The Expositor's Bible Part 2

They were not, however, satisfied with what they had seen, or had heard from Elisha, of the departure of the great prophet, and begged leave to send fifty strong men to search whether the wind of the Lord had not swept him away to some mountain or valley. Elisha at first refused, but afterwards yielded to their persistent importunity. They searched for three days among the hills of Gilead, but found him not, either living or dead, as Elisha had warned them would be the case.

From that time forward Elijah has taken his place in all Jewish and Mohammedan legends as the mysterious and deathless wanderer. Malachi spoke of him as destined to appear again to herald the coming of the Messiah,[35] and Christ taught His disciples that John the Baptist had come in the spirit and power of Elijah. In Jewish legend he often appears and disappears. A chair is set for him at the circ.u.mcision of every Jewish child. At the Paschal feast the door is set open for him to enter. All doubtful questions are left for decision until he comes again. To the Mohammedans he is known as the wonder-working and awful El Khudr.[36]

Elisha is mentioned but once in all the later books of Scripture; but Elijah is mentioned many times, and the son of Sirach sums up his greatness when he says: "Then stood up Elias as fire, and his word burned like a torch. O Elias, how wast thou honoured in thy wondrous deeds! and who may glory like unto thee--who anointed kings to take revenge, and prophets to succeed after him--who wast ordained for reproof in their times, to pacify the wrath of the Lord's judgment before it broke forth into fury, and to turn the heart of the father unto the son, and to restore the tribes of Jacob! Blessed are they that saw thee and slept in love; for we shall surely live!"

FOOTNOTES:

[23] Josh. iv. 19; v. 9, 10.

[24] Deut. xi. 30. It is on a hill south-west of s.h.i.+loh (_Seilun_), near the road to Jericho (Hos. iv. 15; Amos iv. 4). The name means "a circle," and there may have been an ancient circle of sacred stones there.

[25] 2 Kings iv. 38.

[26] 1 Kings xiii.

[27] As there are fords at Jericho, the object of this miracle, as of the one subsequently ascribed to Elisha, is not self-evident. Nothing is more certain than that there is a Divine economy in the exercise of supernatural powers. The pomp and prodigality of superfluous portents belong, not to Scripture, but to the _Acta sanctorum_, and the saint-stories of Arabia and India.

[28] Deut. xxi. 17. The Hebrew is ?????????????, "a mouthful, or ration of two." Comp. Gen. xliii. 34. Even Ewald's "_Nur Zweidrittel und auch diese kaum_" is too strong (_Gesch._, iii. 517). In no sense was Elisha greater than Elijah: he wrought more wonders, but he left little of his teaching, and produced on the mind of his nation a far less strong impression.

[29] In 2 Kings vi. 17 the stormblast (_sa'arah_) and chariots and horses of fire are part of a vision of the Divine protection. Comp.

Isa. lxvi. 15; Job x.x.xviii, 1; Nah. i. 3; Psalms xviii. 6-15, civ. 3.

[30] That is, the protection and defence of Israel by thy prayers.

[31] Even the Church-father St. Ephraem Syrus evidently felt some misgivings. He says: "Suddenly there came from the height a storm of fire, and in the midst of the flame the form of a chariot and horses, and parted them both asunder; the one of them it left on the earth, the other it carried to the height; but whether the wind carried him, or in what place it left him, the Scripture has not informed us, but it says that after some years, a terrifying letter from him full of menaces, was delivered to King Jehoram of Judah" (quoted by Keil _ad loc._). See 2 Chron. xxi. 12. The letter is called "a writing" (_miktab_).

[32] 2 Kings ii. 11; Ecclus. xlviii. 12. The LXX. curiously says ??

s?sse?s? ?? e?? t?? ???a???. So too the Rabbis, _Sucah_, f. 5.

[33] The circ.u.mstance has left its trace in the proverbs of nations, and in the German word _Mantelkind_ for a spiritual successor.

