LESSON XXVI.

ELIJAH TAKEN UP TO HEAVEN.

B.C. 896.-2 KINGS ii. 1-14.

And it came to pass, when the LORD would take up Elijah into heaven by a whirlwind, that Elijah went with Elisha from Gilgal.

And Elijah said unto Elisha, Tarry here, I pray thee; for the LORD hath sent me to Beth-el. And Elisha said unto him, As the LORD liveth, and as thy soul liveth, I will not leave thee. So they went down to Beth-el.

And the sons of the prophets that were at Beth-el came forth to Elisha, and said unto him, Knowest thou that the LORD will take away thy master from thy head to-day? And he said, Yea, I know it; hold ye your peace.

And Elijah said unto him, Elisha, tarry here, I pray thee; for the LORD hath sent me to Jericho. And he said, As the LORD liveth, and as thy soul liveth, I will not leave thee. So they came to Jericho.

And the sons of the prophets that were at Jericho came to Elisha, and said unto him, Knowest thou that the LORD will take away thy master from thy head to-day? And he answered, Yea, I know it; hold ye your peace.

And Elijah said unto him, Tarry, I pray thee, here; for the LORD hath sent me to Jordan. And he said, As the LORD liveth, and as thy soul liveth, I will not leave thee. And they two went on.

And fifty men of the sons of the prophets went, and stood to view afar off and they two stood by Jordan.

And Elijah took his mantle, and wrapped it together, and smote the waters, and they were divided hither and thither, so that they two went over on dry ground.

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,

And he said, Thou hast asked a hard thing: nevertheless, if thou see me when I am taken from thee, it shall be so unto thee; but if not, it shall not be so.

And it came to pass, as they still went on, and talked, that, behold, there appeared a chariot of fire, and horses of fire, and parted them both asunder; and Elijah went up by a whirlwind into heaven.

And Elisha saw it, and he cried, My father, my father, the chariot of Israel, and the horsemen thereof. And he saw him no more: and he took hold of his own clothes, and rent them in two pieces.

He took up also the mantle of Elijah that fell from him, and went back, and stood by the bank of Jordan;

And he took the mantle of Elijah that fell from him, and smote the waters, and said, Where is the LORD God of Elijah? and when he also had smitten the waters, they parted hither and thither; and Elisha went over.

COMMENT.-There was a sense upon all the prophetic world that the greatest of prophets was to be taken away, and in some wonderful manner. Elijah came forth from the desert where he had dwelt, to Gilgal, where the twelve stones stood in memory of the crossing the Jordan, and thence to Bethel, where was still a school of the prophets, perhaps under Jehoshaphat's protection. There the prophets gave Elisha the warning that every loving pupil receives in his turn, "Knowest thou that the Lord will take away thy master from thy head to-day?" Elisha answered as one with a heart too full to bear to speak of his loss, "Yea, I know it; hold ye your peace." Elijah entreated, but did not command him to remain behind, and he would not leave him, either because he had some foreboding of the blessing to be won by clinging closely to his master, or because he thought the removal was to be through some cruelty of Jezebel or her son. Again he refused at Jericho, and there, when the master and pupil went forth together, the young prophets went forth to watch them from a distance. By the river side, Elijah rolled his camel's-hair mantle up like a staff, and struck the water with it. There was a way through the rapid river, even as there had been for Israel! There they were on the east of Jordan, where Moses had gone up into the Mount to die; and Elisha, mindful perhaps of Joshua, Moses' minister, whose typical name was almost his own ("the Lord the Saviour," and "God the Saviour "), entreated, as Joshua had done, that a double portion of his master's spirit might come upon him. It was a hard thing, Elijah answered, but it should be "if thou see me when I am taken from thee." Then. while yet the two prophets talked together, there descended a wonderful appearance like a chariot and horses of fire, and Elijah was borne away as on a whirlwind, while Elisha stood crying, as one who scarce knew what he said: "My father, my father, the chariot of Israel, and the horsemen thereof." Therewith the hairy, coarse mantle was dropped, and Elisha took it up, and returning alone, the same miracle was wrought in his hands as in those of Elijah.

