13. Elijah and Elisha: Prophets with Power
13
ELIJAH AND ELISHA
Elijah and Elisha, twin prophets from Sunday-school days—one easily confused with the other. No other prophets are so tightly paired together. And for good reason. Elisha took up the mantle that Elijah had left behind as the chariot and fiery horses swung low in the midst of a whirlwind comin’ fortocarryhimhome. What an ending. What a way to go.
But for Elisha, this spectacular event was alarming. He did not even have a chance to say good-bye. He cried out in anguish, “My father, my father, the chariot of Israel, and the horsemen thereof.”[1] Then he tore his clothes in grief. Now Elisha is on his own.
Both of these E-prophets pronounced the wrath of God on those who worshiped false gods, and both worked miracles. But as is so often true, the disciple does not surpass the master. In this case, the youthful successor can never quite reach the heroic stature of the elder statesman. Indeed, no prophet soars to such a lofty summit as does Elijah when he takes down the prophets of Baal. Ending his life in a chariot ride only enhances his legendary star power—star power so great that his anticipated return is heralded centuries later.
Indeed, the Old Testament ends with Malachi prophesying the coming of the Messiah. How will the people know the Messiah has come? God will send a forerunner: “See, I will send the prophet Elijah to you before that great and dreadful day of the LORD comes.”[2] Some four hundred years later the angel Gabriel says of John the Baptist: “And he will go on before the Lord, in the spirit and power of Elijah.”[3] He even looks like Elijah, a wild man of the desert.
Perhaps the most extraordinary event that would mark Elijah’s high standing in Scripture is his appearance alongside Jesus and Moses on the Mount of Transfiguration. Peter, James, and John are stunned, and as they are walking back down the mountain with Jesus, they ask why teachers of the law have been saying that Elijah must return before the Messiah does. Jesus responds: “To be sure, Elijah comes and will restore all things. But I tell you, Elijah has already come, and they did not recognize him, but have done to him everything they wished. In the same way the Son of Man is going to suffer at their hands.”[4]
Jesus is forewarning them of his own anguishing death on a cross, having just stood alongside the man who took a joyride to heaven, never having experienced death.
That Elijah’s earthly life ends in such a dramatic fashion is not the only reason he far surpasses Elisha as a biblical character. Elijah is presented with a more well-developed personality. Religious seekers through the centuries have resonated with his bipolar tendencies. He’s on the mountaintop of euphoria, only to sink into the valley of deep despair. The still small voice of God that whispers on the wind echoes through history in the lonely caverns of the soul.
Elisha will always play second fiddle to Elijah. Although his faithfulness to God and his record of miracles rank alongside or above those of his mentor, when it comes to biblical scholarship, biographical writings, music, art, and popular culture, Elijah wins hands down.
Elijah: From Tishbe to the Transfiguration
He is a bad-news prophet. Israel has had enough problems without him showing up and pitching a prophecy of doom and gloom. God has decreed a drought, not just for a single season but for seasons to follow. And not merely a drought with below-average rainfall. This will be a weather pattern so dry that not even dew will appear in the morning. Elijah leaves the message for king Ahab and hightails it away before the king has time to react.
Hailing from the town of Tishbe in Gilead, Elijah seems almost to appear from out of nowhere. His past is a blank slate. But God has beckoned, and he follows orders. Having delivered the prophecy, he flees east beyond the Jordan River to hide in a ravine where there is a stream of fresh water. God’s directions had been clear: “Get thee hence, and turn thee eastward, and hide thyself by the brook Cherith, that is before Jordan.”[5]
Is this the place where he will die of starvation? Surely not. God continues: “And it shall be, that thou shalt drink of the brook; and I have commanded the ravens to feed thee there.”[6] But the water lasts only so long. Soon Elijah is sitting by a dry streambed. The land is parched. Now what? God instructs him to go to Zarephath in Sidon (ironically, the former home of Queen Jezebel), where he will find a generous widow who will take him in.
When he arrives in the town, he spots a woman picking up sticks for her fire. He asks her for a drink and a little something to eat. She tells him she has no food, not even a crust of bread. In fact, she is about to take the last bit of flour and oil and make a final meal for her son and herself. Her only option, she reasons, is to give up on life and die with her boy. Elijah instructs her to use the last bit of flour in the barrel and the last few drops of oil to prepare a meal for him and assures her that she will always have just enough left to feed herself and her son as long as the famine lasts.
