Bible Commentaries

Elijah's Farewell to Elisha

2 Kings 2:9

I. We see here the last act of a great life. It is not perhaps what we should have expected from a man like Elijah the Tishbite. But, in truth, the greatest and the strongest men are not unfrequently the simplest and the tenderest; and Elijah, whose life had been passed in vehement speech and in heroic action—Elijah is thinking, just like any humble peasant, of what he can best do for his, as yet, undistinguished follower. "Ask what I shall do for thee before I am taken away from thee."

All that had preceded in Elijah's career led up to that incident as to the very crown and flower of his life. It was an act of pure unselfishness, of simple thought for the needs of another. A deathbed does two things. It puts the finishing stroke on life, and it yields a revelation of character. When there is nothing more to be looked for here, men are real and simple, if simplicity and reality are ever possible for them at all.

II. The solemnity of the scene consists in this, that Elijah is visibly about to take his departure for another world. "Before I be taken away from thee." Elijah was, indeed, taken in body as well as in spirit. It is the survival, the certain, the necessary survival, of the soul of 2 Kings 2:9

Elijah was soon to be taken away from his friend and successor, Elisha, in a very wonderful way. Elisha was soon to have to call out, with a wellnigh crushing sense of loneliness and weakness, "My father! the chariots of Israel, and the horsemen thereof in the day of trouble. And this is a fine and noble feature of Elijah's character that comes out during these last hours—his sympathy with Elisha, and his thoughtfulness of him and his work, amid the strange and hallowed musings and prospects that must have filled his heart at the time. The fiery chariot did not blind his view of his lowly friend and fellow-worker. It reminds us of the Saviour's thoughtful and tender message from the cross, "Woman, behold thy son! 2 Kings 2:9

"I pray thee, let a double portion of thy spirit be upon me." Elisha's words to his master are a noble expression of the ideal relationship which ought to exist not only between teacher and taught, but between young and old, between the waning and the rising generation. Could there be a finer statement of the true principle of progress?—a more excellent motto for the guidance of human affairs? The transmission of spiritual heritage is a concern of our individual lives: the relationship of father to 2 Kings 2:10

What is the meaning of this test? It was a searching, it was the essential test. God help us, and God help those whom we seek to help, if we have not had experience of it! For, consider what happened at Elijah's departure. Something evident and startling, something that could not be unseen—a blaze and a parting. And something else—something that a prophet's eye alone could see.

I. What Elisha Saw.—"Elisha saw it," we are told. What did he see? He cried, "My father, my father!" What thrust forth that cry from his heart? The vision that a prophet sees? Nay, it needs no prophet's sense to express the pain of physical parting. It is the natural cry that sounded in the air when the first father died, and has been sounding ever since. "My father! the chariot of Israel and the horsemen thereof." Ah! that is a different cry. It is no mere natural plaint: "Change and decay in all around I see". It is not a revelation due to flesh and blood. It is not a recognition of the merely visible occurrence of the moment. It takes—this cry does—the incident of the moment, and sets it in the light of the Eternal Providence. It carries the heart to the consolation and security of the Everlasting Arms. "Lord, Thou hast been our dwelling-place in all generations."

II. Not Elijah's but God's Chariot.—It is the cry of one who sees the real significance of life, the real dignity of work, the real background of sorrow. For what chariot bears Elijah away? Not Elijah"s, but God's. The great prophet has not by some never-to-be-repeated spiritual achievement fashioned for himself this dazzling apotheosis. Else by his going—this mighty "father"s" loss—the good earth had been wretchedly impoverished; and Elisha might have gone back to Jordan to trim his and his pupils" aspirations to fit the times and the court and the common length of a man's days. But "Elisha saw". He saw the passing away of a beloved master, but not of the power that had worked in the master's life. He saw the "chariot of Israel". He saw that the admired prophet was not the source of the wonders that had flowed forth during the years of protest and ministry. It is God—the everlasting God of Israel—Who has worked by Elijah, Who is working in His departure, and Who will work by His holy prophets and with His own right hand for all ages. God—God alone—is the source of the prophet's power; and God is not passing away. He will not forsake His Israel.

