So God said: “If the men come to call thee, rise up, and go with them; yet the word which I shall sayunto thee, that shalt thou do.” But God’s anger was kindled against Balaam.
“And God’s anger was kindled because he went; and the angel of the Lord stood in the way for an adversary against him. Now, he was riding upon his ass, and his two servants were with him. And the ass saw the angel of the Lord standing in the way, and his sword drawn in his hand; and the ass turned aside out of the way, and went into the field; and Balaam smote the ass, to turn her into the way. But the angel of the Lord stood in a path of the vineyards, a wall being on this side and a wall on that side.”
When Balak heard of Balaam’s arrival he was glad. Gold went for nothing, now the soothsayer had come. Riches were as water poured forth. In those days the supernatural went for something in the market-place. It is the cheapest of all things now. Ideas are without value; religious thoughts are mere breath. But Balaam remembered that he was only to speak what God told him; so he began to play the priest. He would have altars put up.
He took up his parable, and said: “Balak, the king of Moab, hath brought me from Aram, out of the mountains of the east, saying: ‘Come, curse me Jacob,’ and ‘Come, defy Israel.’”
Balaam would have altars put up and sacrifices rendered. But the answer was: “No. Israel can not be cursed.”
So Balak took him to another point of view, where perhaps, the multitude looked greater or did not look so great. “And he took up his parable, and said: ‘Riseup, Balak, and hear; hearken unto me, thou son of Zippor.’” And again the people were to rise like a lion, and lift up themselves as a young lion; and the people were not to lie down until they had eaten of the prey and drunk of the blood of the slain.
“Well, then,” said Balak, “if that be the case, this thou must do for me: Neutralize thyself; be nothing; act as if thou hadst not come at all. Neither curse them at all, nor bless them at all.”
But Balaam said: “No. You can not treat God’s messengers in that way. As a matter of fact, they are here; you have to account for them being here, and to reckon with them while they are here.”
We can not quiet things by ignoring them. Simply by writing “Unknowable” across the heavens we really do not exclude supernatural or immeasurable forces. The ribbon is too narrow to shut out the whole Heaven. It is but a little strip, and looks contemptible against the infinite arch. We do not exclude God by denying Him, nor by saying that we do not know Him, or that He can not be known. We can not neutralize God, so as to make Him neither the one thing nor the other.
So Balaam was the greatest mystery that Balak had to deal with. It is just the same with the Bible—God’s supernatural Book. It will not lie where we want it to lie. It has a way of getting up through the dust that gathers upon it and shaking itself, and making its pages felt. It will open at the wrong place. Would it open at some catalogue of names it might be tolerated, but it opens at hot places, where white thrones are and severe judgments, and where scales are tried and measuringwands tested. It will speak to the soul about the wrong doing that never came to any thing, and the wicked thought that would have burned the heavens and scattered dishonor upon the throne of God.
Balak said, in effect: “Would to Heaven I could get rid of this man.” He took Balaam to another point of view, and Balaam “set his face toward the wilderness, and took up his parable.” He sang a sweet and noble song: “How goodly are thy tents, O Jacob! And thy tabernacles, O Israel! As the valleys are they spread forth, as gardens by the river’s side, as the trees of lign aloes which the Lord hath planted, and as cedar trees beside the waters. He shall pour the water out of his buckets, and his seed shall be in many waters, and his king shall be higher than Agag, and his kingdom shall be exalted. God brought him forth out of Egypt; he hath, as it were, the strength of an unicorn; he shall eat up the nations his enemies, and shall break their bones and pierce them through with his arrows. He couched, he lay down as a lion, and as a great lion; who shall stir him up? Blessed is he that blesseth thee, and cursed is he that curseth thee.”
Balak made a bad bargain that day. He added unto his troubles, instead of diminishing them.
Balak would gladly have parted with Balaam, but he could not get rid of him; and Balak was wroth. It became a king to become angry. And Balak’s anger was kindled against Balaam, and he smote his hands together and said unto Balaam: “I called thee to curse mine enemies, and, behold, thou hast altogether blessed them these three times. Therefore, now flee thou to thyplace. I thought to promote thee unto great honor, but lo, the Lord hath kept thee back from honor.”
Balaam then made a great speech to Balak. He said: “Is this not precisely what I said to the king’s messengers? Did I not say: ‘If Balak would give me his house full of silver and gold, I can not go beyond the commandment of the Lord, to do either good or bad of mine own mind; but what the Lord saith, that will I speak’? Now, I will tell that which I see.”
And then came the parable of the man whose eyes are open:
And he took up his parable, and said: “Balaam, the son of Beor, hath said, and the man whose eyes are open hath said, he hath said which heard the words of God, and knew the knowledge of the Most High, which saw the vision of the Almighty, falling into a trance, but having his eyes open; I shall see him, but not now; I shall behold him, but not nigh; there shall come a Star out of Jacob, and a Scepter shall rise out of Israel, and shall smite the corners of Moab, and destroy all the children of Sheth. And Edom shall be a possession, Seir also shall be a possession for his enemies; and Israel shall do valiantly. Out of Jacob shall come he that shall have dominion, and shall destroy him that remaineth of the city.”
Then the parable is continued, Balaam looking Balak full in the face; and last of all “Balaam rose up, and went and returned to his place, and Balak also went his way.”
You can not carve your God into any shape that will please your fancy. You can not send for any true faithand bribe it to speak your blessings or your cursings. Balaam was a man of noble sentiments. Look at some of his words: “Let me die the death of the righteous, and let my last end be like his.” And again: “God is not a man, that he should lie; neither the son of man, that he should repent.” And again: “I shall see him, but not now; I shall behold him, but not nigh.”
Then take the grand words which he spoke to Balak, as reported in the prophecies of Micah. Never did man preach a nobler sermon than this: “He hath showed thee, O man, what is good; and what doth the Lord require of thee, but to do justly, and to love mercy, and to walk humbly with thy God.”
Who can amend that speech? Who can refine that gold? Who dares touch that lily with his mean paint? Who taught Balaam that great speech?
We sometimes say we find, scattered up and down in ancient literature, morals as beautiful as any we find in the Bible. Possibly so. Who wrote them? Whence did they come? Is God the God of one corner of the creation? Is God a parochial Deity?
Is there not a spirit in man—universal man—and does not the Spirit of the Most High give him understanding? Wherever there is a line of beauty, God wrote it; wherever there is a sentiment which is charged with the spirit of beneficence, that may be claimed as a good gift of God.
Apostle Paul never uttered a nobler sentiment than is uttered by Balaam, as reported in the prophecies of Micah. This is the Sermon upon the Mount in anticipation. That is the vicious Church, built on the wrongfoundation, aiming at the wrong Heaven, which does not recognize in every literature and in every nation all that is good, noble, wise, prophetic.
