40 Minutes In The Old Testament - 1 Kings 19:9-21 (Episode 317)

Episode Date: May 18, 2022

God meets with Elijah and the Prophet tells Him exactly how he feels about what is going on. God is not found in the fire or the earthquake, but in a low whisper. Elijah has work to do and that work starts with calling Elisha to be his assistant and student. Chad and Daniel discuss all of this. Have a listen! HWSS National Conference 1517 Podcast Network 1517 YouTube Donate

Welcome to another episode of 40 Minutes in the Old Testament. 40 Minutes in the Old Testament is a 1517 podcast, network podcast. You can go to 1517.org slash podcast. Check out all the other podcasts that are living over there. And while you're over there, make sure you check out the events page. You can sign up for the Here We Still Stand National Conference in awesome, sunny, beautiful San Diego, California in October. It's wide open registration right now. Chad will be there.

I'll be there. A whole bunch of other people will be there. You can check out the whole roster of people over at the website. I'll put a link in the show notes, or you can just go to the website and find the event, and you can register. or we'd love to have you join us and hang out for a couple days. Chad, last week, Elijah thought he had won a victory, thought that things were going in the right direction, thought the hearts of Israel were going to be turned toward Yahweh,

that the true God was about to be the God of the people once again, that the king and queen would hopefully be on board with this, thought he had the king in the bag. the queen not so much as she like threatens his life tells her tells him that she is going to kill him and he has to flee and well it kind of falls into despair that he was not able to sort of bring about the deliverance from idolatry that he was hoping was going to be the case and uh we we had jesus himself show up take care of him feed him in the wilderness nonetheless where jesus is very familiar with such places, let him know that it's okay, the whole thing was too great for him

to begin with, and that he was never going to be the final one to save the people. Yeah, great way to actually segue into what we're going to discover as we work our way through the rest of 1 Kings 19. Jesus tells him, yeah, you're not enough, and I want you to head down to Horeb, Sinai, the mountain of God, where, as we will see, we have emphasized once more the one who is actually going to be enough, the one by whom God is going to come and God is going to accomplish his will. There's a way in which you could take, hey, this task is too great for you, or you are insufficient, and this could feel insulting. There could be some offense taken at this but in such matters when it's jesus saying it to you and not in the form of a rebuke

he's not disappointed that you're not enough he thought you were it turned out you weren't and he tells you well it turns out you're not enough i didn't i didn't see that one coming it's not like that at all he's letting you know that you were never going to be enough and that's okay that that he's got that you are you are not the plan yeah it's very liberating isn't it it's Yeah, it's comforting where God's like, I was never counting on you. Yeah, you're not my divinely chosen means of bringing about full salvation and restoration. No. It was never part of the plan, Elijah.

And this is good for us to know, too, that God uses us and he uses people, but he's not counting on us. He doesn't have all his eggs in the Chad Bird basket. He's not that dumb. Thanks be to God for that. There's a line in one of the Psalms. I don't know which one it is. It just came to mind when you were talking. It says, he himself knows our frame.

He is mindful that we are but dust. Yeah. And in the context, it's talking about how, yeah, human frailty, right? That we are never enough. There's no way that God is going to, as it were, rely on us to accomplish some sort of superhuman feat. Instead, he knows us. I mean, he made us. he crafted us he knows exactly what we're made of how we are made he's well aware of our of our

weaknesses uh so he knows our frame he is he himself is mindful that we and elijah included are but but dust so we always knows that when it comes to these big matters of salvation restoration that if you want a job done right you do it yourself and so god himself is going to come and take care of that yeah and what's going to happen to the prophet well we're told that he goes in these 40 days and 40 nights to whore of the mountain of god and when he got there he went inside a cave so this is the second time we've heard about a cave in this part of first kings the first time was when obadiah who was both a believer in yahweh as well as a chief servant of Ahab, he had taken the prophets of God and had hidden them in caves in order that Jezebel

might not find them and kill them. Well, we sort of have that same thing going on here in that we have one prophet whom Jezebel is seeking to kill, hiding in a cave. Although he doesn't really need to hide from Jezebel. I mean, he's like a long way from Jezebel's reach. He's way down there in the Sinai Peninsula, but that's where he's at. He's in a cave. And as the story unfolds, it becomes pretty obvious that this cave is meant as a parallel to the cleft of the rock that Moses hid himself in when God passed by in all his glory. So we'll unpack that more in just a minute, but that seems to be what's going on. So kind of two themes. We have another prophet hiding in a cave from Jezebel, but this cave is also sort of like the cleft of the rock