So despite the terrible drought, the little household is fed. Sometime later the widow’s son takes ill and eventually stops breathing. Since she had seen the miraculous power of God working through this visiting prophet, it would seem reasonable that the woman would plead with the prophet to heal her son. Instead she blames Elijah and his God: “Why did you ever show up here in the first place—a holy man barging in, exposing my sins, and killing my son?”[7]
Elijah orders her to bring her son’s body to him, and he carries it to his upper-story guest quarters. He lays the boy down on the bed and stretches himself over the body, calling on God to restore him to life. Elijah prays, and the young lad comes back to life. His mother’s grief is turned to joy; she now recognizes Elijah as a true prophet of God.
Later on, more than two years into the famine, God tells Elijah to appear before Ahab. Without protest or even evidence that he fears for his life, Elijah heads off to meet his archenemy. Along the way he meets Obadiah, a high official in King Ahab’s court who happens to be a God-fearing man. Indeed, Obadiah is so faithful to God that he risked his own life to hide and feed one hundred prophets in caves when Jezebel had vowed to kill them. Elijah asks the very reluctant Obadiah to inform Ahab that he’s on his way.
When Elijah confronts Ahab, he shows no sign of insecurity. He is following God’s orders, and he is convinced God will not let him down. When Ahab accuses him of causing Israel’s trouble, he turns the tables and accuses Ahab of abandoning God and worshiping Baal. Then he makes his bold proposal—a public showdown between God and Baal. He explains the rules and Ahab offers no objection. In fact, he rises to the occasion and calls not only the prophets of Baal but all of Israel to come out and watch the spectacle.
Everyday Life
Religious Syncretism in the Promised Land
Elijah’s face-off with false prophets in a showdown between Yahweh and Baal was not an isolated confrontation. Indeed, the religion that competed most ardently for the hearts of the Israelites was Baal worship. The legends that formed this religion were diverse, and they differed somewhat from region to region. But they all focused primarily on nature and fertility. The farming seasons marked the religious year.
Marduk—the greatest of the pantheon of gods—is the creator god of the heavenly bodies as well as the earth. Lesser gods, particularly Tiamat, do battle with Marduk; thus the never-ending struggle with nature’s malevolence—floods, winds, drought, pestilence, and infestations of all kinds. This cosmic war is fought every season of the year, with Marduk bringing new life each spring and Tiamat seeking to undermine the bounty.
Such beliefs proliferated in Canaan, and the Israelites flirted with this spiritual system that sometimes seemed more relevant to them than the worship of Yahweh. Whenever they observed their pagan neighbors prospering on the land, they were tempted to cover their bases and add Baal worship to their own religious customs. Yahweh was often seen as the god who had in the past defeated the Pharaoh and helped wage bloody battles. But for a farming culture, a nature religion was all too tempting. Syncretism, rather than wholesale conversion to another religion, was the greatest sin that beset the generations of Israelites who settled in the Promised Land.
Soon there is a huge crowd gathered on Mount Carmel, including 450 prophets of Baal. Elijah addresses the crowd. He basically tells them to fish or cut bait. They must decide between God and Baal. Nobody in the crowd budges. Elijah goes on to introduce himself as the only faithful prophet remaining in Israel—making no mention of the one hundred prophets Obadiah had hid in caves. Then he specifies the rules of the match:
Let the Baal prophets bring up two oxen; let them pick one, butcher it, and lay it out on an altar on firewood—but don’t ignite it. I’ll take the other ox, cut it up, and lay it on the wood. But neither will I light the fire. Then you pray to your gods and I’ll pray to GOD. The god who answers with fire will prove to be, in fact, God.[8]
Elijah lets the prophets of Baal go first. They pray and wail and jump and dance and slash themselves until they are covered with blood. But there is not even a spark or a whiff of smoke on the altar. Hours into the ordeal, Elijah taunts the prophets by suggesting that Baal may be sleeping or off on a holiday. But the prophets don’t calm down until Elijah tells them their time is up. Then he takes the stage, building an altar with twelve stones, one for each tribe of Israel. After that a trench for the water he will pour on the wood and the slaughtered ox. He turns the preparation into a performance culminating in a powerful prayer to God. Like clockwork (at the very hour of the afternoon sacrifice), fire falls from heaven onto the altar and incinerates it, not only the drenched pieces of oxen but also the wood, stones, dirt, and water.