Balaam’s convictions and wishes disagreed sometimes. Therein he was most human. He knew he ought not to go to Balak, and yet he wished to go. He would ask the second time; he would doubt his own convictions, or he would adjust them according to the shape and temper of circumstances. Wherever he came from, he claims herein to be quite a near neighbor of ours. Doubt may exist as to the exact relation of Pethor to the river upon which it was built, but there can be no doubt whatever of the blood relationship between Balaam and our own age. Speaking impulsively from the center of his convictions, he said: “No. Nothing shall tempt me to go. You speak of gold and silver. Were Balak to give me his house full of gold and silver, I would not go. I am the Lord’s servant, and the Lord’s work alone will I do.”
Then the thought occurred to him—a second message coming, borne by more honorable princes: “Perhaps I might go and obtain this wealth and honor, and still do my duty.”
He is on the downward road now. A man who thinks to do forbidden things and spend the bounty for the advantage of the Church is lost; there is no power in him that can overcome the gravitation that sucks him downward. He says: “I will bring back all Balak’s gold and silver, and add a transept to the church or another course of marble to the altar.”
He will never return. God will not have His houseso patched and bungled; nor does He want Balak’s gold for the finishing of His sanctuary. A nobler spirit was Abram, who said no to the king of Sodom, “lest thou shouldest say: ‘I have made Abram rich.’”
The whole story of Balaam is intensely Oriental and primeval. The first deputation is dismissed in obedience to a divine warning; but, so far as we know, “the wages of unrighteousness,” which Balaam loved, are carefully retained. A second embassy of nobler messengers, carrying richer gifts, succeeds. He does not at once dismiss them, as God had required, but presses for permission to go with them, which at last is granted.
Balaam would earn the fame and honor apparently within his grasp, yet he knows that when the prophetic afflatus comes on him he can only utter what it prompts. With a feigned religiousness, he protests that if Balak were to give him his house full of silver and gold he could not go beyond the word of Jehovah, his God, to do less or more; but he also bids them wait overnight to see if he may not, after all, be allowed to go with them. If his ignoble wish to be allowed to curse an unoffending nation be gratified, he has the wealth he craves; if it be refused, he can appeal to his words as proof of his being only the mouth-piece of God.
That Balaam should have been allowed to go with Balak’s messengers was only the permission given every man to act as a free agent, and in no way altered the divine command, that he should bless, and not curse. Yet he goes as if at liberty to do either, and lets Balak deceive himself by false hopes, when the will of God has been already decisively made known.
Balaam’s was a maneuvering life—very truthful, and yet very false; very godly, and yet very worldly—a most composite and self-contradictory life, and still a most human life. Balaam never breaks away from the brotherhood of the race in any of his inconsistencies. When he is very good, there are men living today who are just as good as Balaam was; when he is very bad, it would not be difficult to confront him with men who are quite his equals in wrong doing. When he is both good and bad almost at the same moment, he does not separate himself from the common experience of the race. He was always arranging, adjusting, endeavoring to meet one thing by another, and to set off one thing over against another. It was a kind of gamester life—full of subtle calculation, touched with a sort of wonder which becomes almost religious, and steeped in a superstition which reduces many of the actions of life to a state of moral mystery wholly beyond ordinary comprehension.
There was once a king in Israel named Elah. He reigned over Israel, in Tirzah, two years. He had a servant called Zimri, who was a captain of his chariots.
Zimri was a born traitor. Treachery was in his very blood. In the case of Elah, Zimri had a marked advantage, for Elah was a drunken fool. He was in the habit of visiting the house of another of his servants, a steward called Arza. There he had what drink he asked for,and he asked for a great deal—so much that he was often drunk in his servant’s house. On one of these occasions Zimri went in and killed him, and reigned in his stead.
These are the facts with which we have to deal. Are they very ancient, or are they happening about us every day? Is Elah dead? Is Zimri clean gone for ever? And is the house of the servant Arza closed, so that the master can drink no more with the steward?
Elah lives in every man who has great chances or opportunities in life, but allows them to slip away from him through one leak in the character. Elah was a king and was the son of a king, so his openings in life were wide and splendid; but he loved strong drink, and thus through that leak in his character all that might have made him a man oozed away, and left him a king in nothing but the barren name.
Strong drink will ruin any man. It is the supreme curse of England. I will say nothing now of the old, but to the young I may speak a word. I care not, young man, how many and how brilliant in life your chances are, if you drink wine in the morning, as many young men in London do, you are as good as damned already. You think not, but that only shows the infinite deceitfulness of the enemy. He tells you:
“Nothing of the kind. This is parson’s twaddle. Take your wine when you want it, and let it alone when you do not care for it.”
There is suppressed mockery in that high challenge. There is no soundness of health in it. Every drink but leaves you weaker. Every emptied glass is another link added to the strong chain thrown upon your limbs.
Zimri still lives in all persons who take advantage of the weaknesses of others. Zimri knew that Elah was a drunkard, and he further knew through Elah’s habit of drunkenness alone could he be reached. On every other side of his character Elah may have been a strong man—acute, shrewd and far-sighted—but when in drink he was, of course, weak and foolish. Zimri played his game accordingly. He said:
“Elah goes to Arza’s house after sundown. In half an hour after going, he will begin to fall under the effects of wine; then the worst wine will be brought out, and he will go mad under its poison and become drowsy. I must get Arza out of the way. The fool will go on any errand I name, on promise of another horse; that is it.”
The Bible says: “And Zimri went in and smote him and killed him.” He took advantage of his master’s weakness, and his progeny is numerous on the Earth.
Some people trade on the weaknesses of others. They study them. They adapt themselves to them. They watch for striking time, and seldom miss the mark. How else could the net be always ready for the bird? How else could the pit be always prepared for the unsuspecting and bewildered traveler? There is an infernal science in these things—a devil’s black art!
And does not Arza still live in those who find the means whereby men may conceal their evil habits and indulge their unholy desires? They seem to say: “In my house you may do what you please. I shall not look at you. Come when you please; go when you like; I am nobody, if you like to call me so.”
Tirzah, whose name means pleasantness and whichwas Elah’s capital, was an ancient royal city of the Canaanites, captured by Joshua. After its conquest it is not again mentioned in history till the time of Jeroboam, who appears to have chosen it as his principal residence. The geographical position of Tirzah has not been given by any ancient geographer. Zimri reigned only seven days in Tirzah. Omri, captain of the host, was made king over Israel in the camp. He besieged Tirzah and took it. Zimri, seeing that the city was taken, went into the king’s palace, set it on fire and perished in it. The last mention of Tirzah in Scripture history is in connection with Menahem, who went from Tirzah to Samaria, “and smote Shallum, and reigned in his stead.” Solomon made the comparison: “Thou art beautiful, O my love, as Tirzah.”
