Today's Scripture Reading (January 19, 2023): 2 Kings 3
Some military strategies
simply shouldn't work. And because of that, some historians questioned whether
the events even happened. The problem is that some of them are so strange that
it is hard to believe that anyone would have told the story if it wasn't true.
One of those stories is the tale of Zhang Xun (709-757 C.E.) during the middle
years of the eighth-century C.E. Zhang Xun found himself in a desperate
situation. He was holed up inside a walled city with a few men while an enemy army,
led by a rebel general, laid siege outside the city walls. He was outmanned
twenty to one, but even that wasn't the worst of his troubles. Zhang Xun had
one other major problem; his small army had run out of arrows.
Zhang Xun decided on a
strange strategy that shouldn't have worked. He instructed his men to play the
war drums in the middle of the night, making the enemy army think that an
attack was imminent. At the same time, they were instructed to lower straw men outside
the city wall to draw enemy fire. Unbelievably, the trick worked, and the enemy
army started to fire arrows at the straw dummies. Zhang Xun then took the straw
men back inside the city's walls and used the arrows stuck in the dummies to
replenish his supply. It was a fantasy novel strategy, not something we would
ever expect in the "real" world.
The next night, Zhang Xun
tried the same strategy a second time. I am unsure what he was thinking; it
shouldn't have worked the first time, let alone two times on two successive nights.
But this time, the sieging army ignored the dummies. And so Zhang Xun decided
on a second strategy, attack. The opposing army was unprepared for battle, and
Zhang Xun routed his enemy in one of the weirdest turn of events in military
history. It would never have happened if the sieging army had sent out a couple
of lookouts to keep an eye on Zhang Xun's army. But they were overconfident and,
after the trick the night before, believed that Zhang Xun would never leave the
city.
Moab has rebelled against
Israel, and has now had to face the combined forces of Israel, Judah, and Edom.
Everything the King of Moab has tried has failed, so he does something out of
desperation that should have never worked the way it did. He took his oldest
son up onto the city wall and offered him as a sacrifice to his pagan gods. The
move was intended to show his people how deep his commitment was in defending Moab.
The King was so committed that he was even willing to offer his heir as a
sacrifice to the battle. He hoped that if he were ready to make such a great
sacrifice, his people might send their sons into the fight. Maybe they could
defeat Israel yet.
But that is not what
happened. Anger burned so strongly against Israel, both inside and outside the
camp of Israel, that they decided to leave the city alone. Israel was blamed
for the death of the King's child. As a result, they would settle for the near
victory they had won rather than encouraging more waste of life to useless
pagan gods. The King of Moab had no idea that the sacrifice of his son would
promote such a reaction in his enemies. But his insane strategy kept the city
safe by proving to his enemies and his people how insane and wicked the king of
Moab had become.
Tomorrow's Scripture Reading: 2 Kings 4
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