2 Kings 8:15
And it came to pass on the morrow, that he took a thick cloth, and dipped it in water, and spread it on his face, so that he died: and Hazael reigned in his stead. And it came to pass on the morrow, that he took a thick cloth, and dipped it in water, and spread it on his face, so that he died: and Hazael reigned in his stead.
The verse belongs to the time when messengers from King Ben-hadad came to Elisha in Damascus to ask whether the king's illness would end in death, when faithful witness was borne amid widespread rebellion against God. On the morrow Hazael murdered his master the king by taking a thick cloth, dipping it in water, and spreading it over his face until he died, and then reigned in his stead. By this act he rose to the Syrian throne and became an instrument of judgment against apostate Israel.
The verse presents Hazael with a test whether to commit a treacherous crime for personal gain, and he gave way to the temptation. The murder shows that the heart is deceitful above all things and desperately wicked, revealing the evil of an unconsecrated, unsubdued natural heart, and Hazael's history is a memorable instance, but not the only one, of the depths of evil to which men sink when under the control of satanic agencies. Satan takes advantage of circumstances to arouse every evil tendency of the natural heart and seizes opportunities to set every evil propensity on fire. This continues until a man who had every opportunity to obtain a rich experience in spiritual things but did not appreciate his advantages becomes the dupe of deception and falsehood. Such a man little knows the evil in his own heart, where a spark is enough to turn his unsanctified temper into an uncontrollable seething cauldron, so that he is not master of himself but Satan speaks through him and he becomes a channel of darkness, and after so long under Satan's molding control he has no power to leave the snare.
Hazael thus becomes the picture of a man arrayed against God whose character is molded by satanic agencies. The verse warns that if A. R. Henry persists in accusations, dishonor to God, and a covetous spirit demanding money for silence, he is to be left to become as Hazael rather than having his silence bought with money or having God dishonored to gratify him. Even then mercy is still to be shown by praying for him, by removing any wrong course toward him, and by inviting him to return, repent, humble his proud heart, and bring forth fruit meet for repentance, lest in his strait place he sell his birthright as Esau did for a mess of pottage. That same test comes to a man tempted to ward off financial embarrassment by crime, to rob God's cause in revenge, and to barter his own soul for a mess of pottage and show himself a traitor and betrayer, a course that will react upon him with unforeseen force and forever separate him from God and His people to the ruin of his eternal welfare.