Elijah means “Jehovah is my God.” There is often much in a name. It is a history, sometimes—the summing up of generations; it is sometimes an inspiration, recalling memories that stir the soul to high daring.
There are two places called Tishbi—one in Gilead and the other in Galilee. Elijah belonged to the former. Sometimes character is mysteriously and very deeply affected by country. Gilead was a wild and mountainous district, bordering on Arabia, and consequently half Arab in its customs. There was a wonderful similarity between the man and the region; stern, bleak, grand, majesticand awful were they both. John the Baptist seemed to bring the wilderness with him when he came into the city. Children born in luxury are apt to be themselves luxurious. Children born in slavery will hardly ever be free, though slavery has been abolished. To the end of life we carry the color which first impressed itself on our vision.
All revelations seem to us to be sudden. Look at the suddenness of the appearance of Ahijah to Jeroboam, and look at the instance before us: “Elijah, the Tishbite, said unto Ahab.” The total apostasy of the Ten Tribes (Israel) was now almost accomplished, and yet a faithful prophet of the Lord stands up in the degenerate land and declares that Jehovah is his God, and in sacred solitariness protests against the abominations of Israel and her king.
No mild man would have been equal to the occasion. God adapts His ministry to circumstances. He sends a nurse to the sick room and a soldier to the battle field. The son of consolation and the son of thunder can not change places. You are right when you say that the dew and the light and the soft breeze are God’s; but you may not, therefore, suppose that the thunder and the hurricane and the flood belong to a meaner lord.
Imagine the two men standing face to face—Ahab, the dissolute king, and Elijah, the faithful prophet. Probably there is no finer picture in ancient history. Terrible indeed is the national crisis when king and prophet come into collision. There is not a combat between two men. Mark that very closely. It is Right against Wrong, Faithfulness against Treachery, Purity against Corruption.Look at them—Ahab and Elijah—as they face one another! Consider the boldness of the prophet. Religion is never to be ashamed of its own testimony.
As we look at the scene, not wanting in the elements of the highest tragedy, we see the value of one noble witness in the midst of public corruption and decay, and the grandeur as well as necessity of a distinct personal profession of godliness. It is not enough to be godly; we must avow it in open conduct and articulate confession.
Let us now observe how Elijah proceeds to deal with Ahab. “There shall not be dew nor rain these years, but according to my word.” Here is physical punishment for moral transgression. So it is; and that is just what a parent does when he uses the rod upon his child for falsehood. You can only punish people according to their nature. The garroter can submit to any number of censures and lectures, but he dreads the cat-o’-nine-tails.
Physical punishment for moral transgression is the law of society. So the liar is thrown out of his situation; the ill-tempered child is whipped; the dishonorable man is expelled from social confidence.
With regard to the particular punishment denounced against Ahab, it is to be remembered that drought is one of the punishments threatened by the law if Israel forsook Jehovah and turned after other gods.
This, then, was the brief communication which the prophet addressed to the king. God’s threatenings are terrible in their conciseness. He leaves no room in a multitude of works for ambiguity and verbal wriggling. The soul that sinneth shall die. “The wages of sin isdeath.” “There is no peace, saith the Lord, unto the wicked.”
And as He can be concise in threatening, so He can be concise in promise: “I will give you rest.” “I will give you living water.” “He that believeth shall be saved.” “Ask, and it shall be given you.”
Thus great things can be said in few words: “God is light.” “God is love.” “Believe on the Lord Jesus Christ, and thou shalt be saved.” “Ye must be born again.”
At the bidding of the word of the Lord, Elijah turned eastward and hid himself by the brook Cherith, a place nowhere else mentioned in the Bible, and “no place like it has as yet been discovered in Palestine.” It was a torrent-course facing the Jordan, “but whether it was one of those which seam Mount Ephraim or of those on the opposite side of Jordan, in the prophet’s own country, is uncertain.”
But what is the meaning of the extraordinary expression: “I have commanded the ravens to feed thee”? By omitting the points, which are generally allowed to have no authority, the Hebrew letters may signify Arabians. Then the passage would read: “I have commanded the Arabians to feed thee.” Or, if we retain the present pointing, the word may be translated “merchants,” according to “The Speaker’s Commentary.” But it is better to allow the word “ravens” to stand. It implies a miracle; but the whole Bible is a miracle, and so is our own daily life, could we but see the inner movement and look beyond all symbols to the spiritual reality.
But Elijah’s brook dried up. Prophets may be overtakenby the operation of their own prophecies. The great laws are impartial, yet wonderful is the scope within which exceptions may be established. This incident gives an instance in point.
“Arise, get thee to Zarephath, which belongeth to Zidon, and dwell there. Behold, I have commanded a widow woman there to sustain thee.” This place is called Sarepta in the New Testament. It lay upon the great public road which connected the two towns. A little village called Sarafend now occupies the situation.
But how did it come about that Elijah was sent to a place so near the city of Jezebel’s father? It has been suggested that it would be the last place that he would be suspected of having chosen as a retreat. When Elijah came to the gate of the city the widow woman was there gathering sticks, and he asked her for a little water in a vessel, that he might drink. And as she was going to fetch it, he asked her to bring also a morsel of bread in her hand. But she had no bread—not so much as a cake—only a handful of meal in a barrel and a little oil in a cruse.
She was just going to dress this little food for herself and her son, “that we may eat it and die.” But Elijah claimed it in the name of the Lord, and gave to her in return the gracious promise: “The barrel of meal shall not waste, neither shall the cruse of oil fail, until the day that the Lord sendeth rain upon the Earth.”
We may here admire and imitate one of the finest instances of ancient faith. The woman was asked for all she had, and she gave it. But mark, she was put in possession of a promise. This is God’s law. He givesthe promise first, and then asks for the faith of man. It was so in the ease of Abraham. It is so with ourselves today.
“And the barrel of meal wasted not, neither did the cruse of oil fail.” This is the continual miracle of nature; this is the security of life. We are puzzled by it, but what of that? Are possibilities to be determined by our weakness or by God’s strength? We could have increased the flour had we sown the seed, reaped the grain and called in the aid of the miller. Now let us venture on the supposition that Almighty God is able to do just a little more than we can do, and the whole difficulty is gone. The air wastes not, nor the light, nor the force of nature; what if God can touch points which happen to lie beyond the range of our short fingers? We must allow something for Deity.
