Elisha

Elisha the son of Shaphat of Abel-meholah is summoned from the plough, takes up the mantle of Elijah at the Jordan, and walks through the northern kingdom as the prophet of Yahweh during the reigns of Jehoram, Jehu, Jehoahaz, and Joash. The narrative gathered under his name in the UPDV runs from the call in 1 Kings 19 to the wonder at his grave in 2 Kings 13: a sequence of miracles for the destitute and afflicted, oracles to kings hostile and friendly, and political acts that hand thrones to Hazael of Syria and to Jehu of Israel.

Call from the plough

The vocation begins on Horeb. Yahweh tells Elijah, "Go, return on your way to the wilderness of Damascus: and when you come, you will anoint Hazael to be king over Syria; and Jehu the son of Nimshi you will anoint to be king over Israel; and Elisha the son of Shaphat of Abel-meholah you will anoint to be prophet in your place" (1 Ki 19:15-16). Elijah finds him at work — "plowing, with twelve yoke [of oxen] before him, and he [was] with the twelfth: and Elijah passed over to him, and cast his mantle on him" (1 Ki 19:19). The response is total: Elisha asks leave to kiss father and mother, then "took the yoke of oxen, and slew them, and boiled their flesh with the instruments of the oxen, and gave to the people, and they ate. Then he arose, and went after Elijah, and ministered to him" (1 Ki 19:20-21). The break with the farm is decisive; what remains is service. He is later identified to King Jehoshaphat as "Elisha the son of Shaphat ... who poured water on the hands of Elijah" (2 Ki 3:11).

Succession at the Jordan

The transfer of office unfolds across Gilgal, Beth-el, Jericho, and the Jordan. Elijah tries three times to leave him behind; each time Elisha answers, "As Yahweh lives, and as your soul lives, I will not leave you" (2 Ki 2:2, 2 Ki 2:4, 2 Ki 2:6). The sons of the prophets keep telling Elisha that his master will be taken today; he answers, "Yes, I know it; hold your⁺ peace" (2 Ki 2:3, 2 Ki 2:5). At the Jordan Elijah strikes the waters with his mantle and they cross on dry ground (2 Ki 2:8). On the other side comes the request: "Ask what I will do for you, before I am taken from you. And Elisha said, I pray you, let a double portion of your spirit be on me" (2 Ki 2:9). The condition is sight — "if you see me when I am taken from you, it will be so to you; but if not, it will not be so" (2 Ki 2:10). The chariot of fire and the whirlwind take Elijah; Elisha sees and cries, "My father, my father, the chariots of Israel and its horsemen!" (2 Ki 2:12). He picks up the fallen mantle, returns to the bank, strikes the water, and asks, "Where is Yahweh, the God of Elijah, even he?" (2 Ki 2:14). The waters part again, he crosses, and the watching prophets at Jericho conclude, "The spirit of Elijah rests on Elisha" (2 Ki 2:15).

Jericho's bad water and the lads of Beth-el

The first two acts after the succession sit in deliberate contrast. At Jericho the men of the city tell him, "the situation of this city is pleasant, as my lord sees: but the water is bad, and the land miscarries" (2 Ki 2:19). Elisha calls for a new cruse of salt, casts it into the spring, and pronounces, "Thus says Yahweh, I have healed these waters; there will not be from there anymore death or miscarrying" (2 Ki 2:21). The narrator notes the result endures: "So the waters were healed to this day, according to the word of Elisha which he spoke" (2 Ki 2:22).

Going up to Beth-el, "there came forth young lads out of the city, and mocked him, and said to him, Go up, you baldhead; go up, you baldhead" (2 Ki 2:23). The judgment that follows is severe: "And he looked behind him and saw them, and cursed them in the name of Yahweh. And there came forth two she-bears out of the forest, and tore forty and two lads of them" (2 Ki 2:24).

The widow's oil

A widow of one of the sons of the prophets cries to Elisha that her creditor is coming for her two children as slaves (2 Ki 4:1). Asked what she has, she says, "Your slave doesn't have anything in the house, but a pot of oil" (2 Ki 4:2). Elisha tells her to borrow empty vessels from her neighbours — "don't borrow a few" (2 Ki 4:3) — to shut the door on herself and her sons, and to pour. The oil flows until the vessels run out: "And it came to pass, when the vessels were full, that she said to her son, Bring me another vessel. And he said to her, There is not another vessel. And the oil stopped" (2 Ki 4:6). She is told, "Go, sell the oil, and pay your debt, and you and your sons live from the rest" (2 Ki 4:7).

The Shunammite

At Shunem a "great woman" presses Elisha to eat bread, and so often as he passes through she turns him in (2 Ki 4:8). She and her husband build him a roof-chamber, and through Gehazi his attendant Elisha promises a son. She protests, "No, my lord, you man of God, do not lie to your slave" (2 Ki 4:16); a son is born nevertheless.

