In Second Kings, chapter eight, verses eleven through twelve, in a vision from the Spirit of revelation, Elisha saw that Hazael would become King of Syria and perpetrate terrible evil against Israel, as in verses twelve to thirteen. Elisha wept because of what was coming upon Israel due to their apostasy. As a true man of God, he felt deep sorrow for God, who had been abandoned by His people, and those who now had to suffer severe judgment for their sins.
In like manner, Jesus wept over Jerusalem in Luke nineteen, verse forty-one, and Paul over the church as in Acts twenty, verses twenty-eight through thirty-one. The words of Elisha do not endorse the future cruelty of Hazael but only describe the terrible practices of depraved humans in times of war, as in chapter thirteen, verse fifteen, and Hosea ten, verse fourteen, respectively.
Elisha fixed his eyes on Hazael and looked upon him so earnestly, so long, and with such a settled countenance that Hazael was ashamed, as apprehending that the prophet discerned or suspected something of an evil and shameful nature in him. Among other changes of men’s minds by affliction, it often gives other thoughts of God’s ministers and teaches them to value the counsels and prayers of those they have hated and despised. It was not in Hazael’s countenance that Elisha read what he would do, but God revealed it to him, and it fetched tears from his eyes: the more foresight men have, the more grief they are liable to. It is possible for a man, under the convictions and restraints of natural conscience, to express great abhorrence of a sin yet afterward reconciled to it. Those who are insignificant and low in the world cannot imagine how strong the temptations of power and prosperity are, which, if ever they arrive at, they will find how deceitful their hearts are, how much worse than they suspected.
The devil ruins men by saying they shall recover and do well, rocking them asleep in security.