And now sorrow fell upon the poor woman’s house. Her only child died, and her heart was lacerated even to torment and agony. But the Lord was merciful. Elijah took the dead child away into a loft—the upper chamber, which was often the best part of an Eastern house—and cried unto the Lord, and stretched himself upon the child three times, and cried again and again unto the Lord, and the child’s life returned. Then the glad mother hailed Elijah as a man, and one in whose mouth was the word of the Lord.
Elijah had put himself beyond the reach of Ahab—not because he feared him or distrusted the power of God in critical circumstances—but because God’s providence or government is a great scheme with innumerable sides, and requires time for its full disclosure and accomplishment.We are not to hasten the march of God. To every thing there is a season. Everywhere we see this idea of time observed and honored. Though there is famine in the land, we can not urge the seasons forward. The child, too, must have years of growth, though his father be disabled and there be none to earn the household bread but himself.
So in the case before us. Ahab must be wearied out with searching for Elijah. He must be made to see how fruitless may be the efforts even of a king. And at last, when success does come, it must come not from his side at all.
We have said that Ahab was a speculative idolater rather than a cruel persecutor. Jezebel acted the part of cruelty; Ahab acted the part of unbeliever and spiritual rebel generally. A proof of the probable correctness of this view is found in the incident before us, for when Ahab met Elijah he did not show a spirit of cruelty. He said unto the prophet: “Art thou he that troubleth Israel?” He did not threaten Elijah with the sword; he did not demand his immediate surrender and arrest. He seems rather to have looked upon Elijah with wonder—perhaps not unmixed with admiration of a figure so independent and audacious.
The tone of the king’s mind may be inferred from the kind of challenge which he accepted. It exactly suited his speculative genius. Elijah proposed a trial between himself and the idolatrous prophets, 850 in number—proposing that the god who answered by fire should be God. The idea instantly commended itself to Ahab as excellent. He liked the high and practical speculation.He was fond of intellectual combat, and he warmed at the notion of a holy fray. The man who could accept a notion of this kind was not cruel, wild or fond of human blood. Ahab was even wickedly religious; the more altars and groves the better—yea, altar upon altar, until the pile reached to Heaven; and grove after grove, until the line met itself again and formed a cordon around the world. If he had started from a right center, Ahab had been the foremost evangelist in the ancient Church.
Let us now look at the controversy itself.
This plan was proposed by the prophet of the Lord, and not by the servants of Baal. Truth addresses a perpetual challenge to all false religions and all wicked and incompetent workers. Its challenges have heightened and broadened in tone from the first ages until now.
Moses challenged the necromancers of Egypt; Elijah challenged the priests of Baal; Christ challenges the world.
At first the challenge was more strictly physical; but now it is intensely spiritual. What religion produces the highest and finest type of character? That is the challenging question.
That sane men should prefer a display of physical power or skill to a spiritual contest is an illustration of the infancy and rudeness of their minds, and not a proof of the best form of competition. Where, in Christian or in pagan lands, have we the finest men, the purest character, the most sensitive honor? Where are schools, hospitals, asylums and charities of every kind most abundant?
That Christian countries are disgraced by some of thefoulest crimes possible in human life, may but show that their very foulness and atrocity never could have been so vividly seen and so cruelly felt but for the enlightenment and culture furnished by Christianity. In any other countries they would have been matters of course; but in Christian lands their abomination is seen by the help of Christian light.
The appeal or challenge was forced upon the prophets of Baal; it was not spontaneously accepted by them. This should be made very clear, as it is a point apt to be overlooked.
Perhaps the common impression is that Elijah challenged the prophets directly, standing face to face with them, without any medium of communication.
Nothing of the kind. Elijah first challenged King Ahab, who snatched eagerly at the sensational chance, little knowing what he was snatching at. Having spoken first to the king, Elijah spoke next to the people, and demanded why they hesitated between two opinions, insisting that they should make a choice between Jehovah and Baal. Then Elijah made his grand appeal to the people of Israel, and they answered and said: “It is well spoken.” Having secured the approval of the king and the people, Elijah called upon the prophets to proceed to trial.
Today Christianity appeals not to a few sectarian prophets, nor to a few bewildered speculators, nor to a few scientists who are wild with boy-like joy because they have found a bird’s nest, though they have never seen the bird that built it; but Christianity makes its appeal to the great and broad heart of human nature, tothe common sufferings of the race, to the indestructible sentiments of mankind. In Elijah’s day the people said: “It is well spoken.” Of Christ it is said: “The common people heard him gladly.”
Every assault upon truth must bring mockery and death upon the assailants. Elijah mocked the prophets on Carmel and slew them at Kishon.
Elijah was a prophet of truth, but of sternness and terror. He lived in a tempestuous atmosphere. Lightning seemed to play around his temples, and his voice was as thunder.
Van de Velde gives a vivid delineation of the precise locality of the Carmel contest. He was, it is believed, the first traveler who identified the site of the “Burning.” The rock shoots up in an almost perpendicular wall, more than two hundred feet in height on the side of the vale of Esdrelon. This wall made the burning visible over the whole plain and from all the surrounding heights, so that even those left behind and who had not ascended Carmel would still have been able to witness, at no great distance, the fire from Heaven that descended on the altar. Here the place must have been, for it is the only point of all Carmel where Elijah could have been so close to the brook Kishon as to take thither the priests of Baal and slay them, return again to the mountain and pray for rain, all in the short space of the same afternoon. Down 250 feet beneath the altar plateau is a vaulted and very abundant fountain. While all other fountains were dried up, one can well understand that there might have been found here that superabundance of water which Elijah poured so profusely over the altar.
When Elijah supposed that his work was done he was ordered by Jehovah to go up and return on his way to the wilderness of Damascus; and he who supposed that his ministry was concluded had yet to anoint Hazael to be king over Syria and Jehu, the son of Nimshi, to be king over Israel.
But the anointing of these kings was a comparatively insignificant circumstance. The great point of the commission is contained in this sentence:
“And Elisha, the son of Shaphat of Abel-mehola, shalt thou anoint to be prophet in thy room.”
Probably it had not occurred to Elijah that he could have a successor. A very subtle indication is thus given of his approaching end. The Lord, instead of telling Elijah that he had many a year left to spend in holy service, gave him to understand that even he, mighty prophet though he was, could be dispensed with, and a man of almost unknown name would be qualified by divine inspiration to take his room. We can not imagine Elijah’s feelings under these circumstances. If a great demonstration of regard had been made, on the part of the Lord God of Israel, because Elijah was weary, the prophet might have supposed himself to be of vital consequence to the divine economy; but to be told that Elisha, a man who was plowing the twelfth plow in the field while his eleven servants were plowing beside him, would succeed to the high dignity was really to inflict in the most gracious way a very solemn humiliation upon aman who had become so self-conscious as practically to ignore the resources of the living God.