With this spectacular miracle, the awestruck crowd—fickle as they are—falls down and worships God. This might have been a time for Elijah to sit back and celebrate, but his assignment is not over. He shouts to people in the crowd to seize the prophets of Baal before they escape. With their help, the prophets are rounded up and marched down to the stream where they are summarily slaughtered. That accomplished, Elijah turns to Ahab, who might have assumed he would be next in line for the death penalty. But Elijah’s words to him are most unexpected. He tells Ahab to have a celebratory meal because the rain is coming.
So while Ahab dines, Elijah climbs Mount Carmel to thank God for answered prayer. God’s marvel of sending fire to burn the sacrifice is only the prelude to the real miracle, however. What Israel needs is a downpour. Having already told Ahab that rain would be coming, Elijah is nervous. The land is parched. Will it really happen? He sends his servant to look at the sky. Nothing. Elijah sends him back, again and again. He checks six times. Nothing. Then he looks yet again the seventh time and sees a small cloud the size of his hand.
That’s the signal. The storm is coming—wind and rain—a mighty show of God’s power. Ahab is told to hitch up the chariot and be ready to move fast. He flies for home in Jezreel, getting ahead of the raging storm. Most amazing of all is Elijah. Not necessarily known as a world-class Olympic athlete, he pulls up his garment and races out ahead of the king’s chariot all the way to Jezreel. Elijah is kicking up his heels for sheer joy.
But his ecstasy doesn’t last long. Ahab tells Jezebel about the day’s happenings. Baal is her primary god, and now all the prophets are dead. She is outraged and sends an ominous message—essentially that the jig is up for Elijah. This time he runs in terror, leaving his servant behind. He finally lies down under a bush exhausted. He can hardly think straight. Why is he racing to save his life, he wonders, when he’d be better off just giving up and dying? This whole prophet-thing is way too stressful. He’d rather be dead and done with it.
Cave of Elijah
Having fallen asleep, he is suddenly jerked awake. Is it Jezebel? He hears a voice telling him to rise and eat. It’s an angel with provisions. He drinks the water and eats bread, hot-baked on the fire, and goes back to sleep. But not for long. The angel returns, telling him to eat enough for an extended trip. Then, on command, he hikes for forty days and forty nights to Mount Horeb, where he finds a cave for shelter. God asks why he’s there.
Elijah unloads before God a litany of his troubles. Overcome with self-pity, he laments that he is the only true prophet left in Israel. God is unmoved. He tells Elijah to go up on the mountain to see what he is really like. Next thing Elijah knows, he is nearly blown away by a hurricane; after that comes an earthquake, and next fire, and finally a still small voice—a voice that asks again why he is there in the cave. Again Elijah explains. But God takes no account of it—rather he gives marching orders.
He is to anoint Hazael king of Aram, and Jehu king of Israel. Equally significant, he is to name Elisha as his successor. God also reminds him that he is not the only one in Israel who serves and honors God. In fact, there are seven thousand people who have never worshiped Baal. Elijah goes straightaway to find Elisha.
Soon thereafter God tells Elijah to confront King Ahab about the murder of Naboth and the confiscation of his vineyard. The message Elijah is to bring is straightforward: “GOD’s word: What’s going on here? First murder, then theft?” Ahab will know God is onto him. Then he is to tell Ahab that “the very spot where the dogs lapped up Naboth’s blood, they’ll lap up your blood—that’s right, your blood.” But that’s not all. “Dogs will fight over the flesh of Jezebel all over Jezreel.”[9] Furthermore, those who were in cahoots with Ahab will be ravaged by dogs as well. And Elijah does exactly as God has instructed him.
After Ahab dies, Elijah takes it easy, until one day an angel tells him to get up and go out and meet some messengers from King Ahaziah (son of Ahab), who is severely injured after falling from a balcony. The messengers are seeking to consult with one of the Baal gods, but Elijah stops them and tells them to go back to the king and give him God’s message: the king’s injuries are fatal.
