Please turn back to II Kings 8. The event we will see is another example of God giving power to someone to be His instrument of punishment, knowing full-well the nature of the person involved. In this case, God's instrument was Hazael, who was about to kill the current king of Syria and take his place. You might recall that, earlier, God had told Elijah to anoint Hazael. But Elisha is God's prophet now, foretelling what will happen:
God gave Elisha insight into the evil that Hazael would do to the Israelites, and the barbarity here is not far removed from what Hamas perpetrated on October 7. Yet the key point is that God was the One who made Hazael king, knowing all of his terrible traits.
The carnal mind will ask where God was, overlooking that it was the nation that had moved away from God. It is as though all the previous and grievous sins are excused, but God hiding His face in response is the one thing that is inexcusable.
Mankind in general does not take sin as seriously as God does. Mankind also looks at judgment differently than God does, and does not understand that the sin of one person can reach out and affect others who may be completely uninvolved. As more of God's people forsake Him, the danger increases that others of His people will be affected if He hides His face and allows evil to have its day, as He did with Hazael.
