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Elisha
the Prophet – Wikipedia
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Not to be confused with Elijah, Elishah, or Aisha.
Prophet
Elisha
Saint
Born Approximately
c. 910 BCE
Died Approximately
c. 800 BCE
Samaria
Venerated in
Judaism
Christianity
Islam
Bahá'í Faith
Druze faith
Rastafari
Feast June 14
(liturgical calendars of the Eastern Orthodox and Eastern Catholic Churches)
Influences Elijah
Elisha[a] was, according to the Hebrew Bible, an Israelite
prophet and a wonder-worker. His name is commonly transliterated into English
as Elisha via Hebrew, Eliseus via Greek and Latin, Ełishe
(Yeghishe/Elisha) via Armenian or Alyasa via Arabic, and Elyasa or Elyesa via
Turkish. Also mentioned in the New Testament[2] and the Quran,[6:86][38:48]
Elisha is venerated as a prophet in Judaism, Christianity and Islam and
writings of the Bahá'í Faith refer to him by name.[3]
Before he settled in Samaria, Elisha passed some time on
Mount Carmel. He served from 892 until 832 BCE as an advisor to the third
through the eighth kings of Judah, holding the office of "prophet in
Israel". He was frequently mentioned as “the man of God” throughout
narrative, often correcting Kings and leaders who did evil in the sight of the
Hebrew God. He was named “the chariots of Israel and its horsemen” according to
King Jehoash in 2 Kings 13:14.
In the biblical narrative, he is a disciple and protégé of
Elijah, and after Elijah was taken up in a whirlwind, Elisha received a double
portion of his power and he was accepted as the leader of the sons of the
prophets. Elisha then went on to perform twice as many miracles as Elijah.
Scholars hold different opinions regarding the historical
background, composition and social context of the Elisha narratives.[4] The
stories give unique insights into the folk religion of the Kingdom of
Israel.[5]
Biblical narratives
The story of Elisha is told in the Hebrew Bible/Old
Testament in 1 Kings 19 and 2 Kings 2 through 2 Kings 9, ending in 2 Kings 13.
He is mentioned again in the New Testament in Luke 4 (Luke 4:27).[6]
Anointing
Elisha's story is related in the Books of Kings (Second
Scroll, chapters 2–14)[dubious – discuss] in the Hebrew Bible (part of the
Nevi'im). According to this story, he was a prophet and a wonder-worker of the
Kingdom of Israel who was active during the reigns of Joram, Jehu, Jehoahaz,
and Jehoash (Joash).[7] Elisha was the son of Shaphat, a wealthy land-owner of
Abel-meholah; he became the attendant and disciple of Elijah.[8]
His name first occurs in chapter 19 of the Books of Kings
in the command given to Elijah to anoint him as his successor. After learning
in the cave on Mount Horeb, that Elisha, the son of Shaphat, had been selected
by Yahweh as his successor in the prophetic office, Elijah set out to find him.
On his way from Mount Horeb to Damascus, Elijah found Elisha ploughing with
twelve yokes of oxen.[9] Elijah went over to him, threw his mantle over
Elisha's shoulders, investing him with the prophetic office.[8] Elisha delayed
only long enough to kill the yoke of oxen, whose flesh he boiled with the wood
of his plough. After he had shared this farewell repast with his father,
mother, and friends, the newly chosen prophet "went after Elijah, and
ministered unto him".[10] Elisha became Elijah's close attendant until
Elijah entered heaven alive, although no details of Elisha are given during
those years.
Elijah taken in the whirlwind
Elisha accompanied Elijah to Jericho, where according to 2
Kings 2:3–9, "the sons of the prophets" tell Elisha that the Lord
"will take away thy master from thy head to-day".
The story of the departure of Elijah and of Elisha
inheriting his powers is told in 2 Kings 6–15. Elijah and Elisha went to the
Jordan River. Elijah rolls up his mantle and strikes the water, the waters of
which divided so as to permit both to pass over on dry ground. Elisha asks to
"inherit a double-portion" of Elijah's spirit. Suddenly, a chariot of
fire and horses of fire appeared and Elijah was lifted up in a whirlwind. As
Elijah was lifted up, his mantle fell to the ground and Elisha picked it up.