Elisha was a man in what we should now term comfortable circumstances. As he was plowing in his field of Abel-mehola (“the meadow dance”) Elijah drew near and threw over the plowman his prophetic sheep-skin mantle, and passed on in silence, leaving Elisha himself to interpret the graphic symbol. Elisha instantly comprehended the purpose, and, running after Elijah, he begged to be allowed to kiss his father and mother, after which he promised to follow the senior prophet.
It is noteworthy that at this time Elisha must have been quite a young man—an inference which may be fairly drawn from the fact that sixty years after this event he was still in the exercise of his prophetic office.
It is a noticeable circumstance, which repeats itself even in our own day, that Elisha was in many respects the exact counterpart of Elijah.
By choosing all kinds of character and capacity to represent the divine kingdom, God shows His infinite wisdom in a way which even the dullest understanding can hardly fail to appreciate. He is not dependent upon one particular aspect of genius, or one particular aspect of eloquence; but He calls whom He will to the prophetic office and the ministerial function, and it should be our part to accept His vocations, however much we may be surprised at the course which they take and at the social consequences which they involve.
At the time in which Elijah and Elisha exercised their functions religion and morals had gone down to the lowest possible point in Israel. The very schools of theprophets had themselves felt the corrupting influence of the times. Ahab was able to gather four hundred false prophets at a time, the remarkable circumstance being that they were not prophets of Baal, but false prophets of the Lord himself.
It can hardly be a matter of surprise, therefore, that a man of burning spirit, arising under such circumstances, should begin his ministry with displays of power which can hardly escape the charge of being stern or even violent.
The second chapter of the second Book of Kings introduces us to the beginning of Elisha’s ministry. He had just seen Elijah ascend, and he felt that he was left alone to carry on the great work which had been so wondrously conducted by a master hand.
In the twelfth verse we see how Elisha estimated the character and service of Elijah. He exclaims: “My father! My father!” He thus indicates the most serious loss which can befall human life. This is not altogether a cry of reverence, but it is also a cry of orphanhood. In their brief intercourse, one with the other, Elijah had naturally taken the paternal place, and Elisha, as a very young man, had felt the comforting influence exercised upon him by the mighty prophet.
This is a cry of young sensibility. The almost child feels himself to be quite alone. He who an hour ago supposed that, after all, he might be able to continue the work of Elijah now felt how terrible was the void that was created by Elijah’s absence.
We do not know the bulk and value of some ministries until they are removed from us. We become quitefamiliar with them, and attach no particular significance to their exercise; we come to think we have some right in them, and that by some means or other they will be present with us always. When, however, the great removal does take place and we look around for the familiar face and expect to be touched by the familiar hand, but find our expectations disappointed, the natural cry is: “My father! My father!”
These words, too, may fairly be construed as suggesting an aspect of Elijah’s character which is generally overlooked. Probably it has hardly occurred to us to regard Elijah as a man of special tenderness. We think of him as a great comet, or as a flash of lightning, or as a mighty whirlwind, or under any figure that suggests grandeur, majesty and force; but we have never associated with Elijah the notion of graciousness, tenderness, love and that easy familiarity which constitutes the very soul of friendship.
Now, however, by the ascription of his name we do seem to know somewhat of the genial intercourse which passed between father and son—the senior prophet and the young apostle of God; and it is delightful to infer that such intercourse had been conducted on the one side paternally and on the other side filially.
We do not know altogether what men are when we only see them in public life. The great parliamentary orator may be the simplest of all men when he is in the domestic circle. The great commander of armies, whose courage never quails, may have the heart of a woman when he stands in the presence of suffering childhood. It is important for all who attempt to delineate the charactersof public men to remember that they see only one aspect of those characters, and are not qualified to pronounce upon the whole man.
The next expression of Elisha is: “The chariot of Israel, and the horsemen thereof.”
This is an apparently incoherent exclamation. When properly understood, however, it conveys a further tribute to the ministry which was exercised by the ascending prophet. The real meaning is: “My father—so much better than all chariots and horses; in thy absence the chariot of Israel and the horsemen thereof are useless. They were used by thee, and under thy conduct could be turned to good account; but, now that thou art gone, they do but mock our loneliness and make us feel still more bitterly our helpless condition.”
A greater question than “Where is Elijah?” now occurred to the desolate young man. Instantly he seizes the reality of the occasion, and by exclaiming “Where is the Lord God of Elijah?” he shows that he is not called to a merely official position, but that he is elected to represent the divine majesty upon Earth.
The young man thus begins well. There is nothing frivolous in his inquiry or in his interpretation of events. The very depth of his feeling gives us an index to the capacity of his mind. Rely upon it, that he who can feel as Elisha did must have a mind equal in its proportions to the fine emotions which enlarge and ennoble his heart. Had the young man deported himself in a way which suggested self-sufficiency, his prophetic office would have been destroyed well-nigh before it was created.
It is when we stand back in humility and in almostdespair, and cry out in our desolateness “Where is the Lord God of Elijah?” that we begin our work in the right spirit, and only then.
In this whole ministry of righteousness and redemption there is no place for self-sufficiency. Apostle Paul said: “Our sufficiency is of God.” The great inquiry “Who is sufficient for these things?” keeps down human ambition and vanity, and prepares the heart for the utterance of prevailing prayer. The question which was thus propounded by Elisha is full of suggestion to ourselves. When we come to read the Bible we should not inquire so much where inspiration is, but where is wisdom which can be applied to our own circumstances and be made unto us as the very staff of life.
We need not exclaim, in considering the Christian ministry of our own day: “Where are the miracles of the Lord Jesus Christ and His apostles?” Our inquiry should be: “Where are the healed men, the comforted hearts, the forgiven souls, the rejoicing spirits?”
Who care to inquire into the mechanism of the organ when he can hear its music and be bowed down by its most solemn appeals?
“And when the sons of the prophets which were to view at Jericho saw him, they said: ‘The spirit of Elijah doth rest on Elisha.’ And they came to meet him, and bowed themselves to the ground before him.”
There was no mistaking that spirit. Who can mistake the presence and influence of fire? Better that our spirit should be discovered than that our credentials should be examined.
Of what avail is it that a man can produce a wholeportfolio of testimonials, if nobody has discovered in him the presence and effect of the divine Spirit?
This tribute is also to the credit of the sons of the prophets, for their judgment was vital, and was not accidental. There are men who will only regard providence as operating in one way, or as operating in one form. These sons of the prophets did not belong to such an inferior class of judges.
