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XVIII. THE ARROW OF DELIVERANCE.

2 KINGS, xiii. 15-17.

And he

"And Elisha said unto him, Take bow and arrows. took unto him bow and arrows. And he said to the king of Israel, Put thine hand upon the bow. And he put his hand upon it and Elisha put his hands upon the king's hands. And he said, Open the window eastward. And he opened it. Then Elisha said, Shoot: and he shot. And he said, The arrow of the Lord's deliverance, and the arrow of deliverance from Syria."

JEHU had already run his impetuous race; his son Jehoahaz, a weak and unfortunate prince, had followed him; and it was his grandson Joash that reigned when Elisha fell sick of the sickness whereof he died. "And Joash the king came down unto him, and wept over his face." That was an affecting scene, and all the more so because that young man, who had kindly feelings and amiable ways, was still an idolater; or if he was not personally an idolater, he at least connived at and encouraged that pernicious system,

which had proved the ruin of so many of Israel's kings. Little need we doubt that Elisha had tried to draw him back from his grievous errors. But it is a fact well worthy our notice, that he makes no reference to that matter in his last interview. The moments of the prophet were ebbing fast: his time was rapidly passing away. "O my father, my father, the chariot of Israel and the horsemen thereof!" exclaimed the king, in the bitterness of his grief. Had Elisha demanded a pledge of better conduct for the future, it is likely it would have been granted; but he asked no such pledge. Better make no professions in sorrow which might be disregarded in the hours of returning indifferElisha seems to have laid the king under no temptation to infringe this maxim; but he would do his sovereign a last favour. "And Elisha said unto him, Take bow and arrows: and he took unto him bow and arrows. And he said to the king of Israel, Put thine hand upon the bow: and he put his hand upon it; and Elisha put his hands upon the king's hands." All this he did after the symbolical manner of the prophets. To inquire what was its use were surely unnecessary. It was doubtless intended to impress the whole matter more forcibly upon the king's mind. The prophet wished to make an impression upon

ence.

Joash for his good. "And he said, Open the window eastward: and he opened it. Then Elisha said, Shoot: and he shot. And he said, The arrow of the Lord's deliverance from Syria; for thou shalt smite the Syrians in Aphek, till thou hast consumed them."

Thus far Joash had complied aright with the mind and desire of the dying prophet. But another symbolical act remained to be performed, and in that one Joash greatly displeased him. "And Elisha said, Take arrows: and he took them. And he said unto the king of Israel, Smite upon the ground and he smote thrice and stayed. And the man of God was wroth, and said, Thou shouldest have smitten five or six times; then hadst thou smitten Syria till thou hadst consumed it; whereas now thou shalt smite Syria but thrice." A man's state of mind may disclose itself in small matters. Joash would comply with the request of the prophet, but he did it apparently in such a way as to show that he put no great faith in what was symbolised by it. Perhaps he secretly thought it beneath his dignity to be going through such a process, even prescribed as it was by the dying prophet. And thus, so far, he was like Naaman the Syrian, when he demanded in the testiness of a mistaken affront whether Abana and

Pharpar, rivers of Damascus, were not better than all the waters in Israel? But like him, too, he was to find out his error, but unhappily not in a way that was so fortunate. He was, however, to smite the Syrians in Aphek till he had consumed them. Aphek was situated to the west of Samaria, so that the Syrians must have encroached a good way on the territories of Israel. But if the Syrians were worsted there, their further progress would at least be put a stop to, and Joash might even advance eastward and deliver the other provinces out of the enemy's hand.

The last thing recorded of Elisha is, that after he was dead and buried, the bands of the Moabites invaded the land at the coming in of the year. "And it came to pass," says the sacred narrative,

as they were burying a man, that, behold, they spied a band of men; and they cast the man into the sepulchre of Elisha: and when the man was let down, and touched the bones of Elisha, he revived, and stood up on his feet." Elisha was a type of Christ; and was not this a foreshadow of the miraculous event we read of, which took place at our Lord's death and burial, when the dead arose from their graves and came into the city?

But we are not unnaturally led to revert to what the prophet could be employed in during

it

the long period of forty-five years-some say a longer space even than that—which elapsed between the accession of Jehu to the throne of Israel, and the events which have just now occupied our attention. I am afraid we should have little beyond conjecture to guide us, did we attempt to give an account of the way in which Elisha spent that long period of his life. But as his name is not mentioned during all that time, may be concluded that he had not taken any prominent part in the state affairs of his unhappy country in his latter years. But he had his own proper work to superintend. The schools of the prophets still existed in the land, and the care of these was quite enough to occupy his time. As regards the kings of Israel and Judah, they had addicted themselves hopelessly to idolatrous practices, and it might be the prophets were instructed of God to let them alone. With the single exception of Jehoshaphat, all the kings of Israel and Judah had been idolaters during the whole time of Elisha's public ministry, so that a prophet of the Lord could hold little intercourse with them. And then, again, unhappily the royal family of Judah, as we have seen, became so intimately blended with that of Ahab by intermarriages, that the doom pronounced against that