The picture is worth a 1000 words
Elijah and Elisha -- scripture seems to record such an odd, brusque relationship:
~ Elijah 'throws his cloak' over Elisha when he calls him to come to
be his replacement, and then says, "Go home"
~ Elijah is leaving -- forever -- and he makes Elisha chase him
from city to city always saying, "stay here"
OK...that is a rough paraphrased summary, but really there isn't much more to summarize. It always felt to me like in ... oh ... about 2 weeks time Elijah leaves Horeb, picks up Elisha, does the 'chase' scene from Gilgal to the other side of the Jordan, and skips off to heaven leaving Elisha with an old cloak ~ to kind of figure things out for himself. But in the scouring and re-reading I have come to a completely different conclusion.
I like books. You may know that about me. I don't mind books that are just words, but the kid in me, I guess, still loves books that are illustrated well. I like pictures, and I adore it when a book will give you a map of the layout of the story. I have found that the story of Elijah and Elisha -- who they were, what they were like, and what their relationship was all about -- I have ~ more than in the words in the lines of the story ~ found this 'between the lines' and in the pictures drawn by the story from Horeb to the desert beyond the Jordan.
Beginning with Elijah. At Horeb we see a tired, burned out prophet. He seems surly, and cantankerous, and whiny. At Elijah's first stop on his flight from Jezebel, he tells God he wants to quit: "Take my life". God feeds him and Elijah goes on to Horeb. There God asks him what he is doing there. (God is so funny sometimes) and Elijah says, in effect, 'My job performance has been exemplary and I am the only good-guy left and they want to kill me'. It sounds like a self-absorbed whine to me, but God doesn't rebuke him...his answer is met with instruction to do 3 more things: 1) anoint Hazael as the new king in Aram, 2) anoint Jehu as the new king in Israel, and 3) anoint Elisha as his replacement.
He does the third thing first. In fact Scripture says, "Elijah went from there and found Elisha son of shaphat." But the trip from Horeb to Abel-menolah, where Elisha lived, is right at 150 miles -- as the crow flies. OK, the actor I would choose: Sean Connery ~ the old Sean Connery...leathery, wispy hair, face etched in wrinkles. I see his face set like flint, making a long journey to find a new prophet.
Elijah throws the cloak over Elisha's shoulders. Because the cloak or mantle was the symbol of a prophet's authority and anointing, the imagery of this act was very clear: Come be my replacement. Elisha accepts. We are told that Elijah found Elisha "plowing with 12 yoke of oxen, and he himself was driving the 12th pair." Now I don't know anything at all about plowing with oxen, but I do know they are BIG and POWERFUL. Now what ever else this picture means...to me it means that Elisha was not a 98 pound weakling. Have you seen pictures of teams of oxen? Wimps don't control teams of oxen. Nor was he a 'super-spiritual nerd' ~ to quote a too trite phrase -- he was NOT so heavenly minded that he was no earthly good. The first time we see him, Elisha is hard at work. The phrase, 'plowing with 12 yoke of oxen' does not mean he, himself, was working with all 12 yoke of oxen. He drove one yoke, but it seems there were 12 yoke of oxen at work in his field that day. That says 2 things -- a LOT of land, and great wealth. So...Elisha is strong, hard working, and it seems pretty wealthy. The actor I would choose would be Russel Crowe -- not a young man, but someone whose strength has been toughened by work and life; powerful and unyielding. When Elijah throws his cloak over him he slaughters his oxen and burns the plowing equipment. . .strong picture. He 'burns his bridges', as it were. He walks away from wealth and security and doesn't look back.
When Elisha asks if he can go say good-bye to his mom and dad, Elijah says, "Go back. What have I done to you?" Perhaps in Elijah's mind's eye, he saw the road in front of Elisha -- saw him having to face the apostate Israel of Ahab and Jezebel. He knew what being the prophet to the king -- the man standing between Israel and God -- had cost him. And he saw what following this call was going to cost Elisha. But Elijah "set out to follow Elijah and become his attendant."
Now as I said above, I had always had the impression that from there to Elijah's exit in the wind, maybe it was a few weeks, a few months at the outside. But when I looked at the story a bit more carefully I saw that quite a bit of time passed.