III. So Elisha can be a Prophet—He need not lament that Elijah has not left his like; that his successors cannot do more than conjure with his name. He is doubtless insufficient—a poor figure to wear the mantle and follow the gait of the elemental Tishbite. But what matter? Ministerial fitness is not a case of flesh and blood. Able ministration is "of the Spirit". It is not the prophet or the charioteer of today or tomorrow, it is the "chariot of Israel" that is the Church's strength and cheer in all the ages.

Do we face duties, troubles, shall we some day face death, in this faith, and in this temper of freedom and triumph? Do we know "how to be abased and how to abound"; or, are we happy today for trifling reasons, and shall we tomorrow, for trifling reasons, be wretched—because our landscape is too small for God's chariot to be seen in? There are men who do valiantly—there have been men who have said joyful things in martyrdom—because amid all changes and chances their hearts" love and trust are surely set upon their God. In times when heart and flesh have failed, God has been the strength of their heart and their eternal portion. They have seen Jesus. They have seen Him because they have run their race looking unto Him.

References.—II:10.—J. M. Neale, Sermons Preached in a Religious House, vol. ii. p595. II:11.—A. Maclaren, Expositions of Holy Scripture— 2 Kings 2:12; 2 Kings 13:14

The words recall the continuity of work which marked the service of two widely different men. They are, in the first place, the witness of Elisha to the worth of Elijah. And, long after, King Joash repeats the same witness as he stands by the deathbed of Elisha himself. It points a lesson of continuity developing itself in contrast. The work is the same, the men differ. The spirit of Elijah rests on Elisha; and Elisha receives his training under the eye and in the service of Elijah. The continuity is complete, and yet the difference between the two men is manifold. We can see the same spirit manifesting itself in a diversity of gifts.

I. It is a Commonplace Remark that the Present Age Produces Few Great Men.—There were giants, they say, in those days, but the race of giants is dying out It is at best but a half-truth. Great men have not been, as it were, sown broadcast all down the world's pathway, but rather have been raised up at special turning-points to deal with special needs. We are easily tempted in this way to foreshorten the distant views of history. Just as we look back on a tract of country through which we have passed, and, seeing mountain piled upon mountain, and hill upon hill, forget the deep impressions of valley and plain which separate them, so we look back on the days that are gone and remember the years that are past, and we only count the giants and forget that the majority of men were small of stature. And that is not all. We also forget that the world often knows little of its greatest men until their work is done Are we quite sure that there is no work now being carried out patiently and unobtrusively, by some who stand amongst ourselves, which shall help to make this present age as useful, if not so brilliant, as some that are past? There are still some chariots and horsemen left in Israel.

II. The Work of One Generation Prepares the Way for the very Different Work of Another.—Elijah may strike the imagination as a greater man than Elisha, and yet the more human prophet who dwelt in the town of Samaria, and lodged in the little chamber on the wall of Shunem, and entered into the social life of the sons of the prophets, was doubtless the better implement in God's hand to carry forward and to complete the work of the stern recluse of Gilead, and Cherith, and Horeb. The prophet of the desert and the mountain had done his duty and had passed in glory, the times now needed another type of workman. Thus the great thinkers of the early eighteenth century, Butler, Warburton, and Waterland, were very different men from their enthusiastic successors, John Wesley and George Whitefield. Yet how many forget that the work of the one was the essential to the work of the other, and that if Butler had not reasoned even Wesley might have preached in vain!