One such marvel had been wrought before the Flood, for Enoch, who walked with God. One other was likewise to ascend from earth to heaven. But Enoch and Elijah were taken up; Christ the Lord went up by His own power. They were taken in their still mortal bodies; He went, in the Body indeed, but in His risen, changed, and glorified Body, with all the marks of His death upon it. Still, Elijah's ascent is the special type of Christ's Ascension, as the sending down his mantle as the token of the double portion of his spirit is a type of the sending the Holy Spirit upon the Church. Thus far Elijah does foreshadow our Lord, but for the most part it is Elisha who is the type of Christ, as Elijah is of the Forerunner, John the Baptist. Elijah is in personal character the grandest figure of all the prophetic series. His greatness is not in the multitude of his miracles, for they were comparatively few, nor in his predictions, for of writings he left none; but in his loftiness and sternness, and his standing forth alone as the champion of the Lord JEHOVAH, and the life he lived, beyond human nature. He was the great reprover, the witness of God before the last decay of Samaria, and the foremost (though not the earliest) of the great body of prophets who for four centuries upheld the Name of God among the corrupt people. The last of those prophets, Malachi, when closing his roll, wrote

Remember ye the law of Moses my servant, which I commanded unto him in Horeb for all Israel, with the statutes and judgments.

Behold, I will send you Elijah the prophet before the coming of the great and dreadful day of the LORD:

And he shall turn the heart of the fathers to the children, and the heart of the children to their fathers, lest I come and smite the earth with

a curse.

And from that time the Jews looked for Elijah's reappearance among them. How they expected it may be seen in this summary of his life in Ecclesiasticus :

Then stood up Elias the prophet as fire, and his word burned like a lamp.

He brought a sore famine upon them, and by his zeal he diminished their number.

By the word of the LORD he shut up the heaven and also three times brought down fire.

O Elias, how wast thou honoured in thy wondrous deeds! and who may glory like unto thee!

Who didst raise up a dead man from death, and his soul from the place of the dead, by the word of the Most High:

Who broughtest kings to destruction, and honourable men from their bed:

Who heardest the rebuke of the LORD in Sinai, and in Horeb the judgment of vengeance:

Who anointedst kings to take revenge, and prophets to succeed after him :

Who was taken up in a whirlwind of fire, and in a chariot of fiery horses :

Who wast ordained for reproofs in their times, to pacify the wrath of the LORD'S judgment, before it brake forth into fury, and to turn the heart of the father unto the son, and to restore the tribes of Jacob.

Blessed are they that saw thee, and slept in love; for we shall surely live.

Elias it was, who was covered with a whirlwind and Eliseus was filled with his spirit.

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And when the Angel first told the priest Zacharias of the future birth of his son, the Forerunner of Christ, it was in the words, He shall go before Me in the spirit and power of Elias: " and the hairy mantle, the leathern thong, the desert life, the stern solitude, the fearless rebukes to kingly vice, the lonely struggle with corruption, were almost exactly repeated in John the Baptist, though he disclaimed being actually Elijah returned.

But when the three Apostles on the Mount of Transfiguration had beheld Moses and Elias in glory talking with their Lord, the Law and the Prophets alike glorified with Him, they asked of Him how it was that the Scribes said Elias must first come. His answer was that "Elias truly hath come already, and they have done unto him whatsoever they listed." So at the first coming of the Kingdom, St. John was undoubtedly the Elijah of the advent of our Lord. And yet some further fulfilment of the prophecy of his coming again before the Last Day seems to be intended, and referred to in the eleventh chapter of Revelation, where two witnesses are spoken of as rebuking the wicked world, and working such miracles as did Moses and Elijah, then being slain, but taken to heaven in a cloud. We know not whether this be a figurative picture of the warfare of the Christian ministry against Sin-the championship of Elijah which is continued by the witness of the Church-or whether we are to look for any visible manifestation of the greatest of the prophets, the man who has never tasted of death.

LESSON XXVII.

ELISHA'S RETURN.

B.C. 896.-2 KINGS ii. 15-25.

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.

And they said unto him, Behold now, there be with thy servants fifty strong men; let them go, we pray thee, and seek thy master: lest peradventure the Spirit of the LORD hath taken him up, and cast him upon some mountain, or into some valley. And he said, Ye shall not send.

And when they urged him till he was ashamed, he said, Send. They sent therefore fifty men; and they sought three days, but found

him not.

And when they came again to him, (for he tarried at Jericho,) he said unto them, Did I not say unto you, Go not?

*

And the men of the city said unto Elisha, Behold, I pray thee, the situation of this city is pleasant, as my lord seeth: but the water is naught, and the ground barren.

And he said, Bring me a new cruse, and put salt therein. And they brought it to him.

And he went forth unto the spring of the waters, and cast the salt in there, and said, Thus saith the LORD, I have healed these waters; there shall not be from thence any more death or barren land.

So the waters were healed unto this day, according to the saying of Elisha which he spake.

And he went up from thence unto 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 in the 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.

COMMENT. So utterly out of man's experience was the ascent of Elijah, that in the colleges of prophets at Jericho it was disbelieved, and though the very presence of Elisha had something about it that showed the gift he had received, the men who had gone forth to view would not believe that the breath of the Lord, the whirlwind * Good for nothing.