The king is suspicious. He wants to know more about this man with the message. They tell him he is unshaven, unkempt, wearing a leather belt. Ahaziah knows immediately that the man is Elijah the Tishbite. He sends a commander with fifty men. They find Elijah in plain daylight in a typical holy-man pose and setting: sitting on the top of a hill. The commander orders him to come down. Elijah responds by saying if he is actually a holy man, as the commander had addressed him, lightning will strike and kill him and all his men. Thus it happens. It occurs again with the same result when the king sends another squadron.
The third time, the commander appeals to Elijah to spare his life and come visit the king. At the angel’s direction, Elijah accompanies him and takes a pronouncement of death directly to Ahaziah: You have consulted a false god, and you will die.
Soon after this, Elijah and Elisha are on the road to Gilgal. But they take detours along the way, each time because Elijah claims God has an errand for him, first in Bethel, then in Jericho, finally to the Jordan. Each time Elisha learns from the local school of prophets that this is Elijah’s last day on earth, but Elisha doesn’t want to hear such talk. At the Jordan Elijah rolls up his outer garment and strikes the water so that they can walk across on dry land.
When they reach the other side, Elijah asks Elisha what he would like before he leaves. Elisha tells him he wants to be just like him, only doubly so. Elijah says yes, but only if you carefully observe my departure. As they are walking along, a chariot and horses come from seemingly out of nowhere and swoop Elijah up in the midst of a whirlwind, carrying him all the way to heaven. The startled Elisha now knows the prophetic mantle has indeed fallen upon him.
Elisha: In the Shadow of Elijah
He is a farm boy. His prosperous father Shaphat is getting ready for planting, having yoked up his twenty-four oxen. Elisha is among the sons and servants plowing the soil, each with a team. He is expected to put in a full day’s work, but he looks up, and there in front of him is the great prophet Elijah. Before he knows it, Elijah has thrown his coat over his head.
Elisha knows what this means. He is supposed to follow after Elijah and serve God as a prophet himself. So he leaves the team in the field and goes with the master. But before taking leave he is granted a time to bid his father and mother farewell—and not just to kiss them good-bye. Rather, he makes a ritual feast out of his departure, slaughtering his team of oxen, starting a fire, and preparing steaks for the whole family. Only then does he join Elijah as his disciple.
Elisha is present, watching his mentor and dear friend fly away into heaven. He has asked Elijah for one parting gift—that Elijah’s mantle might fall on him. And it does. He picks up Elijah’s coat and strikes the water of the Jordan, and it separates so that he can walk back across, where prophets who had followed them are waiting. They witness the miracle and proclaim him as Elijah’s successor, who has special access to God’s power—in fact, a double portion of Elijah’s spirit.
Almost immediately Elisha is called upon to work miracles. Elders in a nearby town come to him concerning a serious problem of water pollution. He adds some salted water to the spring, and the pollutants disappear.
In another instance, Elisha utilizes his power for revenge—revenge on children, no less. Indeed, there appears to be a whole playground full of them, ill-mannered youngsters emboldened by their numbers. They laugh and sneer and mock his baldness. Instead of just walking on and ignoring them, Elisha turns back and curses them in God’s name. In an instant, before the children have a chance to escape, two ferocious bears emerge from the woods and attack forty-two of them, mauling and ripping their bodies to shreds.
Elisha simply walks on to Mount Carmel.
Sometime later, Elisha is confronted by three kings: from Judah, Israel, and Edom. They have joined forces and marshaled their armies to go on the attack against Moab. But they seem to have become lost in the wilderness and are out of water. Elisha has been summoned to solve their problem. Like his mentor, Elisha is bold and never at a loss for words. His contempt for Israel’s king Joram, son of Ahab and Jezebel, is palpable: “What do you and I have in common? Go consult the puppet-prophets of your father and mother.”[10]
But then Elisha turns and acknowledges Judah’s king Jehoshaphat and agrees to consult God on his behalf. A minstrel is brought in and God’s Spirit comes upon him, laying out a plan. They are to dig trenches throughout the parched valley. For what? God will miraculously fill the trenches with pure water for both man and animal. But more than that, their armies will soundly defeat Moab, and not just the Moabite army; they will also wreak havoc on Moabite cities, farms, and fields. And that is exactly what transpires.
