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Going Biblical: Fascinating Divine Punishments Recounted in the Old Testament

Khalid Elhassan May 9, 2025 19 min

Punishment - The expulsion of Adam and Eve from the Garden of Eden — The expulsion of Adam and Eve from the Garden of Eden. Encyclopedia Britannica

23. The Prophet and the Mean Kids

Punishment - Elisha sicced bears on kids who made fun of his baldness — Elisha sicced bears on kids who made fun of his baldness. Free Bible Images

The Bible recounts that Elisha was walking along the road to Bethel, when a group of children came out of the town and began to make fun of him, saying, “Go up, you baldhead! Go up, you baldhead!” There might have been more to it than just kids being bratty. It could have reflected some tension between some ancient Israelites and their prophets.

In this case, the children might have been voicing popular scorn for Elisha’s prophetic authority, and disbelief that Elijah had ascended to heaven. In the biblical narrative, Elisha cursed the kids in the Lord’s name, and immediately two female bears came out of the forest and mauled 42 children. The Bible does not specify whether the kids were killed, but getting mauled by bears could not have been fun.

Written by

Khalid Elhassan

A lifelong history buff, I developed a particular passion for WW2 history as a child, when I spent hours listening to my grandfather, enraptured, as he recounted his wartime experiences in the British East African Campaign and with the British 8th Army in North Africa.

I graduated with a history BA from George Mason University, then went on to get a JD from the University of Virginia School of Law. After lawyering for a decade, I moved to sunny Rio de Janeiro and a less demanding career, opening a tourism agency in Copacabana.

A big chunk of my free time is spent blogging (you can follow me on Quora https://www.quora.com/profile/Khalid-Elhassan ) or freelance writing, mostly about my favorite subject, history.