2 Kings 2 (NIV)✞: Elijah Taken Up to Heaven, Healing of the Water, Elisha Is Jeered
Passage
This passage sees the end of Elijah’s ministry (by him being taken directly up to heaven), and the beginning of Elisha’s. We’d seen the beginning of this story back in 1 Kings 19, where there were already hints that Elisha might follow the LORD more faithfully than Elijah did, but then Elisha disappeared from the narrative for a while.
As the chapter begins we are immediately told that the LORD is about to “take Elijah up to heaven in a whirlwind” (v 1✞), so he’s making his way to the place where that will happen. At various points along the way, as they make their way from city to city, he tells Elisha to stay behind, for the LORD is sending him to such-and-such a place, but each time Elisha swears to keep following him. Companies of prophets also keep appearing at these spots, asking Elisha, “Do you know that the LORD is going to take your master from you today?” (verses 3✞ and 5✞). Each time Elisha responds with, “Yes, I know, so be quiet” (verses 4✞ and 5✞). I had always interpreted the “so be quiet” part as part of Elisha’s grief—he knows he’s about to lose the man he’s been following—but the ESV Study Bible thinks it might just be a sign of disrespect for the prophets to be talking about Elijah’s imminent death while he’s still with them.
Regardless, they get to a point where they’re almost at Elijah’s destination, with only the Jordan river in their way, so he rolls up his cloak and strikes the water with it, which divides, allowing Elijah and Elisha to cross over. (A group of 50 prophets wait on the other side.)
Once they’re on the other side Elijah finally seems to acknowledge what’s happening and asks Elisha if there’s anything he can do for him before he is taken. Elisha asks to inherit a double portion of Elijah’s spirit (more on this below), to which Elijah replies:
“You have asked a difficult thing,” Elijah said, “yet if you see me when I am taken from you, it will be yours—otherwise, it will not.”
Which is exactly what happens:
11 As they were walking along and talking together, suddenly a chariot of fire and horses of fire appeared and separated the two of them, and Elijah went up to heaven in a whirlwind. 12 Elisha saw this and cried out, “My father! My father! The chariots and horsemen of Israel!” And Elisha saw him no more. Then he took hold of his garment and tore it in two.
13 Elisha then picked up Elijah’s cloak that had fallen from him and went back and stood on the bank of the Jordan. 14 He took the cloak that had fallen from Elijah and struck the water with it. “Where now is the LORD, the God of Elijah?” he asked. When he struck the water, it divided to the right and to the left, and he crossed over.
The symmetry is quite obvious: Elijah splits the river on the way there, and Elisha does the same thing on the way back. This is not lost on the 50 prophets who are waiting for him, either, who immediately recognize that the spirit of Elijah is resting on Elisha.
That being said, they either don’t (or refuse to) grasp what has actually happened, because they offer to go and look for Elijah; perhaps the LORD just picked him up and set him down somewhere else? (It’s not spoken out loud, but they may also be thinking of finding Elijah’s body to give him a proper burial.) Elisha tells them not to go—he, better than anyone, knows they’re not going to find him—but they keep pestering him until he’s too embarrassed to keep refusing them. The text doesn’t use the word “pester,” but it does use the word “embarrassed.” I can relate to Elisha on this: I might have eventually given in, too, even knowing that it was a waste of everyone’s time. Which is what happens: they return to Elisha in Jericho three days later, not having found Elijah, and Elisha essentially says “I told you so.”
While he’s there, the people of Jericho also come to him with a problem: the land they’re on should be verdant but it’s not because it’s cursed. (See Joshua 6 and then 1 Kings 16.) Elisha, however, is now ready to reverse that curse on behalf of the LORD:
20 “Bring me a new bowl,” he said, “and put salt in it.” So they brought it to him.
21 Then he went out to the spring and threw the salt into it, saying, “This is what the LORD says: ‘I have healed this water. Never again will it cause death or make the land unproductive.’” 22 And the water has remained pure to this day, according to the word Elisha had spoken.