Elisha is next called upon to perform a household miracle. A prophet colleague has died, and his wife calls on Elisha to save her from a creditor and her two children from slavery. All she has left is a small amount of oil. Following Elisha’s instructions, she borrows jugs from everyone in town. Then she takes the tiny amount of oil in her own jug to fill all the jugs she has collected. The sale of the oil is enough to pay the creditor, and enough is left over to support the family.
As Elisha is traveling through the town of Shunem, a noted woman of the region asks him to stop by for dinner. She recognizes him as a holy man and invites him back again and again and finally convinces her husband to add a little bedroom upstairs, furnished for his needs. In appreciation for her hospitality he wants to give her a gift—anything she needs. But she has no needs. He has noticed, however, that she has no son, and her husband is old. He tells her that in a year she will be nursing her own infant son. She thinks he is kidding, but the following year she is coddling a baby in her arms.
Then tragedy strikes, and the baby dies. The woman leaves her infant at home, mounts her donkey, and rushes to Mount Carmel to find Elisha. She meets him and pours out her heart in distress. Elisha instructs his servant Gehazi to run on ahead and place his staff on the child’s face, but Gehazi cannot restore the boy. When Elisha returns with the boy’s mother, he goes into the room and stretches himself over the dead child. The baby sneezes and comes back to life, and the Shunammite woman is most grateful.
Elisha watching Elijah’s ascension
Another life-saving miracle occurs when Elisha is in Gilgal, meeting with the local school of prophets. Times have been hard due to drought, but Elisha nevertheless wants to prepare a meal for the group. While Gehazi is cooking up stew over a fire, one of the prophets adds some herbs that he has fetched nearby. Turns out they are poisonous, and the whole school of prophets might have died. But Elisha adds some flour, and the stew miraculously becomes edible.
Another food-related miracle occurs sometime later at the school of prophets when Elisha is mingling with the crowd. A traveler arrives with a gift of twenty loaves of barley bread and some apples—enough for him and Gehazi for the next few days. But Elisha tells Gehazi to pass it around for everyone. Pass it around for one hundred men? Gehazi is incredulous. It’s not nearly enough. But Elisha is insistent. When they are all served, there is food left over.
One day Elisha hears by the grapevine that the king of Israel is terribly upset because the neighboring king of Aram has sent Naaman, his army commander, to be healed of leprosy. The king of Israel has no clue what to do with him and fears this visit might portend an enemy attack. For Elisha, however, healing is part of a day’s work. So he sends word that Naaman should come to him, which he does. But Elisha sends Gehazi out to meet Naaman with the message that he should dip seven times in the Jordan River. Naaman is irate. He had expected some hocus-pocus from the holy man himself; instead he’s being told to immerse himself in the dirty water of the Jordan by a mere lackey.
So Naaman storms away, infuriated that he’s being treated so disrespectfully, in front of his servants no less. They go after him, begging him to just give it a try. So Naaman, embarrassed and sighing in disgust, agrees to do what the prophet has prescribed. No surprise: he rises out of the Jordan completely healed, his skin as smooth as a baby’s.
Naaman then searches out Elisha and confesses that the God of Israel is the only true God. He wants to give Elisha a gift, but Elisha refuses to take anything, and Naaman heads for home. Gehazi, however, slips away and catches up with Naaman, and tells him that he and Elisha just learned of a great need among some other prophets, and thus a gift would be greatly appreciated. Naaman gives him two big sacks of silver as well as clothing. But, led by the Spirit of God, Elisha knows exactly what Gehazi has done. When he innocently returns, having hid the loot, Elisha questions him, and when Gehazi lies, Elisha pronounces a curse on him. He and his family and his descendants will be stricken with the same leprosy of which Naaman has just been cured. A cruel punishment indeed.
As Elijah’s successor, Elisha is recognized as the dean of the school of prophets in Israel. They look to him as their leader. One day they come and ask for a more spacious building, proposing to locate it near the Jordan River and build it themselves. Elisha is agreeable and joins them on location. As they are chopping down trees, an ax head flies off the handle, lands in the river, and sinks out of sight to the bottom. These student prophets have little money, and the ax happens to have been borrowed. Elisha to the rescue. He tosses a stick near where the ax head hit the water, and the iron ax head floats to the surface, where it is retrieved.