that Moses hid in, in Exodus 33 and 34, when God's glory passed by. But that's where he's at. Probably not the healthiest place for him to be. You know, he's in despair. He's feeling all these terrible emotions, and now he's holed up in the darkness of a cave. But be that as it may, that's where he is. Now, notice this. Second half of verse 9. We've already heard about Jesus coming as the messenger. He came as the malach Yahweh, the messenger of Yahweh. Well, now he's going to come back, except he's now referred to not as the messenger, but a title with which we're more familiar because of John 1, and that is the word. So behold, the word of Yahweh came to him. So this is just like the messenger. This is just another designation for the word who will become flesh,

the word who was with God and the word who is God. So this isn't just kind of a voice that Elijah hears. This is a physical, visual manifestation of the second person, the Trinity. So first he came as a messenger, and now he's going to come under the title of the Word. Yeah, if you read these words, and behold, the Word of the Lord came to him, if you read that, and you're not thinking, and the Word became flesh and dwelt among us, you're not reading it right. You're doing it wrong. yeah you're doing it wrong yeah yeah hear this hear this with with john ears right yeah this was your words hear this with your ears stuffed with the first chapter of john's gospel and when

you do that you're gonna you're gonna hear this rightly so this is the word who will become flesh this word comes to him he's already come to him and touched him and fed him in the wilderness and spoke to him there now he's going to come to him again and what's he going to say he's going to ask a question. Don't you love how many times God initiates a conversation with a person with a question? It's all the time, right? So, of course, Genesis 3, where are you? And then Genesis 4, when Cain's upset because God looked with favor upon his brother's sacrifice, but not upon his, he's like, why are you angry? And Jesus does this too. He'll ask people, what do you want going to do for you? What were you talking about along the way? He's always initiating

conversations with a question, which of course is an opening to a conversation, opening to a dialogue. So he says, what are you doing here, Elijah? I think it's because God knows that if he asks a question, that then you have to answer it. And that the way that people reason things out is by talking. And so he actually wants Elijah to explain to him what he's doing there, and he wants him to do it in his own words. Obviously, God knows what he's doing there. So God does things, it's sort of like prayer. God doesn't need you to pray, but he asks you to pray because it's good for you to pray, because then you articulate your request. And as you articulate your request, you are thinking through it. And this is actually helpful

to a person to have to verbalize what it is that's going on in their life, to talk through it, to petition god for it it's so prayer is something that god wants us to do not because it's the only way for him to help us but because it shapes the kind of person you become yeah and yeah so the same thing happens here where he asks elijah a question because he wants elijah to answer it not for god's benefit but for elijah's benefit like you you tell me what you're doing here so that you can understand it better like i want you i want you to think through it articulate it tell it to me, this will be helpful to you if you go through this exercise. Yeah, that's exactly what's going on here. And by him asking this question, and by Elijah responding, which we'll read in

just a second, we as the readers are also kind of clued in as to why he did what he did. So why did he flee from Jezebel? Why is he at Mount Sinai? What does he think about himself? What does he think about the people to whom he was sent to prophesy? So he's going to kind of compress all of that into his into a statement which interestingly we will hear not once but twice he's going to basically repeat verbatim in a few more verses what he says here as is god going to ask the question so twice god says what are you doing here elijah and then twice elijah responds with these words and this is verse 10 i have been very jealous it could also we translated zealous, so jealous or zealous. I've been very jealous or zealous for Yahweh,

the God of hosts. This is just to say that I've been very passionate. Yes, right, right. So I've been driven by a passionate desire for the people of Israel to repent, to turn back to you. That's my motivation. So I haven't been doing this for any kind of bad motive, any bad reasons. I've been very zealous, very jealous, very passionate about this. For who? For Yahweh, the God of hosts. For the people of Israel have forsaken your covenant. Let me just pause here for a second. This is fascinating. So notice the switch that happens. He begins by speaking of God in the third person. I've been very jealous for the Lord. You would think that if he begins that way, he would go on to say, for the people of Israel

have forsaken his covenant and thrown down his altars and killed his prophets with the sword. But he doesn't. He says, I've been very zealous for Yahweh, for the people of Israel have forsaken your covenant. So he switches from talking about God in the third person to talking about him directly. Why? Well, who is he talking to? The word of Yahweh, that is the son of God, Jesus has appeared to him. And so he begins by referencing God in the third person. And then it's like he realizes halfway through that he's actually talking to god he's addressing him directly and so he switches to the second person he says for the people of israel have forsaken your covenant that is oh word of the lord they have forsaken your covenant isn't there like a

