People of the Bible

Elisha

Prophets · Around 850 BC · Appears in 1 Kings 19 through 2 Kings 13

Elisha is the prophet who followed Elijah, asking for a double portion of his spirit and receiving it. His ministry was full of miracles of mercy, purifying water, multiplying oil for a widow, raising a boy from death, and healing the leper Naaman, and through him God showed his care for ordinary people in need.

And it came to pass, when they were gone over, that Elijah said unto Elisha, Ask what I shall do for thee, before I be taken away from thee. And Elisha said, I pray thee, let a double portion of thy spirit be upon me.2 Kings 2:9 (KJV)

The call at the plow

Elisha was a farmer, plowing his father's field with twelve yoke of oxen, when the great prophet Elijah passed by and cast his mantle upon him. It was a wordless summons, but Elisha understood it. He asked only to kiss his father and mother goodbye, then slaughtered his oxen, burned his plowing equipment to cook the meat, fed his people, and left everything to follow Elijah as his servant. From the beginning his was a whole-hearted, no-turning-back response to God's call.

For years Elisha ministered alongside Elijah, learning from him and refusing to leave his side. When Elijah's departure drew near and asked what he might do for him, Elisha made a bold request: I pray thee, let a double portion of thy spirit be upon me. It was not a demand for greatness but a longing to carry on the prophet's work in full. Elijah told him it was a hard thing, but that if Elisha saw him taken away, it would be his. And when the chariot of fire took Elijah up, Elisha saw it, took up the fallen mantle, struck the Jordan, and the waters parted, so that the sons of the prophets knew the spirit of Elijah rested on him.

Miracles of mercy

Where Elijah was the lone prophet of fire, Elisha moved among the people, and his miracles are marked again and again by compassion for the poor, the grieving, and the overlooked. He healed a poisoned spring so a city could drink. When a widow of the prophets faced losing her two sons to a creditor, Elisha multiplied her one small pot of oil until it filled every vessel she could borrow, so she could pay her debt and live on the rest. He made a pot of poisonous stew safe to eat, and he fed a hundred men with only twenty barley loaves, with food left over.

To a kind woman of Shunem who had given him lodging, Elisha promised a son though her husband was old, and the child was born. When that boy later died of a sudden illness, the grieving mother rode hard to find the prophet, and Elisha came and stretched himself upon the child, and the boy sneezed seven times and opened his eyes, restored to his mother's arms. In miracle after miracle Elisha revealed the character of the God who cares for a single household's real and ordinary needs.

Naaman the leper and the eyes of faith

The reach of God's mercy through Elisha extended even beyond Israel. Naaman, a great commander of the army of Syria, Israel's enemy, was a leper, and on the word of a captive Israelite servant girl he came seeking healing. Elisha did not even come out to him but sent word to wash seven times in the Jordan. Naaman was furious at so humble a cure and nearly went away, until his servants reasoned with him, and when he obeyed, his flesh came again like that of a little child, and he was clean, and confessed there was no God in all the earth but in Israel.

Elisha also saw what others could not. When the king of Syria sent an army to seize him, and his servant despaired at the surrounding host, Elisha prayed, LORD, open his eyes, and the young man saw the mountain full of horses and chariots of fire around the prophet. Through his long ministry Elisha counseled and confronted the kings of Israel, guided the nation through wars and famines, and even after his death, when a dead man was hastily cast into his grave and touched his bones, the man revived and stood on his feet, a final sign of the life-giving power that had rested on him.

Gehazi and the peril of greed

Against the backdrop of Elisha's integrity stands the sad tale of his servant Gehazi. When Naaman the Syrian, healed of his leprosy, offered a rich reward, Elisha refused it entirely, taking nothing, so that the healing would be seen plainly as the free gift of God. But Gehazi, greedy for the wealth his master had turned down, ran after Naaman, lied to obtain silver and garments, and hid them, then stood before Elisha as though nothing had happened.

Elisha, to whom God had revealed the deed, asked Gehazi where he had been and exposed the whole thing, and the leprosy of Naaman clung to Gehazi and to his descendants. It is a sobering counterpart to the story of grace, showing that the gifts of God cannot be turned to private gain, and that greed and deceit carry their own ruin. Where Naaman the outsider was cleansed by faith, the insider Gehazi was defiled by covetousness, a warning that the heart, and not the pedigree, is what matters before God.

His character and significance

Elisha's miracles are marked by tenderness toward the widow, the childless, the servant, and the foreigner, and by attention to small, real needs, a jar of oil, a borrowed axe head raised from the water, a barren home given a child. He was bold before kings when he had to be, but the heart of his ministry was mercy, showing that the God of thunder on Carmel is also the God who weeps with a grieving mother and provides for the poor.

Through Elisha God carried the prophetic word through a long and troubled period, sustaining the true faith after Elijah and shaping Israel's history through the kings he counseled. His many miracles of provision and healing revealed God as a rescuer of the desperate, and his reach to a foreign leper like Naaman showed that God's mercy was never meant for Israel alone but for all who would come and obey in faith.

Where Elisha points to Christ

Elisha's miracles read like a preview of the Gospels. He multiplied bread to feed a crowd with plenty left over, healed a leper, raised a dead child to life, provided for the poor, and cared for the outsider, all things Jesus would do in fuller measure. Elisha healed by sending Naaman to wash in the Jordan; Jesus is the one whose cleansing goes deeper than the skin, reaching the heart.

When Jesus stood in the synagogue at Nazareth and wished to show that God's grace reaches beyond Israel, he pointed back to this very story, reminding them that many lepers were in Israel in the days of Elisha, yet none was cleansed but Naaman the Syrian. The prophet of mercy pointed forward to the Lord of mercy, in whom all these signs of healing, provision, and resurrection find their meaning and their fulfillment.

A note on the sources: everything above is drawn from the biblical text itself. Where a detail comes from later tradition rather than Scripture, it is named as tradition. Dates for the earliest figures are traditional and approximate, and Scripture does not always give them. The aim is to tell each life honestly, and to let it do what the whole Bible does, point to Jesus Christ the Lord.

Related: Elijah · Isaiah · All the people of the Bible