III. The Contrast of Character and Service is as Marked in this Story as the Continuity of Work.—There were new responsibilities of service which belonged to the age of Elisha, and for which God had trained him through the discipline of ministering to Elijah. Faithful as he was to the traditions of the past, sternly as he refused to the last to leave the company of his master, he yet struck out his own line of service, and sought to employ his own gifts and not to imitate those which he did not possess. It was by this happy combination of the spirit of loyalty to the past with that of devotion of his own personal gifts to the present service of mankind that Elisha was able to serve his generation by the will of God. There can be no doubt that we have at this time responsibilities peculiarly our own. To be loyal to our past, and yet to reach out wisely to the new arrangements of the age, needs men, who, like Zachariah in the days of King Uzziah, "had understanding in the visions of God". We have to hold fast to the great traditions that we inherit, and to inspire them with such fresh life and meaning as God shall reveal. Now such revelation can only come by the willing devotion of personal life to God's work in self-denying service for mankind. Elisha's history tells us that the culture of the gifts which God has given to each of us, and the consecration of those gifts to the work which God appoints, is the great means by which we may fulfil our true destiny.

IV. This Estimate of the Value of Continuity Brings us to One Other Thought, the Inspiration of Hope.—There is no trace of discouragement in the life of Elisha. The mighty works of Elijah might have led to despairing thoughts of his own powers, but they simply beckon him on to do his part, to use his gifts, to make proof of his own peculiar ministry. That last glimpse of the great prophet as he passed in glory must have made Elisha feel the insignificance of his own service. But to that vision was attached a promise, and its very brightness left an afterglow of hope. And so he bravely takes up the mantle of Elijah, calls upon "the Lord God of Elijah," smites the waters as Elijah had done, and passes over to his own altered stage of service. Just so, our fellowship with the great ones of the past is unbroken, for we with them and they with us are in union with the same Lord, and share the same service. We cannot all soar and reach the heights which some of them reached, but we can patiently climb upwards, remembering that God does not call us to do what they did, but to do what we can. The retrospect must not dishearten us, as we think of our own feebleness and failures in the past, but rather quicken and cheer us, as we see beyond the cloud of difficulty, perplexity, and doubt, the bright hope of some small usefulness even for ourselves in the service of God. For of Elisha as Elijah, those words were true, "My father, my father, the chariot of Israel and the horsemen thereof.

References.—II:12.—C. J. Vaughan, Last Words in the Parish Church of Doncaster, p276. II:12; XIII:14.—A. Maclaren, Expositions of Holy Scripture— 2 Samuel , 1,2Kings, p333. II:12-15.—W. H. Simcox, The Cessation of Prophecy, p142. II:13-22.—A. Maclaren, Expositions of Holy Scripture— 2 Samuel , 1,2Kings, p340. II:14.—Spurgeon, Sermons, vol. xliv. No2596. H. J. Wilmot-Buxton, God's Heroes, p158. W. Walsh, Christian World Pulpit, vol. li1897 , p387. II:15.—H. Davenport, Christian World Pulpit, vol. lxiv1903 , p124. II:16.—G. Matheson, Voices of the Spirit, p22. II:21.—J. M. Neale, Sermons for the Church Year, vol. ii. p136. II:21 , 22.—F. W. Farrar, Christian World Pulpit, vol. xlviii. p356. III:3.—W. Lee, University Sermons, p262. III:4-24.—J. McNeill, Regent Square Pulpit, vol. iii. p33. III:15.—C. Bigg, The Spirit of Christ in Common Life, p33. Spurgeon, Sermons, vol. xxvii. No1612. III:16.—E. Browne, Some Moral Proofs of the Resurrection, p31. W. E. Hurndale, Christian World Pulpit, vol. xlvi1894 , p196. III:16 , 17.—J. M. Neale, Sermons for the Church Year, vol. ii. p41. III:16-18.—Spurgeon, Sermons, vol. xiii. No747. III:17.—J. Parker, Studies in Texts, vol. i. p171. IV.—J. McNeill, Regent Square Pulpit, vol. ii. p241. IV:1-7.—J. M. Neale, Sermons Preached in Sackville College Chapel, vol. iii. p69; see also Readings for the Aged (4th Series), p220. IV:3.—Spurgeon, Sermons, vol. xxxv. No2063. IV:6.—Ibid. vol. xxv. No1467. S. Baring-Gould, Village Preaching for a Year, vol. ii. p163. A. Maclaren, Expositions of Holy Scripture— 2 Samuel , 1,2Kings, p345. IV:8-37.—Christian World Pulpit, vol. lxxii. p165.