2 Kings 2:14 Ulasan

In this chapter we have, I. That extraordinary event, the translation of Elijah. In the close of the foregoing chapter we had a wicked king leaving the world in disgrace, here we have a holy prophet leaving it in honour; the departure of the former was his greatest misery, of the latter his greatest bliss: men are as their end is. Here is, 1. Elijah taking leave of his friends, the sons of the prophets, and especially Elisha, who kept close to him, and walked with him through Jordan (Kg2 2:1-10). 2. Elijah taken into heaven by the ministry of angels (Kg2 2:11), and Elisha's lamentation of the loss this earth has of him (Kg2 2:12). II. The manifestation of Elisha, as a prophet in his room. 1. By the dividing of Jordan (Kg2 2:13, Kg2 2:14). 2. By the respect which the sons of the prophets paid him (Kg2 2:15-18). 3. By the healing of the unwholesome waters of Jericho (Kg2 2:19-22). 4. By the destruction of the children of Bethel that mocked him (Kg2 2:23-25). This revolution in prophecy makes a greater figure than the revolution of a kingdom.

INTRODUCTION TO 2 KINGS 2 This chapter relates, how that Elisha accompanied Elijah to several places, and on the other side Jordan Elijah was taken up from him to heaven, which occasioned great lamentation in him, Kg2 2:1, but having the mantle of Elijah, he divided the waters of Jordan, and passed over, Kg2 2:13, and the sons of the prophets at Jericho, perceiving the spirit of Elijah on him, showed him great respect, and proposed sending men to seek his master, which they did in vain, Kg2 2:15, when he healed the waters at Jericho, at the request of the men of it, Kg2 2:19, and the chapter is concluded with the destruction of forty two children at Bethel by bears, who mocked him, Kg2 2:23.

And when the sons of the prophets, which were to view at Jericho, saw him,.... Who went out from thence towards Jordan, to have a sight if they could of the assumption of Elijah; these, when they saw Elisha come over Jordan, the waters being parted by him: they said, the spirit of Elijah doth rest on Elisha; or he has the same power and spirit to work miracles as he had, which they discerned by his dividing the waters of Jordan with his mantle: and they came to meet him, and bowed themselves to the ground before him; in reverence of him as their master, in the room of Elijah.

The prophets proclaimed the mystery of the Lord’s ascension not only by their words but also by their actions. Both Enoch, the seventh [in the line of descent] from Adam, who was transported from the world, and Elijah, who was taken up into heaven, gave evidence that the Lord would ascend above all the heavens.…Elijah presented an image of this festivity of the Lord by a miracle with richer significance. When the time in which he was to be taken away from the world was near, he came to the river Jordan with his disciple Elisha. With his rolled-up cloak he struck the waters, they were divided, and both of them crossed over on dry land. And he said to Elisha, “Ask what you want me to do before I am taken away from you,” and Elisha said, “I entreat you that your spirit may become double in me.” As they went on conversing together, behold, Elijah was suddenly snatched away, and, as the Scripture says, “He ascended as if into heaven.” By this action of his soaring aloft it is meant that [Elijah] was not taken up into heaven itself, as was our Lord, but into the height of the air [above the earth], from where he was borne invisibly to the joys of paradise. Elisha took up the cloak of Elijah that had fallen from him; and, coming to the river Jordan, he struck the water with it, and after calling on God, he divided the water and crossed over. Let your love take note, my brothers, how the symbolic event agrees point by point with its fulfillment. Elijah came to the river Jordan, and having laid aside his cloak, he struck the waters and divided them. The Lord came to the stream of death, in which the human race ordinarily was immersed, and laying aside from himself for a time the clothing of flesh that he had assumed, struck down death by dying and opened up for us the way to life by rising. The change and decline of our mortal life is properly represented by the river Jordan, since the meaning of Jordan in Latin is “their descent,” and since as the river flows into the Dead Sea, it loses its praiseworthy waters. After [the water of the river] Jordan was divided, Elijah and Elisha crossed over on dry land; by his rising from the dead the Savior bestowed on his faithful ones the hope of rising too. After they had crossed over the river Jordan, Elijah gave Elisha the option of asking for what he wanted. The Lord too, after the glory of his resurrection had been fulfilled, implanted in his disciples a fuller comprehension of what he had promised previously, that “whatever you ask in my name, I will do [for you].” Elisha asked that the spirit of Elijah might become double in him. The disciples, thoroughly instructed by the Lord, desired to receive the promised gift of the Spirit, which would make them capable of preaching not only to the single nation of Judah, which he himself taught when he was present in the flesh, but to all countries throughout the globe as well. Did he not pledge the double grace of his Spirit when he said, “A person who believes in me will himself also do the works that I do, and he will do even greater ones than these”? As Elijah and Elisha were conversing together, a chariot with fiery horses suddenly snatched Elijah as if into heaven. By the chariot and fiery horses we are to understand the angelic powers, of whom it is written, “He makes the angels his spirits and his ministers a burning fire” (Elijah, being an ordinary human being, had need of them to be raised up from the earth). The Lord too was suddenly taken up as he was speaking with his apostles and as they were looking on; although he was not assisted by the help of angels, he was served by an angelic band of companions. He was truly assumed into heaven with the angels also bearing witness to it, for they said [to the apostles], “This Jesus who has been taken up from you into heaven.” When Elijah was raised up to the heavens, he let the cloak with which he had been clothed fall to Elisha. When our Lord ascended into heaven, he left the mysteries of the humanity he had assumed to his disciples, to the entire church in fact, so that it could be sanctified by them and warmed by the power of his love. Elisha took up Elijah’s cloak and struck the waters of the river Jordan with it; and when he called on the God of Elijah, [the waters] were divided, and he crossed over. The apostles and the entire church took up the sacraments of their Redeemer that had been instituted through the apostles, so that, spiritually guided by them and cleansed and consecrated by them, they too learned to overcome death’s assaults by calling on the name of God the Father and to cross over to undying life, spurning the obstacles of death.