[34] 2 Kings ii. 14. LXX., ?a? ?? d??????; Vulg., _Percussit aquas, et non sunt divisae_.

[35] Mal. iv. 4-6.

[36] _Bava-Metzia_, f. 37, 2, etc. His name is used for incantations in the Kabbala. _Kitsur Sh'lh_, f. 71, 1 (Hershon, _Talmudic Miscellany_, p. 340). The chair set for him is called "the throne of Elijah." For many Rabbinic legends see Hershon, _Treasures of the Talmud_, pp.

172-178. The Persians regard him as the teacher of Zoroaster.

CHAPTER III

_ELISHA_

2 KINGS ii. 1-25

"He did wonders in his life, and at death even his works were marvellous. For all this the people repented not."--ECCLUS.

xlviii. 14, 15.

At this point we enter into the cycle of supernatural stories, which gathered round the name of Elisha in the prophetic communities. Some of them are full of charm and tenderness; but in some cases it is difficult to point out their intrinsic superiority over the ecclesiastical miracles with which monkish historians have embellished the lives of the saints. We can but narrate them as they stand, for we possess none of the means for critical or historical a.n.a.lysis which might enable us to discriminate between essential facts and accidental elements.

We see at once that the figure of Elisha[37] is far less impressive than that of Elijah. He inspires less of awe and terror. He lives far more in cities and amid the ordinary surroundings of civilised life.

The honour with which he was treated was the honour of respect and admiration for his kindliness. He plays his part in no stupendous scenes like those at Carmel and at h.o.r.eb, and nearly all his miracles were miracles of mercy. Other remarkable differences are observable in the records of Elijah and Elisha. In the case of the former his main work was the opposition to Baal-wors.h.i.+p; but although Baal-wors.h.i.+p still prevailed (2 Kings x. 18-27) we read of no protests raised by Elisha against it. "With him"--perhaps it should be more accurately said, in the narrative which tells us of him--"the miracles are everything, the prophetic work nothing." The conception of a prophet's mission in these stories of him differs widely from that which dominates the splendid _midrash_ of Elijah.

His separate career began with an act of beneficence. He had stopped for a time at Jericho. The curse of the rebuilding of the town upon a site which Joshua had devoted to the ban had expended itself on Hiel, its builder. It was now a flouris.h.i.+ng city, and the home of a large school of prophets. But though the situation was pleasant as "a garden of the Lord,"[38] the water was bad, and the land "miscarried." In other words, the deleterious spring caused diseases among the inhabitants, and caused the trees to cast their fruit. So the men of the city came to Elisha, and humbly addressing him as "my lord," implored his help. He told them to bring him a new cruse full of salt, and going with it to the fountain cast it into the springs, proclaiming in Jehovah's name that they were healed, and that there should be no more death or miscarrying land. The gus.h.i.+ng waters of the Ain-es-Sultan, fed by the spring of Quarantania, are to this day pointed out as the Fountains of Elisha, as they have been since the days of Josephus.[39]

The anecdote of this beautiful interposition to help a troubled city is followed by one of the stories which naturally repel us more than any other in the Old Testament. Elisha, on leaving Jericho, returned to Bethel, and as he climbed through the forest up the ascent leading to the town through what is now called the Wady Suweinit, a number of young lads--with the rudeness which in boys is often a venial characteristic of their gay spirits or want of proper training, and which to this day is common among boys in the East--laughed at him, and mocked him with the cry "Go up, round-head! go up, round-head!"[40] What struck these ill-bred and irreverent youngsters was the contrast between the rough hair-skin garb and unkempt s.h.a.ggy locks of Elijah, "the lord of hair,"

and the smooth civilised aspect and shorter hair of his disciple. If the word _quereach_ means "bald"[41] we see an additional reason for their ill-mannered jeers, since baldness was a cause of reproach and suspicion in the East, where it is comparatively rare. No doubt, too, the conduct of these young scoffers was the more offensive, and even the more wicked, because of the deeper reverence for age which prevails in Eastern countries, and above all because Elisha was known as a prophet.