way to kind of view this that he says look i've been very passionate about the lord the god of israel so god uh in his full self three persons one god but then he moves and says they've forsaken your covenant. Well, what do all the covenants have to ultimately do with? Well, they have to do with Jesus. Who is it that shows up with Abraham and, you know, starts walking through, you know, split animals and all this stuff? That's Jesus. And so he's like, look, I've been passionate about God. Okay. So God, I've been passionate about God, the whole Trinitarian God. And obviously he's not going to verbalize it that way, but Father, Son, and Holy Spirit, I'm passionate about that. Tell you what, the people though, they've really, really messed up

that thing that you set up yeah that that and that aligns with with genesis 15 that you were leading to because it says the word of the lord appeared to abraham the word of the lord took him outside and then he has the vision and then god goes through those split animals so the word of the lord appeared there initiating making this ratifying this covenant with abraham and so makes perfect sense for elijah speaking now to that same second person of the trinity to address him as your covenant yeah it's almost like he says listen i'm real passionate about god and i'm real offended for jesus that's it that is it so they the israelites elijah says they have forsaken your covenant jesus and they've also not not just that i mean that's bad enough

of course but they've also your altars the very altars that are all of which are pointing toward the altar that is to come all of these altars which are a presaging of the cross where the true and full sacrifice will be happened well all of these altars they just they've thrown down we read in the previous chapter about how he had to repair the altar of god there on mount carmel because it had either been torn down or fallen into disarray it had to be healed i believe was the hebrew word that was used there so they've thrown down your altars and as if forsaking the covenant and throwing down the altars is not enough they have even turned on your spokesman the preachers that you have sent the prophets they have killed with the sword yes i love this too

because i like jesus will make this very explicit the prophets are all about him jesus comes in and says, listen, the prophets, they're constantly talking about me. Those are my prophets. Jesus claims the prophets and claims the words of the prophets as words about him. So it makes complete sense. They say, your covenant, Jesus, your altars, Jesus, the things pointing towards what you will ultimately do, and your prophets, those you have sent to speak what? They speak of the promise of Christ, right? Yeah. And Peter says the same thing in his sermons and acts three times. I don't have the references here in front of me, but three times he says, all the prophets. So all the prophets spoke about these days. All the prophets foretold what has just happened in the days of

the Messiah. So Jesus says it. Peter confirms it as well. That's what all the prophets were about. Well, these prophets, which were pointing to preaching about Jesus, they have been killed with the sword covenant forsaken altars thrown down prophets martyred and then he goes on to say and i even i only am left and they seek my life to take it away as well so he's at the situation now where i mean i don't know how to take that that last part certainly the first part is true i mean they have forsaken the covenant torn down the altars kill the prophets the i only uh is a bit troublesome because we know that he's not the only one left because he's already been told in fact by obadiah that obadiah had hid all of these prophets uh in in the cave so elijah does i'm sure

feel as if he's the only one only one left uh he's the pillar that's holding up the the entire edifice and they're trying to take him take him out as well paul quotes his verse it's in uh romans chapter 11, where he asks, has God rejected his people? And Paul goes on to say, by no means. He says, I'm an Israelite. I'm a descendant of Abraham. I'm a member of the tribe of Benjamin. God hasn't rejected his people. And then he quotes Elijah here. He says that Elijah appealed to God and said, Lord, they've killed your prophets, demolished your altars. I alone am left and they seek my life. And then God's response to him is, I have kept for myself 7,000 who have not bowed the knee to Baal. We'll get to that verse in just a minute. But Paul goes on to say,

so too at the present time there is a remnant chosen by grace, and if it's by grace, it's no longer the basis of works, otherwise grace would no longer be grace. So Paul, in reading this passage and Elijah's response, is basically saying, listen, it's never just like you're the only one left, because God has always, by grace, kept a remnant of his people. Yeah, and it seems like what Elijah's doing here is God has asked him, what are you doing? He's like, well, let me tell you how I feel. This is how I feel.