We get one more story with Elijah. It is told in 1 Kings 1. You really should read it ~ it is only 18 verses long. {silent musical interlude while you go get your Bible and read} So, the king (Ahaziah. son of Ahab, by this time) has been injured when he fell through the lattice of a roof. Pretty badly injured, he wants to know if he will survive, so Ahaziah sends to Ekron to get a word from the PHILISTINE god Baal-zebub. (which ~ just to make the story that much crazier ~ means "lord of the flies" ! Oh yes it DOES!!). As you can imagine, that ticks God off in a BIG way! God sends Elijah, with a very pointed message, to intercept the messenger Ahaziah sent to Ekron : "Tell Ahaziah that ignoring Me was a fatal mistake" -- OK, literally God's message through Elijah was, "Is it because there is no God in Israel that you are going off to consult Baal-zebub, the god of Ekron? . . . Therefore . . . you will not leave the bed you are lying on." The king recognized Elijah from the description from the messenger. He wants Elijah to come see him face to face and so Ahaziah sends soldiers to threaten him and demand that Elijah come see him. I guess he forgot Elijah's "fire from heaven" story -- because Elijah sends fire from heaven and 'barbeques' 2 troops of soldiers. The third messenger from the king probably had a mom who taught him the value of respect -- he is polite and humble and it saved his life.
Eventually Elijah goes and tell Ahaziah the word from God ~ to his face ~ and the word is fulfilled, and Ahaziah does in fact die.
So -- why did I bring that up? Well we know from the stories we have already covered that after the contest on Mt. Carmel, Ahab lived at least 5 to 7 more years: 2 wars in 2 years against Ben-Hadad, and then 3 years before the war where Ahab and Jehoshaphat try to take Ramoth Gilead where Ahab dies. Then we are told that Ahaziah "reigned over Jerusalem two years." So that is 7 to 9 years. Elijah and Elisha had TIME together. I think Elisha came to love the crotchety old prophet.
So in 2 Kings 2, we see Elijah lead Elisha on a merry chase from Gilgal to the desert beyond the Jordan. If you go to a map (which I always recommend), you can find that it was (again, as the crow flies) 10 miles from Gilgal to Bethel, 15 miles from Bethel to Jericho, and another 5 miles from Jericho to the Jordan. Their last time together consisted of long walks. There in that picture I see a long sad good-bye. We are told that at each place Elijah tells Elisha "Stay here, the LORD is sending me to _ _ _ _ _", and at each place Elisha says, "I will not leave you." So we know what Elijah said in each city ... but we do not know what they talked about as they walked from city to city. I wonder ~ did Elijah reminisce about Mt. Carmel? What did he tell him about his time in Zarepath with the widow whose son Elijah brought back to life? It had to be an emotional, poignant journey. At each place the prophets there tell Elisha, "Do you know that the LORD is going to take your master from you today." And every time Elisha says, "Yes I know...but I do not want to speak of it." That all sounds to me like Elijah is trying to give Elisha one final out -- "you don't have to do this." Elisha knows what is coming, but he can't even talk about it. That sounds like grief to me. They get to the Jordan River, and Elijah takes his cloak, spins it and smacks the Jordan with it ~ the river parts ... like it did for Joshua ... and they walk across on dry ground. Elijah and Elisha end up out in the desert and Elijah asks what final thing he can do for Elisha -- Elisha wants a double portion of Elijah's anointing. He had to have, in those years of training, seen and heard and learned a lot. We know he saw Elijah 'barbecue' smart-mouthed soldiers. Elijah knows all too well what it means and tells him "You have asked a difficult thing." So finally they are in the desert beyond the Jordan. It says that a chariot of fire with horses of fire separated them. Wow ... that has to get your attention!! Elisha says, "My father, my father! The chariots and the horsemen of Israel!" I think he was transfixed, and when ~ (kind of like when you are in a store with your spouse, telling him something VERY important about something or other, and you look up to see that he turned left down an isle 5 minutes ago, leaving you talking to yourself...) ~ when Elisha tears his eyes away from the fiery chariot and looks around to see why Elijah isn't answering . . . Elijah is gone. He has been swept away in a whirlwind.
[OK, this, by the way, tells me about God and Elijah...So this tells me God was not upset with Elijah...all the drama at Beersheba and Mt Horeb didn't make God angry. Elijah gets to go to heaven WITHOUT DYING! Did he give Enoch a high-five when the whirlwind deposited him in heaven? (see Genesis 5) They are the only two who get these rapture-test flights. And in Matthew 17, we see that at the Mount of Transfiguration it is Elijah and Moses who come chat with Jesus. I think I feel better about getting "gut-level' with God about my frustrations.]
How did Elisha respond? I think he screamed and wept. It says he "tore his clothes apart". That is what the Jew do when they grieve. It is a physical way of saying, "nothing will ever be the same again." Elisha sees Elijah's cloak fluttering to the ground. He has his cloak -- his anointing, and Elijah's cloak -- Elijah's anointing. He goes back to the river and uses the cloak to part the waters. . .and goes back and starts the wildest ministry, as far as I am concerned, of ANY ONE, besides Jesus, in scripture.
