Insufficient Faith

Today's Verse is II Kings 13:18,19
     And he said, Take the arrows. And he took them. And he said unto the king of Israel, Smite upon the ground. And he smote thrice, and stayed.
     And the man of God was wroth with him, and said, Thou shouldest have smitten five or six times; then hadst thou smitten Syria till thou hadst consumed it: whereas now thou shalt smite Syria but thrice. 

When I first read this passage, I thought that I would have smitten the ground but once. Maybe this would have been better, as it was a thing of faith. But why was three times not enough, by what scripture could we have known what is the correct response? At this time the only account I can think of was/is David and Goliath. David did not pick up one stone, but five. Why? We can only speculate, but maybe David saw Goliath's brethren in the Philistine army, and wanted to be prepared.  So the King of Israel (none where known to be readers of God's Word), Joash, knowing as he did about the situation between Israel and Syria, something would have directed him to do as Elisha's rebuke and struck those five or six times. Of this we can be confident, if we are following wholly our God, he will direct our path.

To God be the Glory
Scott