It is remarkable, too, that the organic unity of the prophetic office is hereby recognized. The sons of the prophets do not treat Elisha as a novelty, a new sensation, or as representing a new point of departure. They unite the old with the new; though the man has changed, the spirit remains the same.
This is what must be always regarded in reading Christian history and in watching the course of the Christian ministry. Old ministers depart, but when new men come they come with the old spirit and with the old truth, or if they come with any other spirit or any other doctrine, they should, in the degree of the change, be suspected of being other than genuine successors of the prophets.
Elisha begins his ministry by doing good—that is to say, by healing the water that was diseased. This appeal to the prophet to do something for the city of Jericho was itself a tribute to the genuineness of the prophetic office as exercised by him. It is always beautiful to notice how great power is associated with the doing of good. What is it to be a prophet of any age, if the age is not practically benefited by the exercise of the office? The age does not want ornamental prophets, nominal prophets,official prophets. The age is crying out for men who can give it bread, who can heal its water, who can mitigate its sorrows, who can destroy its oppressions.
By this sign must all prophets live or die. It would have been a poor thing on the part of Elisha to have shown the mantle of his predecessor if he could not also show his power. We are only in the apostolic succession as we are in the apostolic spirit.
We may have all the relics which the apostles left behind—the cloak that was left at Troas, the parchment, the staff and the vessels out of which they ate and drank—we may even have the scrolls which they used in reading the Holy Scriptures; but all these things will constitute only a burden if we have not, along with all other possessions, the mighty and eternal Spirit of the living God, without whose energy even the apostles themselves were but common men.
Elisha, having cured the water, went up from the depressed plain of Jericho to the top of the highland of Jordan, to the height of three thousand feet, that he might come unto Beth-el—which, alas, became the chief stronghold of the calf worship. The popular sentiment was debased to the lowest possible point; even the little children were tainted with the awful disease of contempt for the greatest names and the greatest thoughts in all Israel.
“And he went up from thence to Beth-el; and as he was going up by the way, there came forth little children out of the city, and mocked him, and said unto him: ‘Go up, thou bald head! Go up, thou bald head!’ And he turned back, and looked on them, and cursed them inthe name of the Lord. And there came forth two she bears out of the wood, and tare forty and two children of them. And he went from thence to Mount Carmel, and from thence he returned to Samaria.”
This miracle has occasioned no little difficulty to those who read it only in the letter. It is not a narrow incident which can be regarded as a mere anecdote and treated, as it were, within the limits of its own four corners. We must understand the spirit of the age in which the incident occurred. We must realize that the whole air was full of idolatry and blasphemy. We must also remember that the very Church of Israel itself was deceitful above all things and desperately wicked, with hardly one spot of health on all the altar from the crown of the head to the sole of the foot. We must keep steadily before our minds the fact that the places which are mentioned in this incident had become as Sodom and Gomorrah—not, perhaps, in the physical and carnal sense, but in the still worse sense of spiritual alienation and spiritual contempt for every thing associated with the name of the living God.
When Elisha, therefore, wrought this deed of violence—this miracle of destruction—his action must be regarded typically and as strictly in keeping with the necessities of the occasion. Only this kind of miracle could have been understood by the people among whom it was worked and who had an opportunity of feeling its effects, either directly or incidentally. How often it happens that the first miracle is one which is marked peculiarly by a destructive energy!
This would seem to be the miracle which our ownfirst zealous impulses would work, had they the power to express themselves in such a form. When the soul is alive with the purity of God, when the heart glows and burns with love, when the whole being is in vital sympathy with the purposes of the cross of Christ, the first and all but uncontrollable impulse is to destroy evil—not to reason with it, or make truce with it, or give it further treatment of any kind, but instantly and violently to crush it out of existence.
This impulse will be trained unto other uses in the School of Christ.
We see, in the opening of the sixth chapter of the second Book of Kings, some of the simple and happy relations which existed between the elder and the younger prophets.
Is it not possible to revive some of these relations? Look at the case:
“And the sons of the prophets said unto Elisha: ‘Behold, now, the place where we dwell with thee is too strait for us.’”
Put into modern language, the statement amounts to this: “Our college is getting too small, and we want more room. Let us, therefore, consider this practical question, and see what can be done.”
Elisha did not live with the young men. That, perhaps, was rather a happy than an unhappy circumstance—though a very beautiful picture could be drawn concerning domestic collegiate life. A college or a school with the teachers and the students all living together must, one would surely say, be a little Heaven on Earth. What can be, ideally, more perfect than the old prophetsurrounded by all the younger prophets, eating and living together, having a common room, a common hostelry—a common home? What can be, imaginatively, more taking, pathetic and satisfactory?
Without pronouncing a judgment upon that inquiry, it is enough to be so far just to the text to say that Elisha did not adopt that system of collegiate life. He went around from place to place; he visited the schools of the prophets in the various localities, and when he came to this place the young men said: “We have not room enough; we must consider our circumstances, and endeavor to enlarge our accommodation.”
What did they propose?
It is well now and again to hear what young men have to suggest. It is useful to listen to young politicians in national crises, that we may hear how they would treat the patient. It is most desirable that young voices should mingle with old voices in the common council.
Now it is the turn of the young men to speak. What will they propose to Elisha?
The answer is given in the second verse: “Let us go, we pray thee, unto Jordan, and take thence every man a beam, and let us make a place there where we may dwell.”
The city was not situated exactly upon the Jordan, but upon a stream a little way from it, which flowed into that great river; and now the young men proposed to get a little nearer to the main stream, for the district of it was called The Valley of Palms.
Palestine was notably destitute of trees, but in this particular locality timber was to be got. So the youngmen made the proposition to Elisha. What does the proposition amount to? It amounts to something which in this day might horrify a good many of the successors of Elisha.
The young men said: “Let us go and cut down our timber, and enlarge our college with our own hands.” Did they propose that the question should be “reported upon”—that it should be brought first under the attention of the general committee, then be referred to a sub-committee being bound to make a report to the general committee, and the general committee being unable to attend, or to constitute a quorum, and so go on to forget the whole business? The young men said:
“We want room; let us make it. We want a larger college; let us build it.”
Why not adopt the same principle today? There is nothing so easy as to send around an appeal for a contribution and never get any reply to it.
We, wanting to be missionaries, should go by the next boat; wanting to preach the Gospel to the heathen, we should ask: “When does the ship start?” Being unable to pay the fare, we should work our passage. If people should ask us what we are doing, and whether we have lost our senses, we should say: “Yes; if we be beside ourselves, it is unto God.”