This is the second time that Elisha comes in contact with his teacher's mantle,
which as a cultic vestment is associated with prophetic might and
authority.[11]
Some scholars see this as indicative of the property
inheritance customs of the time, where the oldest son received twice as much of
the father's inheritance as each of the younger sons. In this interpretation
Elisha is asking that he may be seen as the "rightful heir" and
successor to Elijah.[12] Critics of this view point out that Elisha was already
appointed as Elijah's successor earlier in the narrative and that Elisha is
described as performing twice as many miracles as Elijah. In this
interpretation the "double-portion" is not merely an allusion to
primacy in succession, but is instead a request for greater prophetic power
even than Elijah.[13]
Miracles
Elisha Refusing the Gifts of Naaman, by Pieter de Grebber
1630
By means of the mantle left to fall from Elijah, Elisha
miraculously recrossed the Jordan and returned to Jericho, where he won the
gratitude of the people by purifying the unwholesome waters of their spring and
making them drinkable.[14]
When the armies of Judah, Israel and Edom, then allied
against Mesha, the Moabite king, were being tortured by drought in the Idumean
desert, Elisha consented to intervene. His double prediction regarding relief
from drought and victory over the Moabites was fulfilled on the following
morning.[8]
When a group of boys (or youths)[b] from Bethel taunted the
prophet for his baldness, Elisha cursed them in the name of Yahweh and two
female bears came out of the forest and tore forty-two of the boys.[15]
To relieve a prophet's widow importuned by a harsh
creditor, Elisha multiplied a little oil as to enable her not only to pay her
debt but to provide for her family needs.[16] Jewish tradition identifies the
widow's husband as Obadiah, the servant of King Ahab, who hid 100 prophets of
Yahweh in two caves.[17]
According to 1 Kings 17, Elijah resuscitated a Phoenician
boy in the city of Zarephath. In the second Book of Kings, Elisha obtained for
a rich lady of Shunem the birth of a son. When the child died some years later,
Elisha successfully resuscitated the child.[18]
A Famine in Samaria (illustration by Gustave Doré from the
1866 La Sainte Bible)
To nourish the sons of the prophets pressed by famine,
Elisha changed a pottage made from poisonous gourds into wholesome food.[14] He
fed a hundred men with twenty loaves of new barley, leaving some leftover,[19]
in a story which is comparable with the miracles of Jesus in the New
Testament.[20]
Elisha cured the Syrian military commander Naaman of
leprosy but punished his own servant Gehazi, who took money from Naaman.[18]
Naaman, at first reluctant, obeyed Elisha, and washed seven times in the River
Jordan. Finding his flesh "restored like the flesh of a little child",
the general was so impressed by this evidence of God's power, and by the
disinterestedness of his prophet, as to express his deep conviction that
"there is no other God in all the earth, but only in Israel."[21]
Elisha allowed Naaman to continue in the service of the Syrian king and
therefore be present in the worship of Rimmon in the Syrian temple. According
to the Gospel of Luke, Jesus referred to Naaman's healing when he said,
"And there were many lepers in Israel in the time of Elisha the prophet:
and none of them was cleansed but Naaman the Syrian."[22]
Elisha's actions included repeatedly saving King Jehoram of
Israel from the ambushes planned by Benhadad,[15] ordering the elders to shut
the door against the messenger of Israel's ungrateful king,[23] bewildering
with a strange blindness the soldiers of the Syrian king,[24] making iron float
to relieve from embarrassment a son of a prophet,[14] and confidently
predicting the sudden flight of the enemy at the siege of Samaria and the
consequent cessation of the famine in the city,[25]
Elisha then journeyed to Damascus and prophesied that
Hazael would be king over Syria.[9] Elisha directs one of the sons of the
prophets to anoint Jehu, the son of Jehoshaphat, as king of Israel, and
commissions him to cut off the house of Ahab.[11] The death of Jehoram, pierced
by an arrow from Jehu's bow, the end of Jezebel,[26] and the slaughter of
Ahab's seventy sons, proved how he executed that demand.[27]
Elisha's final days
While Elisha lay on his death-bed in his own house, Jehoash
of Israel, the grandson of Jehu, came to mourn over his approaching departure,
and uttered the same words as those of Elisha when Elijah was taken away,
indicating his value to him: "My father, my father! the chariot of Israel,
and the horsemen thereof".[28] Jehoash assists Elisha to fire an arrow
eastwards from the window of his room, predicting as it lands:
The arrow of the Lord's deliverance and the arrow of
deliverance from Syria; for you must strike the Syrians at Aphek till you have
destroyed them.[29]
Elisha predicted three successful battles over the
Arameans, but no absolute victory.[9] 2 Kings 13:25 records three victories of
Joash whereby cities lost to the Arameans, probably on the west bank of the
Jordan, were regained.[30]
According to the Books of Kings the year after Elisha's
death and burial (or, in the following spring) a body was placed in his grave.
