The Doubled Cloak -- 1
The Elisha stories
If I could bring myself to have favorites, I think these stories might rank in the top 5 of my favorites for stories in the Bible. Favorites are hard for me. I find often that my "favorite" is what ever I am reading or meditating on. That being said, I return again and again to these great, crazy, unexpected, shocking stories and every time I read them I think : THESE are my favorite stories! So maybe they really are. Have you read them? I do hope you took the time.
I have this theory: I think that when we get to heaven and are at the Wedding Feast of the Lamb (Revelation 19:6-9) that I will have time to sit over a pot of perfect (probably Earl Grey) tea and yummy snacks, and chat with some of my favorite people who were born long before I was -- people I would love to get to know. My list includes people like C. S. Lewis, and of course, Tolkien, George McDonald -- people like that. I of course want time to chat with Elisha. I would love to ask him his perspective on his life, and the events of these wild days.
I have been thinking about why I like Elisha. What I keep coming back to again and again is simply that he is unexpected. I do not know what your mental image of a prophet is...but there is no way that the typical 'cartoon-Sunday-school' images match mine. You know the ones I mean : long robe, long grey beard, old man, stooped with age, feeble looking, holding a long staff cuz it looks like he couldn't stand without it. I want to draw a HUGE red circle around that picture, put a diagonal line through it and write in huge red letters : NOT! AGAIN -- if I were going to cast someone to play his part is a movie...and again...I totally think if Peter Jackson or Speilberg did the movie it would be AWESOME. Anyway, if I cast the part I again would put Russel Crowe in the part. I think Elisha was fierce. I think even when he was in a good mood -- he was someone to be taken seriously. But the thing that intrigues me is that he says very little but does a TON of miracles. And these miracles almost every time, make NO sense scientifically. OK...lets take a look at the first miracle after Elijah went to heaven.
Elisha went into a city...we are not told where exactly, but it is somewhere probably near Jericho. The people come to him and tell him, "Hey look, Elisha, we have a great city that is in a great location, but the water is bad, so bad that we can't really grow anything." [my paraphrase] Elisha does this crazy thing: he asks them to bring him a new bowl, or cruse and he asks them to put salt into it. Elisha then takes the bowl out to the spring and throws the salt into the water and says, "This is what the LORD says: 'I have healed this water. Never again will it cause death or make the land unproductive.' " (2 Kings 2:21)
This is crazy because 1) while I am sure he prayed, it doesn't say he prayed. We do know that he talked to God about it because he tells the people what God said. But the usual pattern of "Oh God, will You..." is not there. We don't actually know what Elisha did. Then 2) this idea should NOT have worked. Salt water does not make land more productive. In fact, ancient armies used to sew salt into fields when they conquered so nothing would grow. And 3) we aren't told how big the bowl was but one bowl of salt 'heals' an entire spring of water? So one bowl of salt goes in the water and a spring is no long poisoned? or foul? or ... what ever the problem was. OK...but why a new bowl? Bowls -- if clean and dry -- don't taint salt, or change it in any way I can see. All the commentaries I have read pretty much say the same thing -- because the elements of this miracle are odd, it must be metaphoric and meant to teach the people. What I am about to say is a bit irreligious. Now, I do get the God is ALL about images and symbols. Salt was used for cleansing and healing, as well as seasoning food. Also I know that God uses water symbolically all over the Old Testament, and then Jesus makes water one of His major images of choice. In the New Testament we are told we must be the salt of the earth. So to an extent I am with the commentators. I have a couple problems with this explanation though. Elisha was a prophet to Israel. The kings and people of Israel didn't have a good relationship with God. When God called fire down on the altar at the contest with the prophets of Baal, the people did -- in that intense moment -- say, "The LORD, he is God", but as a nation Israel did not embrace God ... and the kings certainly didn't. If you are going to stage a cool prophetic drama, that shows that they are unproductive (like the land was unproductive) because there is sin in their live, that must be cleansed (as salt cleanses)...why not do it in the middle of the capital city and then explain what God meant? In the interactions with Ahab and Elijah, again and again there is the "then you will know that I am God" statements. NONE of that here. This miracle seems to be done in a city of people who knew and had a good relationship with Elisha. And neither God nor Elisha confront them about ANY sin. We do know that prophets in the OT, from the time of Samuel, lived together in community. It seems from context that this was a city of the community of the prophets. They were in relationship with God. This was NOT apostate Israel. Isn't this "preaching to the choir", as it were? Why do that? And as to 'preaching' . . . after the miracle, no teaching, no admonition, no statement that the water had been a reflected image of the heart condition of the people, and no repentance. So if it is metaphor ... so God can use the images to make the point He wants to make ... there is no indication that a point had been made or understood.. Now granted, the story was written down, and we can glean metaphors a plenty from the story. BUT there, when it happened -- I just don't see it. If this were one odd, "that-doesn't-match-the-science" miracle, it would be one thing. But you will see that often Elisha does things that make one think he flunked General Science in school.
Yup, I have questions for this guy!