Yeah, yeah. And in that way, it echoes a lot of the Psalms. You'll see this kind of hyperbolic, I guess you might say, language in the Psalms where the psalmist will basically feel as if everyone has forsaken you and uh i'm i'm kind of trapped here i'm by myself uh no one to support me so where are you and why is all of this why are all these terrible things happening so in that way what elijah says is very much in concert with much of the statements that you have in the psalms as well he's basically saying listen this is this is how it seems to me this is how i feel this is what i'm experiencing

right now and that's why i'm sitting up here all by myself in a cave which is which is what you asked me why am i doing this let me tell you why yeah yeah so he's to elijah's credit i mean he doesn't try and soften anything he just completely uh honest in what he sees happening and where he sees himself that's why he's living as a prophetic caveman at the at this point so god's response to him is what follows verse 11 says that the word of the lord said to him so son of god says to him here's what I want you to do. Go out, so get out of your cave, and stand on the mountain before Yahweh. So that's the end of that speech. And then we pick up with probably, if not the most, then the second most famous theophany that we have in the entirety of the scriptures.

And I'll just read through it, and then we'll talk about it. And behold, so right after he says, go out, stand on the mountain of the Lord, behold, the Lord passed by and a great and strong wind tore the mountains and broke in pieces the rocks before the Lord, but the Lord was not in the wind. And after the wind, an earthquake, but the Lord was not in the earthquake. And after the earthquake, a fire, but the Lord was not in the fire. and after the fire the sound of a low whisper and we'll just kind of we'll kind of stop there so there's a well there's so much that uh uh we could talk about here and pick out a couple of things one of the most fascinating at least at least for me is this language of god passing by

for the hebrew there is the hebrew verb is avar and that's the same word i was just checking this morning that's the same words it's used in exodus 33 19 exodus 33 22 and exodus 34 6 it's all that same occurrence of when you have this this passing by of yahweh while moses is in the cleft of the rock so you know moses asked to see god's glory god says you can't see my face and live but i will show you my uh my backside and so he he hides him in the cleft of the rock and god says i will make all my goodness pass by you. That's the verb avar. And then he says, I'll hide near the cleft of rock while my goodness passes by you. And then when God does go by him, he proclaims the Lord, the Lord, a God merciful and gracious. Now, here's a cool fact. In the Septuagint, the Greek

translation of the Old Testament, they translated that verb for pass by as par ekomai. Now, if you go to Mark's version. This is Mark 6, 48, Mark's version of Jesus walking on the sea. And Mark says that Jesus was going to walk by, he meant to pass by his disciples while they were in the boat. That verb is par ekomai. So it's the same verb that's used for the glory of God passing by moses same verb used for the the this this manifestation of god passing by elijah well that same verb is used then in the crossing of the sea of galilee when jesus who is the glory of god who is the goodness of god who is the word of god is seemingly going to pass by his disciples so it's a pretty convincing case that jesus wasn't going to be just like walking by his disciples and said

this particular word was used, parakomai, in order to indicate that the one passing by them in the boat is the same one who passed by Moses and the same one who passed by Elijah. So this is a kind of a technical term you might say for when God manifests himself in various kinds of ways or uses various kinds of visible, auditory, impressive aspects of nature to pass by his people. And then you got three different occurrences. You got the wind, not in the wind. Got an earthquake, not an earthquake. You got a fire. Now that's the most important one here, the fire, but the Lord was not in the fire. Why is this one important? Because go back to the previous chapter. On Mount Carmel, so this is Mount Sinai where this is happening. Now on Mount

Carmel, the Lord was in the fire because, you know, Elijah doused the sacrifice and the altar were in the rocks and he, you know, dug out a ditch and it was full of water. Everything was drenched. And then what happened? The fire of the Lord fell. So on Mount Carmel, the Lord is in the fire, but here on Mount Sinai, he's not. So there's a switch that takes place here. Uh, Elijah was very happy with the fire of the Lord that fell on Mount, Mount, uh, Mount Carmel, but God is, as it were telling him, Hey, there's, there's, there's another way that I'm going to manifest myself. And that manifestation, the way that God comes, is what's translated here as the sound of a low whisper. This, of course, in the King James is the still small voice. It's been translated as

a sound of sheer silence, or a gentle whisper, or Robert Alter in his Old Testament translation renders it a sound of minute stillness. The Hebrew here is pretty fascinating. First, the the word sound is coal which can be voice or sound so a i would call this a voice so there's a voice but what kind of voice is it it's a dumb mama voice which is like still or or silent and it's also daka and daka means uh like thin or or small so it's a it's a voice that's both still and thin or or small so there's of course various ways that you can translate this the impact of it is all the same it's it's like a it's a whisper it's a voice it is it's it's the voice of god but it's not booming it's not that impressive it's simply the word of god or the