As soon as the body touched Elisha's remains the man "revived and stood up
on his feet".[31]
Veneration
Elisha is venerated as a saint in a number of Christian
churches. His feast day is on June 14, on the Eastern Orthodox, and Eastern
Catholic liturgical calendars (for those churches which use the traditional
Julian calendar, June 14 falls on June 27 of the modern Gregorian calendar).
The Armenian Apostolic Church commemorates his feast day on the Thursday
following the fifth Sunday after Pentecost (July 1 in 2021).[32] John of
Damascus composed a canon in honor of Elisha, and a church was built at
Constantinople in his honor.
In Western Christianity Elisha is commemorated in the
calendar of saints of the Carmelites, a Catholic religious order,[33] who claim
a spiritual descent from him, following a decree of the Carmelite General
Chapter of 1399.[14] He is also commemorated as a prophet in the Calendar of
Saints of the Lutheran Church–Missouri Synod. Both calendars also celebrate him
on June 14. Both the Orthodox and Roman Catholics believe that he was unmarried
and celibate.[34]
Julian the Apostate (361–363) gave orders to burn the
relics of the prophets Elisha, Obadiah and John the Baptist, who were buried
next to each other in Sebastia,[35] but they were rescued by the Christians,
and part of them were transferred to Alexandria.[18] Today, the relics of
Elisha are claimed to be among the possessions of the Coptic Orthodox Monastery
of Saint Macarius the Great in Scetes, Egypt.[36]
Elisha is commemorated on 20 June – translation of the
relics and garments of the Apostles Luke, Andrew, and Thomas, the Prophet
Eliseus, and Martyr Lazarus of Persia found c. 960, during the time of
the emperor Romanos Lakapenos (919–944) in a monastery of Saint Augusta into
the Church of the Holy Apostles in Constantinople under Emperor Constantine
Porphyrogenitus (c. 956–970) by Saint Patriarch Polyeuctus of
Constantinople (956–970).[37]
In Islam
Main article: Elisha in Islam
Elisha (Arabic: اليسع,
romanized: al-yasaʿ) is venerated as a prophet in all of Islam, and is
prophetic successor to Elijah (Arabic: Ilyās). Elisha is mentioned twice
in the Quran as a prophet,[39] alongside fellow prophets.[40] According to the
Quran, Elisha is exalted "above the worlds (or to their people)"
(Arabic: فَضَّلْنَا
عَلَى ٱلْعَالَمِين,
romanized: faḍḍalnā ʿala l-ʿālamīn(a))[41]
and is "among the excellent" (Arabic: مِنَ ٱلْأَخْيَار,
romanized: mina l-akhyār(i)).[42] Islamic sources that identify Elisha
with Khidr cite the strong relationship between al-Khidr and Elijah in Islamic
tradition.[43] Around four thousand prophets were sent between Moses and Jesus,
including figures such as Joshua, Elijah, Elisha, David, Solomon, Isaiah,
Jeremiah, Jonah, and John the Baptist, who upheld the Torah and corrected
deviations among the Israelites, with the finality of prophethood in
Muhammad.[44]
Some Muslims believe the tomb of Elisha is in Al-Awjam in
the eastern region of Saudi Arabia. The shrine was removed by the Saudi
Government because such veneration is not in accordance with the Wahhabi or
Salafi reform movement dominant in Saudi Arabia.[45][46] It had been an
important landmark for many centuries during the time of Ottoman Arabia, and
had been a very popular pilgrimage destination for Muslims of all sects
throughout the pre-modern period.[47]