Elijah, about to be taken up to heaven, goes in company with Elisha from Gilgal to Beth-el, Kg2 2:1, Kg2 2:2. Thence to Jericho, Kg2 2:3-5. And thence to Jordan, Kg2 2:6, Kg2 2:7. Elijah smites the waters with his mantle; they divide, and he and Elisha pass over on dry ground, Kg2 2:8. Elijah desires Elisha to ask what he should do for him; who requests a double portion of his spirit, which is promised on a certain condition, Kg2 2:9, Kg2 2:10. A chariot and horses of fire descend; and Elijah mounts, and ascends by a whirlwind to heaven, Kg2 2:11. Elisha gets his mantle, comes back to Jordan, smites the waters with it, and they divide, and he goes over, Kg2 2:12-14. The sons of the prophets see that the spirit of Elijah rests on Elisha, Kg2 2:15. They propose to send fifty men to seek Elijah, supposing the Spirit of the Lord might have cast him on some mountain or valley; after three days' search, they return not having found him, Kg2 2:16-18. The people of Jericho apply to Elisha to heal their unwholesome water, Kg2 2:19. He casts salt into the spring in the name of Jehovah, and the water becomes wholesome, Kg2 2:20-22. Forty-two young persons of Bethel, mocking him, are slain by two she-bears, Kg2 2:23, Kg2 2:24. He goes to Carmel, and returns to Samaria, Kg2 2:25.

Where is the Lord God of Elijah? - The Vulgate gives a strange turn to this verse: Et percussit aquas, et non sunt divisae; et dixu, Ubi est Deus Eliae etiam nunc? Percussitque aquas, et divisae sunt huc et illuc. "And he smote the waters, but they did not divide; and he said, Where is the God of Elijah even now? And he struck the waters and they were divided hither and thither." The act of striking the waters seems to be twice repeated in the verse, though we get rid of the second striking by rendering the second clause, when he also had smitten the waters: which has the same Hebrew words as the first, and which we translate, he mote the waters. The Vulgate supposes he smote once in vain, perhaps confiding too much in his own strength; and then, having invoked the God of Elijah, he succeeded. This distinction is not followed by any of the other versions; nor is the clause, et non sunt divisae, "and they divided not," expressed by the Hebrew text.