If I could bring myself to have favorites, I think these stories might rank in the top 5 of my favorites for stories in the Bible. Favorites are hard for me. I find often that my "favorite" is what ever I am reading or meditating on. That being said, I return again and again to these great, crazy, unexpected, shocking stories and every time I read them I think : THESE are my favorite stories! So maybe they really are. Have you read them? I do hope you took the time.
I have this theory: I think that when we get to heaven and are at the Wedding Feast of the Lamb (Revelation 19:6-9) that I will have time to sit over a pot of perfect (probably Earl Grey) tea and yummy snacks, and chat with some of my favorite people who were born long before I was -- people I would love to get to know. My list includes people like C. S. Lewis, and of course, Tolkien, George McDonald -- people like that. I of course want time to chat with Elisha. I would love to ask him his perspective on his life, and the events of these wild days.
I have been thinking about why I like Elisha. What I keep coming back to again and again is simply that he is unexpected. I do not know what your mental image of a prophet is...but there is no way that the typical 'cartoon-Sunday-school' images match mine. You know the ones I mean : long robe, long grey beard, old man, stooped with age, feeble looking, holding a long staff cuz it looks like he couldn't stand without it. I want to draw a HUGE red circle around that picture, put a diagonal line through it and write in huge red letters : NOT! AGAIN -- if I were going to cast someone to play his part is a movie...and again...I totally think if Peter Jackson or Speilberg did the movie it would be AWESOME. Anyway, if I cast the part I again would put Russel Crowe in the part. I think Elisha was fierce. I think even when he was in a good mood -- he was someone to be taken seriously. But the thing that intrigues me is that he says very little but does a TON of miracles. And these miracles almost every time, make NO sense scientifically. OK...lets take a look at the first miracle after Elijah went to heaven.
Elisha went into a city...we are not told where exactly, but it is somewhere probably near Jericho. The people come to him and tell him, "Hey look, Elisha, we have a great city that is in a great location, but the water is bad, so bad that we can't really grow anything." [my paraphrase] Elisha does this crazy thing: he asks them to bring him a new bowl, or cruse and he asks them to put salt into it. Elisha then takes the bowl out to the spring and throws the salt into the water and says, "This is what the LORD says: 'I have healed this water. Never again will it cause death or make the land unproductive.' " (2 Kings 2:21)
This is crazy because 1) while I am sure he prayed, it doesn't say he prayed. We do know that he talked to God about it because he tells the people what God said. But the usual pattern of "Oh God, will You..." is not there. We don't actually know what Elisha did. Then 2) this idea should NOT have worked. Salt water does not make land more productive. In fact, ancient armies used to sew salt into fields when they conquered so nothing would grow. And 3) we aren't told how big the bowl was but one bowl of salt 'heals' an entire spring of water? So one bowl of salt goes in the water and a spring is no long poisoned? or foul? or ... what ever the problem was. OK...but why a new bowl? Bowls -- if clean and dry -- don't taint salt, or change it in any way I can see. All the commentaries I have read pretty much say the same thing -- because the elements of this miracle are odd, it must be metaphoric and meant to teach the people. What I am about to say is a bit irreligious. Now, I do get the God is ALL about images and symbols. Salt was used for cleansing and healing, as well as seasoning food. Also I know that God uses water symbolically all over the Old Testament, and then Jesus makes water one of His major images of choice. In the New Testament we are told we must be the salt of the earth. So to an extent I am with the commentators. I have a couple problems with this explanation though. Elisha was a prophet to Israel. The kings and people of Israel didn't have a good relationship with God. When God called fire down on the altar at the contest with the prophets of Baal, the people did -- in that intense moment -- say, "The LORD, he is God", but as a nation Israel did not embrace God ... and the kings certainly didn't. If you are going to stage a cool prophetic drama, that shows that they are unproductive (like the land was unproductive) because there is sin in their live, that must be cleansed (as salt cleanses)...why not do it in the middle of the capital city and then explain what God meant? In the interactions with Ahab and Elijah, again and again there is the "then you will know that I am God" statements. NONE of that here. This miracle seems to be done in a city of people who knew and had a good relationship with Elisha. And neither God nor Elisha confront them about ANY sin. We do know that prophets in the OT, from the time of Samuel, lived together in community. It seems from context that this was a city of the community of the prophets. They were in relationship with God. This was NOT apostate Israel. Isn't this "preaching to the choir", as it were? Why do that? And as to 'preaching' . . . after the miracle, no teaching, no admonition, no statement that the water had been a reflected image of the heart condition of the people, and no repentance. So if it is metaphor ... so God can use the images to make the point He wants to make ... there is no indication that a point had been made or understood.. Now granted, the story was written down, and we can glean metaphors a plenty from the story. BUT there, when it happened -- I just don't see it. If this were one odd, "that-doesn't-match-the-science" miracle, it would be one thing. But you will see that often Elisha does things that make one think he flunked General Science in school.
Yup, I have questions for this guy!
God made man because He loves stories.
ReplyDeleteElie Wiesel
Great questioning.