But then, as Elisha is heading to Bethel, he is accosted by forty-two “boys,” who taunt him by saying, “Get out of here, baldy! Get out of here, baldy!” (v. 23✞). I don’t know what’s meant by the “baldy” part; perhaps Elisha is bald and they’re just making fun of him for it—perhaps it’s a virility thing?—or perhaps prophets in Elisha’s day shaved their heads, and the boys are pointing that out? Regardless, he seems to be in danger so he calls down a curse on them in the name of the LORD, at which point two bears come out of the woods and maul the boys, and he continues on his way.
Thoughts
In a point I often miss—and which I haven’t been calling out every time they mention it—the ESV Study Bible has been seeing the LORD using Elijah in a war against the god Baal, whom His people keep falling into worship of, and now focusing on using Elisha to push the people to move on from Baal worship. They call it out again here:
2 Kings 2:1–10:36 Elisha and Israel. Elijah’s days have been numbered since 1 Kings 19:15–18, and particularly God’s instructions there about Elisha. The end of the war with Baal worship will not come about until Elisha has succeeded Elijah, and Hazael and Jehu have appeared. This section of 1–2 Kings now tells of these events.
ESV Study Bible
I don’t know who Hazael and Jehu are; I assume we’ll get to them soon.
Elijah Taken Up to Heaven
The ESV Study Bible notes have been painting Elijah as a pretty reluctant and/or grumpy prophet, and the more I read through the book of Kings the more I’m coming around to that view. And yet Elijah is given a special honour that, to my memory, was only accorded one other person in the Bible: he doesn’t die, he is simply carried straight to heaven, just as Enoch was (see Genesis 5).
So does that mean I’m wrong about Elijah? Maybe he was more of a righteous man than I’m now giving him credit for?
Only if we take a very naive view as to how God works with His people, whereby people “earn” the gifts that He gives them – which wouldn’t make them “gifts” at all, it would make them rewards. But a full reading of the Scriptures—including both Old and New Testaments, and the way God treats His people throughout—prevents that interpretation of events, no matter how much we tend to cling to it. I can definitely say that salvation wasn’t earned by myself, it was a gift of Grace, and any Christian who examines their heart honestly would say the same. God chose to give Elijah a gift that He only gave to one other person, but that doesn’t mean Elijah earned it, it just means God was being gracious to Elijah.
In fact, this also aligns with how the book of Hebrews handles this situation: When Hebrews 11 (NIV)✞ is calling out what we sometimes call “the heroes of the faith” the author commends Enoch for his faith but doesn’t mention Elijah. It’s something I’d always wondered about, frankly—especially since the story of Elijah being taken up to heaven is presented as a story whereas Enoch being taken up is just a side note in Genesis 5, so I’d think people would be more likely to know the story of Elijah than of Enoch—but if we stop thinking of it as something that these men “earned,” and more as a matter of God choosing to be gracious in that manner at that time, it makes more sense. (It also helps us understand why He didn’t do that more often: there were a number of people in the Bible we could call out as being faithful, but He only acted this way with Elijah and Enoch.)
A Double Portion of Elijah’s Spirit
Elisha’s request to Elijah for “a double portion” of Elijah’s spirit had always seemed like an odd request to me. First of all it sounds greedy: it sounds to my ears like Elisha is saying, “however much ‘spirit’ you have, I want twice as much!” But also, being a Christian with a New Testament, when I hear the Bible talking about “Elijah’s ‘spirit’” I assume what’s being referred to is the Holy Spirit – so how can Elisha be asking Elijah for something that’s not his to give? Isn’t that up to the Spirit Himself? (Not that Elisha or Elijah would know about the Holy Spirit…)
But what Elisha is actually asking is for a literal inheritance. In that day and age when a father died it was common for the eldest son to receive a double portion compared to what the other brothers got. It was also common that the sons would be continuing on whatever business the father had been in – to the point that it would be highly unusual for a son to do anything other than what the father did! So Elisha isn’t asking for “twice as much ‘spirit’” as what Elijah has, he’s asking to be treated as Elijah’s “eldest son” – on other words, he’s asking to carry on “the family business.”
So I think the author is just using the phrase “the spirit of Elijah” in this manner, as a figure of speech, not specifically talking about the Holy Spirit, even though the modern Christian reader can’t help but know where this power is actually coming from: the Holy Spirit.
Which makes sense to me, but then Elijah’s response still takes some thought:
“You have asked a difficult thing,” Elijah said, “yet if you see me when I am taken from you, it will be yours—otherwise, it will not.”