ELIJAH DIVINES JORDAN. (Kg2 2:1-10) when the Lord would take up Elijah--A revelation of this event had been made to the prophet; but, unknown to him, it had also been revealed to his disciples, and to Elisha in particular, who kept constantly beside him. Gilgal--This Gilgal (Jiljil) was near Ebal and Gerizim; a school of the prophets was established there. At Beth-el there was also a school of the prophets, which Elijah had founded, notwithstanding that place was the headquarters of the calf-worship; and at Jericho there was another [Kg2 2:4]. In travelling to these places, which he had done through the impulse of the Spirit (Kg2 2:2, Kg2 2:4-6), Elijah wished to pay a farewell visit to these several institutions, which lay on his way to the place of ascension and, at the same time, from a feeling of humility and modesty, to be in solitude, where there would be no eye-witnesses of his glorification. All his efforts, however, to prevail on his attendant to remain behind, were fruitless. Elisha knew that the time was at hand, and at every place the sons of the prophets spoke to him of the approaching removal of his master. Their last stage was at the Jordan. They were followed at a distance by fifty scholars of the prophets, from Jericho, who were desirous, in honor of the great occasion, to witness the miraculous translation of the prophet. The revelation of this striking event to so many was a necessary part of the dispensation; for it was designed to be under the law, like that of Enoch in the patriarchal age, a visible proof of another state, and a type of the resurrection of Christ.

smote the waters--The waving of the mantle on the river, and the miraculous division of the waters consequent upon it, was an evidence that the Lord God of Elijah was with him, and as this miracle was witnessed by the scholars of the prophets from Jericho, they forthwith recognized the pre-eminence of Elisha, as now the prophet of Israel.

Elijah's Ascension to Heaven. - Kg2 2:1-10. Journey from Gilgal to the other side of the Jordan. - Kg2 2:1, Kg2 2:2. When the time arrived that Jehovah was about to take up His servant Elijah in a tempest to heaven, Elijah went with his attendant Elisha from Gilgal down to Bethel. בּסּערה, in the tempest or storm, i.e., in a tempestuous storm, which was frequently the herald of the divine self-revelations in the terrestrial world (vid., Job 38:1; Job 40:6; Eze 1:4; Zac 9:14). השּׁמים is the accusative of direction. Gilgal and Bethel (Beitin, see at Kg1 12:29) were seats of schools of the prophets, which Elijah had founded in the kingdom of the ten tribes. It is now generally admitted that Gilgal, from which they went down to Bethel, cannot be the place of that name which was situated in the Jordan valley to the east of Jericho, but must be the Gilgal upon the mountains, the elevated Jiljilia to the south-west of Silo (Seilun, see at Jos 8:35). On the way Elijah said to Elisha, "Stay here, I pray, for the Lord has sent me to Bethel;" but Elisha declared with a solemn oath that he would not leave him. The Lord had revealed to both that the seal of divine attestation was to be impressed upon the work of Elijah by his being miraculously taken up into heaven, to strengthen the faith not of Elisha only, but also of the disciples of the prophets and of all the godly in Israel; but the revelation had been made to them separately, so that Elijah had no suspicion that Elisha had also been informed as to his being taken away. He wanted, therefore, to get rid of his servant, not "to test his love and attachment" (Vatabl.), but from humility (C. a Lap. and others), because he did not wish to have any one present to witness his glorification without being well assured that it was in accordance with the will of God.

Return of Elisha to Jericho and Bethel, and his First Miracles. - Kg2 2:14, Kg2 2:15. Having returned to the banks of the Jordan, Elisha smote the water with Elijah's mantle, saying, "Where is Jehovah the God of Elijah, yea He?" and the water divided hither and thither, so that he was able to go through. אף־הוּא, which the lxx did not understand, and have simply reproduced in Greek characters, ἀφφώ, is an emphatic apposition, "yea He," such as we find after suffixes, e.g., Pro 22:19; and אף is only a strengthened גּם, which is more usual when emphatic prominence is given to the suffix (vid., Ges. 121, 3). The Masoretic accentuation, which separates it from the preceding words, rests upon a false interpretation. There is no need either for the alteration proposed by Ewald, 362, a., of אף into אך, "he had scarcely smitten the water," especially as not a single analogous example can be adduced of the use of הוּא אך followed by a Vav consec.; or for the conjecture that the original reading in the text was אפוא (Houb., Bttch., Then.), "where is now the God of Elijah?" which derives no critical support from the ἀφφώ of the lxx, and is quite at variance with Hebrew usage, since אפוא generally stands immediately after איּה, when it serves to strengthen the interrogation (vid., Jdg 9:38; Job 17:15; Isa 19:12; Hos 13:10). This miracle was intended partly to confirm Elisha's conviction that his petition had been fulfilled, and partly to accredit him in the eyes of the disciples of the prophets and the people generally as the divinely appointed successor of Elijah. All the disciples of the prophets from Jericho saw also from this that the spirit of Elijah rested upon Elisha, and came to meet him to do homage to him as being now their spiritual father and lord.