Elisha

(God will save) (1 Kings 19:16; 2 Kings 2:1, 3, 11; 4:1, 8, and elsewhere). In the New Testament this name is mentioned only once, namely in the Gospel of Luke (4:27). A well-known prophet in Israel, disciple and successor of the prophet Elijah in the prophetic ministry, to which he was called at the time when he was plowing the land with oxen. He was the son of Shaphat, of Abel-meholah (1 Kings 19:16–21), and at the time of his call to the prophetic ministry was probably still in the years of flourishing youth; his father and mother were then still living, and he lived together with them.

The family of the prophet Elisha appears to have belonged to the class of the well-to-do, since we see from the biblical narrative that he was plowing with twelve yoke of oxen when Elijah met him and cast his mantle upon him (v. 19), which, for Elisha, was a sign to leave everything and follow the prophet. Elisha immediately slaughtered a yoke of oxen, and, roasting their flesh right there in the field, distributed it to the people, who ate; and he himself went after Elijah and began to minister to him.

However, since the prophet Elisha was to become the immediate successor of Elijah the Tishbite, he appears, until Elijah’s taking up into heaven, as a figure not especially prominent in his own activity, until he received from above the double portion of Elijah’s spirit. “Behold,” we read in Holy Scripture, “Elijah went with Elisha from Gilgal,” a city thought to have been located near Jericho; from Gilgal they went to Bethel, and from Bethel to Jericho. During this journey the prophet Elijah twice asked Elisha to leave him alone, but Elisha would not agree to this, and so they came to the Jordan, which miraculously parted before them at the stroke of Elijah’s mantle.

After this Elisha asked Elijah, before his being taken up into heaven, that a double portion of his spirit might be upon him (2 Kings 2:9). “Thou hast asked a hard thing,” said Elijah. “Nevertheless, if thou see me when I am taken from thee, it shall be so unto thee; but if not, it shall not be so” (v. 10). Immediately afterward followed the wondrous taking up of the prophet Elijah into heaven, in a whirlwind, in a chariot and horses of fire. “My father, my father,” cried Elisha, gazing after his teacher ascending into heaven, “the chariot of Israel, and the horsemen thereof!” (v. 12).

Then he took up the mantle of Elijah that had fallen from him and struck the Jordan with it, repeating the miracle of the river’s parting to this side and that (v. 14). After this he went back to Jericho, where some of the sons of the prophets met him. Here we see, for the last time, the community of sons, or disciples, of the prophets, in connection with the life of the prophet Elisha, and after this time they are no longer mentioned (1 Kings 20:35; 2 Kings 2:1–15). Seeing Elisha, the sons of the prophets went out to meet him and bowed themselves to the ground before him.

“The spirit of Elijah doth rest on Elisha,” they said among themselves (2 Kings 2:15), and then asked to be allowed to go and search for the body of Elijah; he reluctantly consented to this. They searched, and of course found nothing. Soon after this Elisha worked a miracle at Jericho: he made the city’s bad water wholesome by casting salt into it. “And the waters were healed unto this day,” notes the sacred narrator (v. 22). From Jericho the prophet Elisha went up to Bethel, and as he was going up by the way, little children came out of the city and mocked him, saying, “Go up, thou bald head, go up, thou bald head!” — probably alluding to his baldness, which was then considered by the inhabitants of the East to be a disgrace.

Elisha turned and cursed them in the name of the LORD, and there came forth two she-bears out of the wood, and tore forty and two children of them (2 Kings 2:23, 24). From there he went to Mount Carmel, and from there returned to Samaria. The word “returned” would seem to indicate that he had previously lived in Samaria, but where exactly — whether in the city itself, or in the region of Samaria — is not clear. When Jehoram, Jehoshaphat, and the king of Edom entered into alliance against the Moabites, Elisha was with the allied armies.

Suffering with their armies from thirst, the allied kings turned to the prophet Elisha for help. After a stern rebuke, he performed a new miracle — he supplied their armies and cattle with water that appeared miraculously, which, however, looked to the Moabites like blood (2 Kings 3:1–22). Further, among his miracles the following is especially notable: the miraculous increase of oil for the poor widow of one of the sons of the prophets. She received so much oil that its sale was fully sufficient to pay her husband’s debts and to provide for her further support (2 Kings 4:1–7).

After this we find the prophet at Shunem, in the tribe of Issachar. Here a wealthy woman took him into her house and prepared for him a chamber with a bed, table, chair, and lamp, which he could enter whenever he wished. The woman and her husband were childless, which among the Hebrews was greatly despised, and the prophet foretold to them the birth of a son. The son was born and grew up, but one day he went out to his father in the field during the harvest and suddenly fell ill.

