Lives of Scripture

Hazael first appears as a servant of Ben-hadad, king of Aram, whom the LORD instructed Elijah to anoint as Aram's future king (1 Kings 19:15-17), a sign of coming judgment on Israel's idolatry. Years later, when Ben-hadad sent Hazael to ask the prophet Elisha whether he would recover from illness, Elisha stared at him until Hazael felt ashamed, then wept -- foreseeing the atrocities Hazael would commit against Israel as king, from burning fortresses to killing children (2 Kings 8:8-13). Hazael returned and smothered Ben-hadad with a wet cloth, then took the throne himself (8:14-15). As king, he fought Israel and Judah for decades: wounding King Joram at Ramoth-gilead (8:28-29), oppressing Israel throughout Jehu's and Jehoahaz's reigns until Israel was reduced to almost no army (10:32; 13:3-7,22), and extorting tribute from Judah's King Jehoash by marching on Jerusalem, turned aside only when Jehoash emptied the temple treasury to pay him off (12:17-18). The prophet Amos later condemned Aram's cruelty under "the house of Hazael" (Amos 1:4). Hazael's decades-long reign of violence, foretold in weeping and fulfilled in full, stands in Scripture as a stark instance of a pagan king used, unknowingly, as an instrument of God's judgment on His own unfaithful people.