03.02. The Character of Elisha's Mission

The Character of Elisha’s Mission

Elisha entered upon his course, immediately after his great predecessor had been taken up into heaven. Let us briefly recollect the state of public affairs in Israel. King Ahab, by the judgment of God, had been slain in battle at Ramoth Gilead, and Ahaziah, his son and successor, was no more among the living. Because he had sent to inquire of Baal-zebub, the god of Ekron, as if there had been no God in Israel, the prophet Elijah had been sent to him with the alarming communication, "Thou shalt not come down from that bed on which thou art gone up, but shalt surely die." And his unrepenting death had terminated a life spent in forgetfulness of God. From the brow of this Ahaziah, the crown, stained with a thousand crimes, had now passed to Jehoram his brother, the second son of Ahab and Jezebel, and it is in his reign that Elisha begins his prophetic labors. Of Jehoram, with whom we become acquainted in the course of Elisha’s history, the Scriptures relate, that "he wrought evil in the sight of the Lord;" but not quite to the same extent as his father and profligate mother had done. Alarmed by the Divine judgments which he had seen inflicted upon Ahab and Ahaziah, he had thought proper to remove the image of Baal, which his father had set up and worshipped; but he still adhered to the golden calves in Bethel and in Dan; he fully restored and supported the order of Jeroboam’s idolatrous priests; and though he sometimes did homage to the God of Abraham, of Isaac, and of Jacob, it was only in acts of momentary and hypocritical constraint. His mother, the widowed queen Jezebel, continued, with his connivance, her vile and infatuated practices, and used all her influence with the unstable monarch to confirm him in his iniquities, and to increase the moral depravity of the people to a frightful degree. A disgusting idolatry, mingled with every kind of vice, continued to be the religion of the state. The whole realm was filled with this darkness from the bottomless pit; and the little church of God, though it glistened above the midnight covering with sublimity and brightness, was but as a green spot in the desert, or as a solitary isle in the stormy ocean. And now, like a rainbow on the dark cloud of those troublous times, appears the beneficent and evangelical mission of Elisha. Many regard it only as a faint sequel to the career of the Tishbite, but a little deeper insight into the matter will lead to a very different conclusion. Was Elijah an original phenomenon? Elisha was equally such. Who would think, because he had seen a rose, that the apple blossom has no beauty of its own? The appointment of Elisha was no repetition of Elijah. It was essentially different from that of his illustrious predecessor; and the entire organization of the man, no less than the manner of his appearance and acting, exactly harmonized with those special duties which devolved upon him. The former prophet casts no shade upon the latter; but each in his proper station serves beautifully to set off the other.

We anticipated in our reflections upon Elijah’s history, something of this peculiar difference of the calling of Elisha. We anticipated it in the still small voice upon the mount of Horeb, as indicative of that milder season of providential dealings with Israel, which the son of Shaphat was to usher in. Elisha was a kind of evangelist and forerunner of Him, whose feet are beautiful upon the mountains; whereas Elijah, like another Moses, had to restore and vindicate the dignity of the law, which was then neglected and despised. Elisha was to conduct back to Jehovah any who had been aroused from their deathlike slumber by the awful ministry of Elijah. For this benign office he had been unconsciously trained by the providence of God. The earlier circumstances of his life, as well as the disposition of his mind, had tended to prepare him for it. Habituated to a peaceful, but active, rural life, he appears to have grown up under the combined influence of cheering natural scenery, and simple family piety. When his affectionate parents expressed, as they evidently did, the sanguine and pious joy of their hearts, by giving the name Elisha to their new-born son, they probably little expected how significantly appropriate that name would one day become. For its meaning is, "God is salvation," or, "God is my Savior;" and the son of Shaphat was designated to announce him, in this character, to Israel. Whereas the office of Elijah, as his name imports, was rather to demonstrate to the thoughtless multitude, the awfully judicial power and majesty of Jehovah: that of Elisha, on the contrary, was neither alarming, imposing, nor overwhelming; it inspired confidence, and rendered approach easy; it indicated a messenger less awful than the man of God upon Mount Carmel. The Lord, who dwelleth in the high and holy place, now humbled himself to behold with special condescension the poor and the wretched. And this great and precious truth, Elisha, by his preaching and his acts, was to make manifest to Israel. How gracious is the King of kings, who thus early disclosed to sinners the freeness of his mercy and his love! Never did he forget the poor of the flock.