When the boy is older he goes out to his father in the harvest, complains "My head, my head" (2 Ki 4:19), and dies on his mother's knees at noon (2 Ki 4:20). She lays him on the prophet's bed, saddles a donkey, and rides for Carmel. Reaching Elisha "she caught hold of his feet. And Gehazi came near to thrust her away; but the man of God said, Leave her alone: for her soul is vexed inside her; and Yahweh has hid it from me, and has not told me" (2 Ki 4:27). Gehazi is sent ahead with the staff; it does nothing — "there was neither voice, nor hearing" (2 Ki 4:31). Elisha himself comes, shuts the door, prays, and stretches himself on the child: "his mouth on his mouth, and his eyes on his eyes, and his hands on his hands ... and the flesh of the child waxed warm" (2 Ki 4:34). After a second stretching "the child sneezed seven times, and the child opened his eyes" (2 Ki 4:35). The mother is called: "Take up your son" (2 Ki 4:36). She falls at his feet, then takes the boy and goes out (2 Ki 4:37).

The Shunammite returns later in the cycle. Elisha had warned her, "Arise, and go, you and your household, and sojourn wherever you can sojourn: for Yahweh has called for a famine; and it will also come upon the land seven years" (2 Ki 8:1). She lives in the land of the Philistines for the seven years, and on her return goes to the king to cry for her house and her land. The king is at that very moment listening to Gehazi recount Elisha's deeds — "this is the woman, and this is her son, whom Elisha restored to life" (2 Ki 8:5) — and he commissions an officer to "Restore all that was hers, and all the fruits of the field since the day that she left the land, even until now" (2 Ki 8:6).

Pottage, loaves, and the floating axe-head

Three smaller miracles cluster around the sons of the prophets at Gilgal and elsewhere. In a famine someone shreds wild gourds into the common pot; they cry, "O man of God, there is death in the pot" (2 Ki 4:40); Elisha throws in meal and "there was no harm in the pot" (2 Ki 4:41). Twenty loaves of barley and fresh ears arrive from Baal-shalishah; the minister objects, "What, should I set this before a hundred men? But he said, Give the people, that they may eat; for thus says Yahweh, They will eat, and will have some left" (2 Ki 4:43). They eat and there is some left over (2 Ki 4:44). When the prophets are felling timber by the Jordan to enlarge their dwelling, an iron head flies off into the water; Elisha cuts a stick, casts it in there, "and made the iron to swim" (2 Ki 6:6).

Naaman the Syrian

Naaman is "captain of the host of the king of Syria ... a great man with his master, and honorable, because by him Yahweh had given victory to Syria: he was also a mighty man of valor, [but he was] a leper" (2 Ki 5:1). A captive Israelite girl in his wife's household says, "Oh that my lord were with the prophet who is in Samaria! Then he would recover him of his leprosy" (2 Ki 5:3). Diplomacy founders on misunderstanding; the king of Israel rends his clothes, but Elisha sends word, "Let him come now to me, and he will know that there is a prophet in Israel" (2 Ki 5:8). When Naaman arrives at the door, Elisha does not come out but sends a messenger: "Go and wash in the Jordan seven times, and your flesh will come again to you, and you will be clean" (2 Ki 5:10). Naaman is angry — he had imagined a hand-waving and a calling on the name of Yahweh his God (2 Ki 5:11) — and goes off in a rage. His own slaves reason with him, and he relents: "Then he went down, and dipped [himself] seven times in the Jordan, according to the saying of the man of God; and his flesh came again like the flesh of a little child, and he was clean" (2 Ki 5:14). Returning, he confesses, "I know that there is no God in all the earth, but in Israel" (2 Ki 5:15), and presses gifts on Elisha, who refuses: "As Yahweh lives, before whom I stand, I will receive none" (2 Ki 5:16). Naaman departs with two mules' burden of Israelite earth and the prophet's "Go in peace" (2 Ki 5:19).

The same Naaman is named again at Nazareth: "And there were many lepers in Israel in the time of Elisha the prophet; and none of them was cleansed, but only Naaman the Syrian" (Lu 4:27).

The episode has a counter-movement in Gehazi, who runs after Naaman for a portion of the silver and garments. Elisha confronts him: "Didn't my heart go [with you], when the man turned from his chariot to meet you? Is it a time to receive silver, and to receive garments, and oliveyards and vineyards, and sheep and oxen, and male slaves and female slaves?" (2 Ki 5:26). The judgment is direct: "The leprosy therefore of Naaman will stick to you, and to your seed forever. And he went out from his presence a leper [as white] as snow" (2 Ki 5:27).