Again, this sounds odd to modern ears; it sounds a little too much like a “ritual.” But I think what Elijah is actually saying is that it’s in God’s hands: if Elisha is truly His prophet he’ll see the miraculous thing that’s about to happen. If he’s not, he won’t. It’s not so much a “test” of Elisha, it’s more of a “proof” that God has really chosen him.
Blessings and Curses
In another form of symmetry, after the parting of the Jordan river we get two quick stories in a row that show Elisha, just like his predecessor Elijah, having the ability to both bless and curse in the name of the LORD.
And the blessing seems like the easiest part to read: we love hearing about the LORD blessing His people. In this case we sometimes forget that He was the one who cursed the city of Jericho in the first place, but it’s easy for us to forget that part and focus on the happy outcome when He reverses it.
The story of him cursing the forty-two boys, however, who subsequently get mauled by bears, feels more troubling to us. They’re boys! Isn’t the reaction a little extreme?
I’ve heard people talk about the fact that even though the text uses the word “boys” it might mean something more like teenagers or young men, so there was more danger presented to Elisha than we might realize, and I’ve also heard people talking about the fact that, even if they were young, there were forty-two of them, so, again, still a danger to Elisha.
I don’t think that’s supposed to be the point of the story, though. We’re not supposed to read this as if God is at Elisha’s beck and call; “Hey God, can you come maul these boys?” “Sure, whatever you say, Elisha.” Doesn’t it sound blasphemous when read that way? Clearly this was God’s doing, regardless of the fact that it was Elisha who issued the curse on the boys. (I’m also thinking the bears weren’t acting according to their nature; this doesn’t sound like something bears would do unless they were under God’s command.)
However, even if we shift the impetus away from Elisha and onto God, the question doesn’t change: wasn’t it disproportionate to punish the boys in this way, just for threatening Elisha? But I think that assumption is a false one: this isn’t a story about a group of boys being punished for threatening a prophet, it’s a story about a group of boys being punished for disrespecting the LORD.
A quote from the ESV Study Bible:
2 Kings 2:23–24 jeered at him. The focal point for Israel’s apostasy was Bethel (see 1 Kings 12:25–13:34). Therefore, it is no surprise to find young people from this city adopting a disrespectful attitude toward a prophet of the Lord, and to treat a prophet with disrespect is to treat God himself with disrespect. … he cursed them. … And two she-bears … tore forty-two of the boys. Though this judgment may at first seem harsh, the group must have included over 50 boys old enough to be out running in a pack, and so they constituted something of a physical threat to Elisha. The authors of Kings regularly show that contempt toward divinely called prophets is disastrous for God’s people.
ESV Study Bible
Again, they call out the danger to Elisha (which I think is not the point of the story1), but they also point out that this is [also] disrespect to God, from people who come from a city with a long history of doing exactly that.
So perhaps I’m not properly focusing on the danger to Elisha, but it doesn’t change the fact that at least part of this episode is one of humans “playing with fire” in disrespecting God.
I think most people, however, would still be asking the same question they’ve been asking all along: But wasn’t this response disproportionate to what the boys had done? And I’m not trying to duck that question, I think it’s a fair question to ask—if it’s being asked honestly—but I think it should also be paired with another, introspective question: do we properly acknowledge the amount of respect, honour, and worship is owed to God? Because I do think that’s the point of this story being recorded for us.
Not that God is constantly punishing people for disrespecting Him throughout the Old Testament—otherwise the human race wouldn’t have lasted beyond Genesis 3—but He does sometimes send such reminders. And, as I think I’ve mentioned before, times of change are often times that God chooses to remind His people about who He is, and the change of leadership of His prophets from Elijah to Elisha seems to be one of those times.
So, again, I think it’s valid and right to question whether this response was too much, but we should also be asking what would have been appropriate for people—even boys—to be disrespecting the God who created the universe, who demands our respect and our worship, but who seldom gets it?
Footnotes
- Though, as is so often the case, I’m also aware that I’m a man with no education in this area disagreeing with people who have studied these things in great detail, so I shouldn’t be so quick to say that I’ve figured out the point of the story and they “missed” it… ↩
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