~ Elijah 'throws his cloak' over Elisha when he calls him to come to
be his replacement, and then says, "Go home"
~ Elijah is leaving -- forever -- and he makes Elisha chase him
from city to city always saying, "stay here"
OK...that is a rough paraphrased summary, but really there isn't much more to summarize. It always felt to me like in ... oh ... about 2 weeks time Elijah leaves Horeb, picks up Elisha, does the 'chase' scene from Gilgal to the other side of the Jordan, and skips off to heaven leaving Elisha with an old cloak ~ to kind of figure things out for himself. But in the scouring and re-reading I have come to a completely different conclusion.
I like books. You may know that about me. I don't mind books that are just words, but the kid in me, I guess, still loves books that are illustrated well. I like pictures, and I adore it when a book will give you a map of the layout of the story. I have found that the story of Elijah and Elisha -- who they were, what they were like, and what their relationship was all about -- I have ~ more than in the words in the lines of the story ~ found this 'between the lines' and in the pictures drawn by the story from Horeb to the desert beyond the Jordan.
Beginning with Elijah. At Horeb we see a tired, burned out prophet. He seems surly, and cantankerous, and whiny. At Elijah's first stop on his flight from Jezebel, he tells God he wants to quit: "Take my life". God feeds him and Elijah goes on to Horeb. There God asks him what he is doing there. (God is so funny sometimes) and Elijah says, in effect, 'My job performance has been exemplary and I am the only good-guy left and they want to kill me'. It sounds like a self-absorbed whine to me, but God doesn't rebuke him...his answer is met with instruction to do 3 more things: 1) anoint Hazael as the new king in Aram, 2) anoint Jehu as the new king in Israel, and 3) anoint Elisha as his replacement.
He does the third thing first. In fact Scripture says, "Elijah went from there and found Elisha son of shaphat." But the trip from Horeb to Abel-menolah, where Elisha lived, is right at 150 miles -- as the crow flies. OK, the actor I would choose: Sean Connery ~ the old Sean Connery...leathery, wispy hair, face etched in wrinkles. I see his face set like flint, making a long journey to find a new prophet.
Elijah throws the cloak over Elisha's shoulders. Because the cloak or mantle was the symbol of a prophet's authority and anointing, the imagery of this act was very clear: Come be my replacement. Elisha accepts. We are told that Elijah found Elisha "plowing with 12 yoke of oxen, and he himself was driving the 12th pair." Now I don't know anything at all about plowing with oxen, but I do know they are BIG and POWERFUL. Now what ever else this picture means...to me it means that Elisha was not a 98 pound weakling. Have you seen pictures of teams of oxen? Wimps don't control teams of oxen. Nor was he a 'super-spiritual nerd' ~ to quote a too trite phrase -- he was NOT so heavenly minded that he was no earthly good. The first time we see him, Elisha is hard at work. The phrase, 'plowing with 12 yoke of oxen' does not mean he, himself, was working with all 12 yoke of oxen. He drove one yoke, but it seems there were 12 yoke of oxen at work in his field that day. That says 2 things -- a LOT of land, and great wealth. So...Elisha is strong, hard working, and it seems pretty wealthy. The actor I would choose would be Russel Crowe -- not a young man, but someone whose strength has been toughened by work and life; powerful and unyielding. When Elijah throws his cloak over him he slaughters his oxen and burns the plowing equipment. . .strong picture. He 'burns his bridges', as it were. He walks away from wealth and security and doesn't look back.
When Elisha asks if he can go say good-bye to his mom and dad, Elijah says, "Go back. What have I done to you?" Perhaps in Elijah's mind's eye, he saw the road in front of Elisha -- saw him having to face the apostate Israel of Ahab and Jezebel. He knew what being the prophet to the king -- the man standing between Israel and God -- had cost him. And he saw what following this call was going to cost Elisha. But Elijah "set out to follow Elijah and become his attendant."
Now as I said above, I had always had the impression that from there to Elijah's exit in the wind, maybe it was a few weeks, a few months at the outside. But when I looked at the story a bit more carefully I saw that quite a bit of time passed.
We get one more story with Elijah. It is told in 1 Kings 1. You really should read it ~ it is only 18 verses long. {silent musical interlude while you go get your Bible and read} So, the king (Ahaziah. son of Ahab, by this time) has been injured when he fell through the lattice of a roof. Pretty badly injured, he wants to know if he will survive, so Ahaziah sends to Ekron to get a word from the PHILISTINE god Baal-zebub. (which ~ just to make the story that much crazier ~ means "lord of the flies" ! Oh yes it DOES!!). As you can imagine, that ticks God off in a BIG way! God sends Elijah, with a very pointed message, to intercept the messenger Ahaziah sent to Ekron : "Tell Ahaziah that ignoring Me was a fatal mistake" -- OK, literally God's message through Elijah was, "Is it because there is no God in Israel that you are going off to consult Baal-zebub, the god of Ekron? . . . Therefore . . . you will not leave the bed you are lying on." The king recognized Elijah from the description from the messenger. He wants Elijah to come see him face to face and so Ahaziah sends soldiers to threaten him and demand that Elijah come see him. I guess he forgot Elijah's "fire from heaven" story -- because Elijah sends fire from heaven and 'barbeques' 2 troops of soldiers. The third messenger from the king probably had a mom who taught him the value of respect -- he is polite and humble and it saved his life.