On a larger scale, Elisha serves as an informer for the king of Israel. Time and again, God reveals to him the military strategy of enemy armies, and he reports to the king, thus giving Israel a military edge. When the king of Aram learns Elisha is the informer and lives in Dothan, he calls out a battalion to surround the town and capture him. When they attack, Elisha calls down blindness upon them, and then he purposely misdirects them away from Dothan into the capital city, Samaria. Elisha restores their sight, and they realize they are trapped. The Israelite king, in disbelief, does not know what to do with these prisoners. Elisha says to the king: Don’t kill them; give them a good meal and send them back to Aram.
Following this incident, the Israelites have several years of peace from the marauding Arameans. But it doesn’t last. Some years later enemy forces under King Ben-Hadad devastate the land and lay siege to Samaria, causing a famine so severe that some people resort to cannibalism. The Israelite king blames God, calls for the death of Elisha, and actually shows up himself at Elisha’s door. Elisha tells him that God will cause the Arameans to run panic-stricken away from their camp outside the city, leaving everything behind—food, clothing, animals. Furthermore, the famine will end the next day. But the king’s personal attendant ignores God’s word and taunts Elisha, who angrily pronounces a gruesome death for his unbelief. The next day, following a series of wild and crazy events, the attendant is trampled to death by the starving hordes who rush out and ravage the abandoned camp.
In another instance Elisha predicts Ben-Hadad’s death to the very person who will succeed him, the king’s confidant, Hazael. Indeed, Elisha is recognized as a reliable holy man, sometimes far beyond the borders of Israel. But in the case of Jehu, Ahab’s chief army officer, he does not merely prophesy who will be the new king; he actually determines, with God’s leading, that Jehu should be anointed to replace Joram, Ahab’s son, and to wreak vengeance on the entire family of Ahab for his (and his wife’s) unspeakable wickedness.
Elisha carries on and continues offering his military prophecies to kings. But then he becomes ill and dies of unknown causes. The miracles, however, have not ended. One day some grave diggers, in the process of burying a man, are suddenly interrupted by raiders from across the border. They throw the body in Elisha’s grave and get out of there fast. Then the most amazing thing happens. When the body makes contact with Elisha’s bones, the dead man suddenly comes to life and walks away—a fitting end to the story for Elijah’s successor.
Concluding Observations
Elisha heads up the school of prophets and is active in his profession for some six decades. His miracles are impressive, beginning with his first solo stride across the dry ground of the Jordan River. Like his mentor, he saves a widow from starving and raises the dead. Leprosy is no obstacle, nor is poisoned food. He seems invincible with a double portion of Elijah’s spirit—whatever that might have been—and his wonder working continues after his death. What he does not receive from Elijah, however, is a spirit of humility and harmony.
Elisha fearlessly strides around the Northern Kingdom as though no situation is too big for him to handle. Bring it on! is his motto. He is the successor of the great Elijah, and now he is surpassing his mentor. No fear of failure. No depression. No anguish over the crippling punishment to his longtime faithful servant.
Elijah, on the other hand, is more human and approachable. He is less than confident of his own abilities and is sometimes unsure about the voice of God. He orders the death of four hundred prophets of Baal—harsh punishment indeed, but they deserved it. However, bringing down the wrath of God on forty-two ill-mannered boys? Elijah would never have been guilty of such a deed.
One E-prophet stands taller than the other—as later biblical references attest. Elijah should never be mistaken for his student Elisha. When Elisha dies, he is dead. His body is buried. Elijah skips that aspect of existence altogether and makes the grandest chariot ride this world has ever known.
Further Reading
Ackerman, Jane. Elijah: Prophet of Carmel. Washington, DC: ICS Publications, 2003.
Brueggemann, Walter. Testimony to Otherwise: The Witness of Elijah and Elisha. St. Louis: Chalice Press, 2001.
Pritchard, Ray. Fire and Rain: The Wild-Hearted Faith of Elijah. Nashville: Broadman & Holman, 2007.
Swindoll, Charles R. Elijah: Man of Heroism and Humility. Nashville: Word, 2008.