Then an impression might be made upon those who look on. They would say: “Surely, these men are in earnest; be they right or be they wrong, be they fanatical or sober-minded, their earnestness burns in them like a fire, and such men can neither be put back nor be kept down.”
However, without wishing to modernize the details of this incident, which, owing to our civilization, would be impossible, it is enough to remember that, in the early days of collegiate and school life, the scholars were prepared to do something toward helping themselves. They did not send for builders from Jerusalem, or even from the city of Jericho; they undertook the work at their own impulse and at their own charges.
There is a line of beauty even in the proposition of the young men. They desired Elisha’s permission. They said, in effect: “Father, may we go?” They were enthusiastic, but they were under discipline; they had fire enough, but they responded to the touch of the master. And one said to Elisha: “Be content, I pray thee, and go with thy servants.” They were stronger when the elder man was with them.
Sometimes the eye is the best master. It often happens that the man who is standing in the harvest field, resting upon his rake, a picture of dignity and ease, is doing more than if he were sweltering himself by cutting down corn with his own sickle. His eye is doing the work, and his presence is exerting an immeasurable and happy influence upon the whole field.
Elisha was not asked to go and fell the timber, but to be with the young men while they did the hard work; and, becoming young again himself, as old men do become young when associated with young life, he replied:
“I will go. The work is a common work. It belongs to me as well as to you; it belongs to all Israel, in so far as all Israel is true to the living God. Come, let us go in one band; union is strength.”
Now, they went—the old and the young together. Why would they not go alone? Perhaps they were all reminded of what happened when once they did go alone. Elisha ordered that food should be prepared, and when the seething pot was on, one of the young men went out and gathered something and threw it into the pot, and nearly poisoned the whole college. Small wonder if one of them, remembering this, said:
“No more going out alone, if you please. We once took the case into our own hands, and I remember how many of us fell sick, and how we cried to Elisha: ‘Master, there is death in the pot!’ And he kindly took up a handful of meal, sprinkled it into the vessel and restored its healthfulness. The pot was relieved of all the disease which it had contained, and the meal most happily proceeded.”
We should remember our blunders, and learn from them. We are always safer in the company of the old and wise than when we are in our own society. Happy is the man who takes counsel with his elder neighbors, and who can sometimes renounce himself and say unto wise men: “Such and such are my circumstances; now, what would you advise me to do?”
Elisha and the young men have now gone down to the Jordan. Elisha felled no tree but he did his own particular kind of work.
The Syrian king could not rest. In his heart he hated or feared the king and the hosts of Israel. There was chronic war between Israel and Syria. The king of Syria said: “I will fix my camp in such and such a place.” Of this the sacred record says: “And the man of Godsent unto the king of Israel, saying: ‘Beware that thou pass not such a place, for thither the Syrians are come down.’”
There is a ministry of warning. Men may not go themselves to battle, and yet they may be controlling the fortunes of war. We need statesmen, spiritual interpreters, religious teachers, men of thought and men of prayer; and they may be doing more practical work than is being done by those who are engaged in the physical work of leading armies and commanding military hosts.
This is what Elisha did.
He felled no tree; he wielded no sword. Yet, alike in the building of the college and in the direction of the war, his was the supreme mind. The prophet saved the king. This must always be the case.
The great man of the nation is the man who can think most profoundly and most comprehensively. The architect is a greater man than the builder. The prophet is a greater man than the king. He reads more; he sees farther; he grasps a larger field. He is master of metaphysical principles, which alone endure. They wear the clothes of the present time; they adopt the form of the passing generation, but they go on from age to age—themselves always the same, their adaptations being addressed to the immediate and pressing necessities of the people.
We have been told that “Justice is not an intermittent apparition.” That is perfectly true in one sense; but justice is often a deferred creditor, and sometimes that may be done tomorrow which can not be justly done today. The prophet sees all this. He looks ahead; hehas a larger horizon than is accessible to the vision of other men.
So let it stand, an eternal lesson, that the greatest men in any nation are the men who can think most, pray best, feel most deeply and penetrate the metaphysics and the inmost reality of politics and of civilization.
Spiritual power is not only useful in one direction; it is alarming in another. When the king of Syria felt himself baffled, all his plans thrown into uncontrollable bewilderment, his heart was sorely troubled. It is the Immeasurable that frightens men. It is the Unknown Quantity that troubles all their calculations and causes them to feel that after they have completed their arithmetic their conclusion is a lie.
What was in the air? Whose was this ghostly presence that was upsetting Ben-hadad’s well laid schemes? What was it, or who, that always went before him, and that made his proposals abortive and turned all his policies into mocking nothings?
Had there been any man who was visible and measurable, that man could have been dealt with. There is always a quantity equal to any quantity that is known. What is wanting in one way can be made up in another—as, for example, what is wanting in number may be made up in quality. As one great leader said in ancient history, when his soldiers were saying they were too few for the battle: “How many do you count me for?” That touched the fire of the army, and inspired the soldiers with confidence.
Now, the matter was revealed to the king, and he took means to remove the spectral influence. He madethis arrangement: “Go and spy where he is, that I may send and fetch him.” When he knew that Elisha was in Dothan the king sent “thither horses and chariots and a great host.”
What unconscious tributes bad men pay to good influences! Men do not know wholly what they are doing. Why, this was but a poor prophet, wearing a hairy robe that had descended to him; he was no king; he had no sword or horse; he was but a man of prayer. How did Ben-hadad propose to capture him?
The king sent “horses and chariots and a great host” to take a man whose sword was the word of God, whose helmet was the defense of the Most High, whose breastplate was Righteousness!
Here are three arms of the Syrian service—footmen, horsemen and chariots; and remember that these were all employed to bring one poor man to the king’s presence. Well might Elisha have said, before Antigonus uttered it: “How many do you countmefor?” Elisha might have taunted the king of Syria, saying: “Why all this ado? Would not one soldier have been enough to take one prophet? He might have come on foot; a horse was not necessary, and certainly not a sword. One soldier might surely have arrested me.”
But bad men unconsciously pay tribute to good men. They say, in effect: “Elisha is only one, but a stubborn one; only one tree, but his roots seem to have spread themselves through the Earth, and to have taken hold of the entire scheme of things; he is only one, yet, what is strange, he is many in one.”
And this, indeed, was the interpretation given byElisha, for he said: “They that be with us are more than they that be with them.”
Who can tell how many angels are round about the praying man? How is it that when the arresting hand is laid upon some men it becomes softened, the muscles relax and have no more pith in them, and the men come back to say: “Never man spake like this man; arrest him we can not”? This is a tribute paid to the Christian religion. Men have passed parliamentary statutes against it, but the religion of the cross has outlived the statutes—has seen them grow into yellow letters, has observed them being canceled or otherwise passing into obsoleteness.