Eventually Elijah goes and tell Ahaziah the word from God ~ to his face ~ and the word is fulfilled, and Ahaziah does in fact die.
So -- why did I bring that up? Well we know from the stories we have already covered that after the contest on Mt. Carmel, Ahab lived at least 5 to 7 more years: 2 wars in 2 years against Ben-Hadad, and then 3 years before the war where Ahab and Jehoshaphat try to take Ramoth Gilead where Ahab dies. Then we are told that Ahaziah "reigned over Jerusalem two years." So that is 7 to 9 years. Elijah and Elisha had TIME together. I think Elisha came to love the crotchety old prophet.
So in 2 Kings 2, we see Elijah lead Elisha on a merry chase from Gilgal to the desert beyond the Jordan. If you go to a map (which I always recommend), you can find that it was (again, as the crow flies) 10 miles from Gilgal to Bethel, 15 miles from Bethel to Jericho, and another 5 miles from Jericho to the Jordan. Their last time together consisted of long walks. There in that picture I see a long sad good-bye. We are told that at each place Elijah tells Elisha "Stay here, the LORD is sending me to _ _ _ _ _", and at each place Elisha says, "I will not leave you." So we know what Elijah said in each city ... but we do not know what they talked about as they walked from city to city. I wonder ~ did Elijah reminisce about Mt. Carmel? What did he tell him about his time in Zarepath with the widow whose son Elijah brought back to life? It had to be an emotional, poignant journey. At each place the prophets there tell Elisha, "Do you know that the LORD is going to take your master from you today." And every time Elisha says, "Yes I know...but I do not want to speak of it." That all sounds to me like Elijah is trying to give Elisha one final out -- "you don't have to do this." Elisha knows what is coming, but he can't even talk about it. That sounds like grief to me. They get to the Jordan River, and Elijah takes his cloak, spins it and smacks the Jordan with it ~ the river parts ... like it did for Joshua ... and they walk across on dry ground. Elijah and Elisha end up out in the desert and Elijah asks what final thing he can do for Elisha -- Elisha wants a double portion of Elijah's anointing. He had to have, in those years of training, seen and heard and learned a lot. We know he saw Elijah 'barbecue' smart-mouthed soldiers. Elijah knows all too well what it means and tells him "You have asked a difficult thing." So finally they are in the desert beyond the Jordan. It says that a chariot of fire with horses of fire separated them. Wow ... that has to get your attention!! Elisha says, "My father, my father! The chariots and the horsemen of Israel!" I think he was transfixed, and when ~ (kind of like when you are in a store with your spouse, telling him something VERY important about something or other, and you look up to see that he turned left down an isle 5 minutes ago, leaving you talking to yourself...) ~ when Elisha tears his eyes away from the fiery chariot and looks around to see why Elijah isn't answering . . . Elijah is gone. He has been swept away in a whirlwind.
[OK, this, by the way, tells me about God and Elijah...So this tells me God was not upset with Elijah...all the drama at Beersheba and Mt Horeb didn't make God angry. Elijah gets to go to heaven WITHOUT DYING! Did he give Enoch a high-five when the whirlwind deposited him in heaven? (see Genesis 5) They are the only two who get these rapture-test flights. And in Matthew 17, we see that at the Mount of Transfiguration it is Elijah and Moses who come chat with Jesus. I think I feel better about getting "gut-level' with God about my frustrations.]
How did Elisha respond? I think he screamed and wept. It says he "tore his clothes apart". That is what the Jew do when they grieve. It is a physical way of saying, "nothing will ever be the same again." Elisha sees Elijah's cloak fluttering to the ground. He has his cloak -- his anointing, and Elijah's cloak -- Elijah's anointing. He goes back to the river and uses the cloak to part the waters. . .and goes back and starts the wildest ministry, as far as I am concerned, of ANY ONE, besides Jesus, in scripture.
There would be no Israel and Judah if there were no Moses, and there were no Abraham, and most importantly there were not YHWH. How many miracles does it take to turn on a light bulb? It is disheartening to see that the deterioration of this nation mimics the descent of other nations, like Israel and Judah. It certainly is true that by the third generation of creating entities—like the U.S. and Israel of Elijah’s day—they’ve changed into unrecognizable countries. How is it that a nation whose only reason for existence is YHWH now forgets he is the fabric of their nation and seeks advice elsewhere? How is it that the U.S. built upon individual responsibility and freedom now finds itself under the control of the few, the arrogant few? So Elisha needed to be strong and not a wimp because not enough ever seem to learn from history and are doomed to repeat it.
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