The Syrian wars

Elisha's prophetic sight makes him a strategic asset to Israel and an irritant to Damascus. When the king of Syria suspects a traitor at his table, one of his slaves replies, "No, my lord, O king; but Elisha, the prophet who is in Israel, tells the king of Israel the words that you speak in your bedchamber" (2 Ki 6:12). A Syrian raiding party is sent to Dothan to take him. His attendant rises early, sees the city ringed with horses and chariots, and panics. Elisha answers, "Don't be afraid; for those who are with us are more than those who are with them" (2 Ki 6:16), and prays, "Yahweh, I pray you, open his eyes, that he may see. And Yahweh opened the eyes of the young man; and he saw: and, look, the mountain was full of horses and chariots of fire round about Elisha" (2 Ki 6:17). When the raiders themselves close in, Elisha prays again — "Strike this people, I pray you, with blindness. And he struck them with blindness according to the word of Elisha" (2 Ki 6:18) — and leads them, sightless, into Samaria.

The Syrian siege of Samaria turns the famine deadly. Jehoram blames the prophet: "God do so to me, and more also, if the head of Elisha the son of Shaphat will stand on him this day" (2 Ki 6:31). Sitting with the elders, Elisha sees the executioner coming and orders the door barred (2 Ki 6:32). Then comes the oracle in the gate: "Hear⁺ the word of Yahweh: thus says Yahweh, Tomorrow about this time a seah of fine flour will be [sold] for a shekel, and two seahs of barley for a shekel, in the gate of Samaria" (2 Ki 7:1). The captain on whose hand the king leans scoffs, "Look, if Yahweh should make windows in heaven, might this thing be?" — and the answer is: "Look, you will see it with your eyes, but will not eat of it" (2 Ki 7:2).

Hazael in Damascus

Elisha goes to Damascus while Benhadad is sick. The king of Syria sends Hazael with forty camels' burden of presents to ask, "Will I recover of this sickness?" (2 Ki 8:8-9). The prophet's answer is double: "Go, say to him, You will surely recover; nevertheless Yahweh has shown me that he will surely die" (2 Ki 8:10). Then Elisha fixes his face on Hazael "until he was ashamed: and the man of God wept" (2 Ki 8:11). Asked why, he answers, "Because I know the evil that you will do to the sons of Israel: their strongholds you will set on fire, and their young men you will slay with the sword, and will dash in pieces their little ones, and rip up their pregnant women" (2 Ki 8:12). Hazael protests his low status — "what is your slave, who is but a dog, that he should do this great thing?" — and Elisha tells him plainly, "Yahweh has shown me that you will be king over Syria" (2 Ki 8:13). The next day Hazael smothers Benhadad with a wet coverlet and reigns in his stead (2 Ki 8:15). The downstream history bears out the oracle: Hazael strikes Israel "in all the borders" (2 Ki 10:32), takes Gath and turns toward Jerusalem (2 Ki 12:17), and oppresses Israel "all the days of Jehoahaz" (2 Ki 13:22).

Jehu in Ramoth-gilead

The other half of the Horeb commission is discharged through a delegate. "Elisha the prophet called one of the sons of the prophets, and said to him, Gird up your loins, and take this vial of oil in your hand, and go to Ramoth-gilead" (2 Ki 9:1). The instructions are specific: find Jehu the son of Jehoshaphat the son of Nimshi, take him aside to an inner chamber, pour the oil, declare, "Thus says Yahweh, I have anointed you king over Israel. Then open the door, and flee, and don't tarry" (2 Ki 9:3). The young prophet does so; Jehu emerges as king and rides for Jezreel, conspiring against Joram and striking him through the heart with the bow (2 Ki 9:14, 24). Jehu's longer reign in Samaria — the seventy sons of Ahab, the persistence of the calves at Beth-el and Dan, his burial in Samaria (2 Ki 10:1-35) — flows from the vial Elisha had sent.

Death and the bones

The end is in Joash's reign. "Now Elisha had fallen sick of his sickness of which he died: and Joash the king of Israel came down to him, and wept over him, and said, My father, my father, the chariots of Israel and its horsemen!" (2 Ki 13:14). The dying prophet stages one last oracle. He has the king take a bow and arrows, lays his own hands on the king's hands, and orders him to shoot eastward through the opened window: "Yahweh's arrow of victory, even the arrow of victory over Syria; for you will strike the Syrians in Aphek, until you have consumed them" (2 Ki 13:17). When Joash strikes the ground only three times and stops, "the man of God was angry with him, and said, You should have struck five or six times: then you would have struck Syria until you had consumed it, whereas now you will strike Syria but three times" (2 Ki 13:19).

After Elisha is buried, a band of Moabite raiders interrupts another funeral; the burying party hastily puts the man into Elisha's tomb, "and as soon as the man touched the bones of Elisha, he revived, and stood up on his feet" (2 Ki 13:21).

Witness in Sirach

Ben Sira's praise of the fathers gathers Elisha to Elijah and frames the whole career. "Elijah [it was] who was wrapped in a tempest, Then Elisha was filled with his spirit. In double measure he multiplied signs, And wonderful was all that went forth from his mouth. [During] his days he moved before none, And no flesh ruled over his spirit" (Sir 48:12). "Nothing was too wonderful for him, And from his grave his flesh prophesied" (Sir 48:13). "In his life he did wonderful acts, And in his death marvellous works" (Sir 48:14).