and tried; but the wicked shall do wickedly: and none of the wicked shall understand; but the wise shall understand.

You could read this as, “None of the wicked shall see.”  Not one will understand, but “the wise shall understand.”  Now let us go to Matthew 24:15:

When ye therefore shall see the abomination of desolation…

What does God mean here?  Are we going to see this with our physical eyes?  Absolutely not!  Again, it says in Matthew 24:15:

When ye therefore shall see the abomination of desolation, spoken of by Daniel the prophet, stand in the holy place, (whoso readeth, let him understand:)

Understanding and seeing are interchangeable in this verse.  Whoso readeth, let him see, or let him understand.  If you understand, you are “seeing” the truth, and that is spiritual sight.  That is what Christ meant when He said, “Because it is given unto you to know the mysteries of the kingdom of heaven, but to them it is not given.” And what is it to know?  It is to understand.  But to the ungodly, the wicked of the earth, it is not given for them to know, or to understand.  None of the wicked would understand when God opened the Scriptures at the time of the end.

And that is what we see here with the young man when Elisha prayed, “I pray thee, open his eyes, that he may see.”  And for anyone that Christ prayed for in that manner, they would “see.”  The only reason that you and I can understand these things, by God’s grace, is because Christ has willed it to be so, and He has expressed it, perhaps, even in a similar prayer: “Open their eyes that they may see at the proper time of the end.”  And, lo, and behold, here we are, and we are just “nobodies” in ourselves, and many of us are not trained like the pastors are in the original (biblical) languages, and so forth.  Some of these people have gone on to get their Doctorates, and they have put so many years into study, but God has held the truth of His Word from them.  They simply cannot understand, no matter how much time they put into the Bible.

And here comes the “Johnny-Come-Latelies” those standing around idle until the eleventh hour, and the owner of the vineyard hired us, and we went to work during the time of the Great Tribulation, the time during which God was opening up His Word to reveal a great many things.  Those that studied the Reformers and spent so much time reading their theological writings and commentaries, and they can tell you much about the various doctrines, and yet they did not understand, and they did not “see” the abomination of desolation standing in the holy place.  They read, but they did not understand, so they did not hearken when God commanded to “flee to the mountains,” and they stayed put.  God blinded them, just as He blinded these Syrians, and just as He blinded another group of people in Genesis 19.

So let us turn to Genesis 19, and we will get a chance to just see the overall situation here before we have to close this study.  In Genesis 19, two “angels” came to Sodom at even, and these two “angels” were God Himself in the form of these two “messengers.”  It is JEHOVAH God.  And Lot, who was sitting in the gate of the city of Sodom, meets them, and he encourages them to come to his house because he knew what a desperately wicked city it was, and they reluctantly went to his house.  Then we read in Genesis 19:4-11:

But before they lay down, the men of the city, even the men of Sodom, compassed the house round, both old andyoung, all the people from every quarter: And they called unto Lot, and said unto him, Where are the men which came in to thee this night? bring them out unto us, that we may know them. And Lot went out at the door unto them, and shut the door after him, And said, I pray you, brethren, do not so wickedly. Behold now, I have two daughters which have not known man; let me, I pray you, bring them out unto you, and do ye to them as is good in your eyes: only unto these men do nothing; for therefore came they under the shadow of my roof. And they said, Stand back. And they said again, This one fellow came in to sojourn, and he will needs be a judge: now will we deal worse with thee, than with them. And they pressed sore upon the man, even Lot, and came near to break the door. But the men put forth their hand, and pulled Lot into the house to them, and shut to the door. And they smote the men that were at the door of the house with blindness, both small and great: so that they wearied themselves to find the door.

Here, the word “blindness” is the same word we found twice in 2Kings 6, and I believe this is the only other place it is found.  It is Strong’s #5575, and it is only found in the Bible in these three places, so there is no question that this passage relates to what God is telling us in 2Kings 6. In turn, both relate to Genesis 37 when Joseph found his brethren in Dothan.

We will have to wait until we get together for our next Bible study to continue this, but we will find some strong similarities between what happened to the men of Sodom that were struck with blindness and the army of the Syrians that were struck with blindness.  Then we will try to apply that to the children of Israel, the other sons of Jacob.