voice of god coming to elijah and that's where that's where god is now let me let me just read the next little section here because this becomes important because at right after that verse 13 says elijah heard it he wrapped his face in the cloak he goes out stood at the entrance of the cave and behold there came what a voice and spoke to him so what's happening god's not in the wind He's not in the earthquake. He's not in the fire, but he's in the word. He's in the voice. And now this voice, the very one that God is in, that voice or that word comes to Elijah and repeats his question. What are you doing here, Elijah? Earlier, we're told that was the word of Yahweh that came to him. Now we're told it's the voice, the very voice that had just been

manifested that voice of that word comes to him and repeats the same question which means that god wasn't in the wind he wasn't the earthquake wasn't in the fire but where is he he's in jesus he's in the word right he's in the voice and that is how god reveals himself and that's hugely important because one way that this verse has been just plucked out of uh well out of context out of good hermeneutical use is to say, like, you got to listen for that still, small voice all the time. And just so you know, this is not a promise of how God is going to interact with you. So if you just calm down enough, like, God's going to speak to you with a still, small voice or something like that, it means that God speaks to you through the Word. If you want to hear a

still, small voice, like, just open your Bible and read really quietly, and there you go. But But this is what it's about, to say that God is going to reveal himself in the Word made flesh, in Christ. And if you want to know about that, you go to what? Well, the Word that has been written down for us. Yeah, it's so important because almost every time I hear someone refer to the still small voice, the voice they're talking about is not the voice that they hear in the Word of Scripture, or certainly not the Word of God. No, they're looking for the Holy Spirit to speak to them directly.

yes right within their own heart yeah yeah so it's a it's almost a complete reversal of what's happening here so it's not some little voice that you hear inside your conscience or something or inside your head instead it is the word it's the the voice of the voice of god that comes to and when you when you read when you do read it in context when you read that this voice that god is in, that passed by, that voice now comes and stands and talks to Elijah, well, then it all becomes clear. The messenger of Yahweh who appeared to him in the desert, the word of Yahweh who appeared and asked him, what are you doing here, Elijah? That messenger and that word is now the same voice that comes to him and says the same thing. What are you doing here, Elijah?

And his response is the exact same. So he's talking to the same person that would be christ because he does the same exact thing i've been very jealous very passionate for the lord for god and i've been very offended for you yeah same thing same thing again same question same response uh same situation so for elijah nothing has really changed uh we he's seen this uh in fact it kind of seems to be uh i don't know what quite what to make of this either because God tells him to do what he says, uh, I want you to go out and stand on the mountain before the Lord. And then all this stuff happens. But then once it, once it happens, we're told Elijah wrapped his face in a cloak. And then when he, then he went out and stood at the entrance

of the cave. So it's, it's, it's like he stayed in the cave the whole time this was happening instead of actually doing what, what the word had told him to do. But, but either way, his response afterward is verbatim what he had said before, as is the question. So the question being asked and the confession being made, verse 15, the Lord said to him, this is another one of these perfectly revealing situations. The messenger comes, the word comes, the voice comes, and now the Lord speaks. So all the same, the messenger is the son, the word is the son, the voice is the son, Yahweh himself is the son here speaking to him. And here's what he says. He's got a commission for him. It's threefold, basically. He says, first of all, get out of here. I want you to go

return. Return on your way to the wilderness of Damascus. So you're way, way, way, way down south. I need you to basically retrace your steps. I need you to head north from Horeb, from Sinai, and go all the way up to damascus north of the northern kingdom and there he says when you arrive you shall anoint haziel to be king over syria that's the first anointing and that's the first office that is to be that is to be fulfilled and then verse 16 and yehu yehu however you want to say his name the son of nimshi we're going to hear more about him uh in the ensuing chapters I want you to anoint him to be king over Israel. And Elisha, so we have two kings, one Gentile king, one Israelite king.

Both of those are to be anointed by Elijah. And then he has one more task for him. And that's the first one that we are going to see being fulfilled. Elisha, the son of Shaphat, of Abel Mehaloah. so this Elisha you are to anoint to be prophet in your place verse 17 the one who escapes from the sword of Hazael shall Yehu put to death and the one who escapes from the sword of Yehu shall Elisha put to death and this is the verse that I referred to earlier that Paul quotes in Romans chapter 11 yet I will leave 7,000 in Israel all the knees that have not bowed to Baal and every