Perhaps, too, if some other reading lies behind the ????a??? of one MS.

of the Septuagint, they pelted him with stones.[42] That Elisha should have rebuked them, and that seriously--that he should even have inflicted some punishment upon them to reform their manners--would have been natural; but we cannot repress the shudder with which we read the verse, "And he turned back and looked on them, and cursed them in the name of the Lord. And there came forth two she-bears out of the wood, and tare forty-and-two children of them." Surely the punishment was disproportionate to the offence! Who could doom so much as a single rude boy, not to speak of forty-two, to a horrible and agonising death for shouting after any one? It is the chief exception to the general course of Elisha's compa.s.sionate interpositions. Here, too, we must leave the narrative where it is; but we hold it quite admissible to conjecture that the incident, in some form or other, really occurred--that the boys were insolent, and that some of them may have been killed by the wild beasts which at that time abounded in Palestine--and yet that the _nuances_ of the story which cause deepest offence to us may have suffered from some corruption of the tradition in the original records, and may admit of being represented in a slightly different form.

After this Elisha went for a time to the ancient haunts of his master on Mount Carmel, and thence returned to Samaria, the capital of his country, which he seems to have chosen for his most permanent dwelling-place.

FOOTNOTES:

[37] The name Elisha means "My G.o.d is salvation."

[38] Gen. xiii. 10. "The city of palms" (Deut. x.x.xiv. 3).

[39] Jos., _B. J._, IV. viii. 3; Robinson, _Bibl. Researches_, i. 554.

[40] Abarbanel's notion that they meant "Ascend to heaven as Elijah did" is absurd.

[41] ??????. This means bald at the back of the head, as ???????

(_gibbeach_), means "forehead-bald" (Ewald, iii. 512). Elisha could not have been bald from old age, since he lived on for nearly sixty years, and must have been a young man. Baldness involved a suspicion of leprosy, and was disliked by Easterns (Lev. xxi. 5, xiii. 43; Isa.

iii. 17, 24, xv. 2), as much as by the Romans (Suet., _Jul. Caes._, 45; _Domit._, 18). Elisha's prophetic activity lasted through the reigns of Joram, Jehu, Jehoahaz, and Joash (_i.e._, 12 + 28 + 17 + 2 years).

[42] The ?at?pa???? of the Vat. LXX. implies persistent and vehement insult. The Post-Mishnic Rabbis, however, say that Elisha was punished with sickness for this deed (_Bava-Metzia_, f. 87, 1).

CHAPTER IV

_THE INVASION OF MOAB_

2 KINGS iii. 4-27

"What reinforcement we may gain from hope, If not, what resolution from despair."

MILTON, _Paradise Lost_, i. 190.

Ahaziah, as Elijah had warned him, never recovered from the injuries received in his fall through the lattice, and after his brief and luckless reign died without a child. He was succeeded by his brother Jehoram ("Jehovah is exalted"), who reigned for twelve years.[43]

Jehoram began well. Though it is said that he did "that which was evil in the sight of the Lord," we are told that he was not so guilty as his father or his mother. He did not, of course, abolish the wors.h.i.+p of Jehovah under the cherubic symbol of the calves; no king of Israel thought of doing that, and so far as we know neither Elijah, nor Elisha, nor Jonah, nor Micaiah, nor any genuine prophet of Israel before Hosea, ever protested against that wors.h.i.+p, which was chiefly disparaged by prophets of Judah like Amos and the nameless seer.[44] But Jehoram at least removed the _Matstsebah_ or stone obelisk which had been reared in Baal's honour in front of his temple by Ahab, or by Jezebel in his name.[45] In this direction, however, his reformation must have been exceedingly partial, for until the sweeping measures taken by Jehu the temple and images of Baal still continued to exist in Samaria under his very eyes, and must have been connived at if not approved.