We are now brought to a very striking point in the incident. The servant of Elisha came back, saying: “Alas, my master, how shall we do? I have been up early, and behold, a host compasses the city—both with horses and chariots.”
Then Elisha said: “Lord, open his eyes; let this young man see. At present he can only look upon appearances, which are not realities. The universe is within the universe. The Bible is within the Bible. The man is within the man. This servant of mine sees only the outer circle—the rim or rind of things. Lord, show him the reality; let him see, and then he will be at peace.”
There is a view of sight; there is a view of faith. The worldly man goes by what his bodily eyes notice or discern; the spiritually minded man walks by faith, not by sight.
The telescope does not create the stars; the telescope only reveals them, or enables the eye to see them. If,then, a telescope can do this, shall we deny to that spiritual power within us called Faith the power which we ascribe to a mechanical instrument which our own hands have fashioned?
Look upon a given object—say, you take a piece of glass two inches square; look upon it and ask: “Is there any thing on that glass?” Looking with the naked eye, the sharpest man would say: “That glass is perfectly free from blot, stain, flaw or inscription of any kind whatsoever.”
Now, put that same two-inch square of glass under a microscope, and look through the microscope. What is upon it? The Lord’s Prayer, upon a speck not discernible by the naked eye.
If, then, we ascribe such wonderful powers to a glass which we ourselves have determined as to its size and its relation to other glasses, shall we deny to a certain spiritual faculty the power of seeing that which can not be discriminated by unaided reason?
By all the pressure of analogy, by all the reasoning of inference, we insist that, if such wonderful things can be done mechanically, things at least equally wonderful can be done by forces that are spiritual.
The Sun does not make the landscape; the Sun only shows it. A man may stand upon a high hill on a dull-gray day and say: “I can imagine what this would be when the Sun was shining.” But no man can imagine light. It stands as a sacred mystery in our life that the Sun never comes within the lines of imagination. The Sun light is a continual surprise, even to the eyes that have most reverently and lovingly studied it.
When the Sun looks upon the landscape there are new colors, new distances, new forms; a whole work is wrought upon the landscape which can only be described by the word “wizardry.”
So it is with the Bible, the great work of the living God. Look at it with the natural vision, and you may discover in it particular beauties. You may say: “The poetry is noble; the English is pure; and the moral sentiment of the book is not without a certain elevation.”
But the Bible wants no such reluctant or impoverished compliments. Let the soul be touched by the Spirit that wrote the book; let the eyes be anointed by the living God; and then the Bible is like a landscape shone upon by the noonday’s cloudless Sun.
Elisha took his own way with the Syrian army, and here occurs a point worthy of special note. When the Lord smote the people with blindness, according to the word of Elisha, the latter said unto them: “This is not the way, neither is this the city; follow me, and I will bring you to the man whom ye seek.” But he led them to Samaria.
What! Then did the man of God resort to a false strategy? This is a very serious case, indeed, and has occasioned much difficulty. Nor need we wonder, for in “The Speaker’s Commentary” we find such words as these:
“Untruth has been held by all moralists to be justifiable toward a public enemy. Where we have a right to kill, much more have we a right to deceive by stratagem.”
When words like these occur in a Christian commentary,no wonder that infidelity should seize upon the annotation as a prize, or use it as a weapon. No such comment can we adopt in perusing this portion of sacred Scripture. It can not be justifiable to treat a public enemy by untruth or deception. We have no right to kill, and therefore we have no right to deceive by stratagem. This is not the way to recommend the word of the living God.
The incident must be taken in its totality. The reader must not arrest the progress of the narrative by stopping here or there to ask a question. He must see the incident in its completeness, and, seeing it, he will have reason further to glorify God for the pure morality of the book and the noble spirit of the record.
Elisha might well so far follow his illustrious predecessor as to use the weapon of irony or taunting in dealing with the Lord’s enemies.
Elijah said to the prophets of Baal: “Cry aloud; for he is a god.” As well might we stop there, and say: “By Elijah’s own testimony deity was ascribed to Baal.” We forget the irony of the tone; we forget that Elijah was mocking the debased prophets.
So Elisha might say: “This is not the way, neither is this the city; follow me, and I will bring you to the man whom ye seek.”
There was a taunt in the tone; there was sarcasm in the emphasis. Nor is the verse to be read in its unity. It is to be read as part and parcel of a whole narrative.
Now, what became of all this so-called deception and stratagem?
When the people were come into Samaria, Elishasaid: “Lord, open the eyes of these men, that they may see.”
He prayed, first, that their sight might be taken away. That seemed to be cruel. Now he prays that their sight may be given to them again.
“And, behold, they were in the midst of Samaria. And the king of Israel said unto Elisha, when he saw them: ‘My father!’” As if he had become a convert. The son of Ahab and Jezebel said to Elisha: “My father!” A reluctant and hypocritical compliment, for Jehoram could be neither reverent or true.
But, said he, observing the prize that was before him: “Shall I smite them? Shall I smite them?” This was a Hebraism equal to: “Smiting, shall I smite?” So Jehoram said: “Shall I, smiting, smite them?”
Elisha answered: “No.”
Now, let us hear what this man can say who has been judged guilty of untruth and of stratagem.
Elisha said to Jehoram: “Thou shalt not smite them. Wouldst thou smite those whom thou hast taken captive without thy sword and without thy bow?” This is the same as saying: “If you yourself have won the victory, then you can smite; but you did not take these men, and therefore you shall not smite them. What you have taken by your own sword and spear may be your lawful prize in war; but here is a capture with which you have had nothing to do.”
What, then, is to be done? Hear Elisha: “Set bread and water before them, that they may eat and drink and go to their master.”
And so great provision was prepared, “and whenthey had eaten and drunk, he sent them away, and they went to their master.”
We might even excuse a strategic act in order to secure such a conclusion.
Elisha was supposed to be about a hundred years of age when he died. We have seen that he was a domestic rather than a public prophet. He was unlike his great predecessor and father. The awful Elijah dwelt alone. He came upon society now and then—came down like a flood from the threatening clouds; shot out like a fire, and burned the men whom he approached.
Elisha was exactly the contrary. He worked his miracles in the house. He often called upon people; he was quiet, serene, most sympathetic and tender-hearted. Now and then he could stand bolt upright and send away proud men from his door with a disdain that they could never forget; but in the usual process of his life he was a mother-man in Israel. He went into people’s houses and asked how they were. He consented to increase their oil and their flour, and to bless their family life with prophetic benedictions.