“My head, my head!” he cried to his father, and when he was carried to his mother, he sat on her knees until noon, and then died. Elisha, at the request of the mother, who came to him in person on Mount Carmel, went with her to Shunem, and after prayer miraculously restored the dead child to life (2 Kings 4:8–37). During a famine Elisha was at Gilgal and ordered his servant to prepare a pottage for the sons of the prophets. The servant found in the field a wild climbing plant (probably of the gourd family, or a wild vine), gathered fruits of this plant, which were undoubtedly poisonous, and put them into the pot.

When the dish prepared from them was tasted, all at once felt a mortal pain and cried out: “There is death in the pot, thou man of God!” Elisha called for meal, cast it into the pot, and the food became harmless (4:38–41). About the same time the prophet miraculously fed a hundred men with twenty barley loaves and fresh grain in the husk. All were satisfied, and there was still some left over (4:42–44). His next miracle consisted in the healing of Naaman of leprosy. Having bathed seven times in the waters of the Jordan, at Elisha’s command, the Syrian commander was healed of the disease that afflicted him.

The Lord Himself referred to this miracle during His preaching at Nazareth (Luke 4:27). Naaman, healed of his leprosy, came from Syria to Samaria, where the prophet was again residing at the time. Elisha firmly refused the rich gifts offered him by Naaman for his miraculous healing, but his servant Gehazi cunningly obtained from Naaman two talents of silver and two festal garments, ostensibly for poor disciples of the prophets who had come to Elisha from the hill country of Ephraim, and hid all this away for himself.

The man of God at once learned of this, and Naaman’s leprosy passed to Gehazi. “And he (Gehazi) went out from his presence a leper as white as snow” (2 Kings 5:1–27). Some time later the disciples of the prophets began building more spacious quarters for themselves, for which purpose they needed to cut timber by the Jordan. During this work one of them dropped his axe head into the river, and Elisha, by casting a piece of wood into the water, made the axe head float to the surface (6:1–7).

After this the prophet Elisha repeatedly informed the king of Israel of the secret plans and ambushes of the king of Syria, with whom the former was then at war. Learning of this and greatly enraged, the king of Syria sent an entire force to Dothan to seize the prophet, but after the prophet’s miraculous vision of horses and chariots of fire, and after his prayer, the Syrian host was struck with blindness; nevertheless, by his prayer they were healed of their blindness, and the prophet sent them back alive to their king (vv. 8–23).

Soon after this, Ben-hadad, king of Syria, besieged Samaria and brought the besieged city to such extremity of famine that a donkey’s head sold for eighty pieces of silver, and the fourth part of a kab of dove’s dung for five pieces of silver. Jehoram, blaming the famine on Elisha, sent soldiers to kill the prophet, and then himself hurried after them. To Jehoram’s reproach Elisha promised the immediate cessation of the famine, on the very next day. And indeed, that same night, the enemy, struck by sudden terror, fled from the walls of Samaria, while the officer who had not believed the prophet’s promise was trampled by the people at the city gate, in accordance with the prediction that he would see the end of the famine with his own eyes but would not eat of the bread (6:24–33; 7:1–20).

The prophet foretold to the Shunammite woman, whose son he had raised from the dead, a seven-year famine, and before its onset advised her to withdraw for a time into the land of the Philistines. Because of this withdrawal she nearly lost her house and land, which in her absence had been occupied by other owners; but when she came with her complaint to the king, at the very time when Gehazi was telling him of the prophet’s miracles, she was immediately given satisfaction (8:1–6).

After this Elisha went to Damascus, where he foretold the violent death of Ben-hadad, and anointed Hazael as his successor, remarking that he would bring much evil upon Israel (8:7–25). He had probably received this commission earlier, from the prophet Elijah (1 Kings 19:15), just as one of the sons of the prophets, by Elisha’s own direction, anointed Jehu king over Israel at Ramoth-gilead (1 Kings 19:16). His last prophecy, accompanied by a symbolic action, given to Joash, grandson of Jehu — that he would win only three victories over the Syrians without utterly destroying them — was fulfilled with striking precision.

The prophet’s miracles were not confined to his lifetime; even after his death he continued to work wonders. “And after his death his body prophesied,” notes the wise son of Sirach (48:14 [13]). By common reckoning, Elisha’s call to the prophetic ministry took place in 906 B.C., and his death in 838 B.C. Clement of Alexandria says that the period of Elisha’s prophetic ministry spanned 64 years (Stromata III, book I); in this he is nearly in agreement with the chronology of the Jews, according to which Elisha’s prophetic ministry lasted more than 60 years.

A year after Elisha’s death, some men were carrying a dead man to be buried in the city. At that moment a band of Moabites appeared, raiding the land of Israel. Those carrying the dead man were frightened and threw him into a nearby cave, in which the prophet’s remains rested (in “the sepulchre of Elisha”). At the touch of Elisha’s bones, the dead man was instantly restored to life and stood upon his feet (2 Kings 13:20–22).