mouth that has not kissed him evidently in uh in the worship of baal and this was probably widespread among the the various canaanite religions kissing the statues of of the the idol was part of the part of the worship that took place there was always just like when we when we kiss someone today we are as it were showing some kind of connection to that person some allegiance some relationship with with that person it doesn't have to be romantic you know we can kiss our children we can kiss our parents we can kiss our spouse but we're showing that we are closely connected to this person similarly these kisses to bail were a way of showing that they are in connection with him a relationship with him they believe that he is the god that that is to be

worshipped so god says i'm gonna leave 7 000 who have not bowed their knees to bill and who have not kissed his statues. And this is going to be this remnant chosen, upheld by grace that Paul talks about in Romans 11. So he's got a task. He's going to be tasked with anointing. As the story unfolds, it might be a bit of a surprise to find out how well or how poorly Elijah actually carried out these purposes. I don't want to get too far ahead of myself, but kind of bear in mind this threefold task that he is told he is to carry out, to anoint the Gentile king, to anoint a king of the northern kingdom, and then to anoint a prophet that is going to be in his place. That part's interesting, too, because God doesn't tell him

why there needs to be a prophet in his place. This would seem like there'd be a follow-up, if this is me like okay what's what's gonna happen to me yeah why do i need why do i need a replacement a little ominous is it not it is it is yeah i mean yeah if you're if you're in any job whatsoever and you're told hey uh you need to pick your successor that's probably not good news because it means that you will your services will no longer be be needed for whatever that reason might be we'd love you to train your replacement yeah yeah not not good uh not a good message in those words so that takes us through uh through verse 18 and uh the last few last few verses are the call of elisha so we'll we'll wrap up with those this is 19 through through

21 so he he leaves he does he does what he at least the initial part of what god says he He left Sinai, or Horeb, he departed from there, and we're told that he found Elisha. So Elisha, the name itself, is a combination of El, which is the word for God, and then it's from the verb Yashah. So it's actually a pretty cool parallel here to the name of Jesus. So of course, Jesus, Yeshua, or Yehoshua, means the Lord saves, and Elisha is a combination of these same two kinds of words, El, which is God, and then Yashah, which means save. So God saves is what Elisha's name means. So he finds Elisha, the son of Shaphat. And what is Elisha

doing? Well, he's working basically. He's a farmer and he's plowing with 12 yoke of oxen in front of him. Now, I'm not a farmer. I've worked on farms. We had John Deere tractors. We didn't have oxen. and but 12 yoke of oxen sure seems like a whole it seemed like you'd have a pretty big plow 12 12 yoke of oxen i think i think there might be something else going on here yeah well i'm sure there is there's some there's some uh numerical significance here but just on kind of the practical level like wow that's it's a lot of yoke a lot a lot of oxen yeah but as is common with the scriptures of course the numbers themselves are pointing to the greater theological reality. So here you have a guy who's going to be the prophet over Israel

and all the tribes of Israel. So of course, he doesn't have 11 yoke of oxen, doesn't have 13 yoke of oxen. He's got 12 yoke of oxen in front of him. And he was with the 12th. So Elijah passed by him and cast his cloak on him. By the way, same verb that was used earlier, God passed by Elijah with the sound of a little whisper, the sound of the voice. So now Elijah is passing by Elisha. And what does he do? He cast his cloak on him. He has a word. This is literally an investiture. So when you vest someone, you clothe them. You literally put upon them the clothing of their office. So he's invested with the cloak of the prophet, the cloak being no doubt symbolic of his office. So Elijah passes by him, and he casts his cloak upon him. He places

his symbol of prophetic authority upon this guy. It's kind of, I mean, this is not an anointing, but it's the closest equivalent we have to this. This is his quote-unquote anointing of Elijah by putting his cloak upon him. Verse 20 says when this happens that he left the oxen and he ran after Elijah and he said, let me kiss my father and my mother and then I will follow you. So just like we have all these worshipers of Baal showing their allegiance to that prophet by kissing his idols. So Elisha requests that he go home and be able to kiss his parents, these to whom he has allegiance. So let me go and let me basically tell my mom and dad goodbye, and then I will follow you. And Elijah said to him, okay, he says, go back, for what have I done to you? In other

words, your request is granted. Go ahead and go home and tell your parents goodbye. verse 21 says and he returned from following him and took the yoke of oxen and sacrificed them these 12 yoke of oxen sacrificed them boiled their flesh with the yokes of the oxen so he basically turned these wooden implements into firewood and gave it to the people and they ate so it's a it's sort of a peace offering we might say it's a sacrificial kind of meal he feeds these 12 oxen to the people they eat and then it says he arose and went after elijah and became his assistant he assisted him it's kind of a uh you know when you compare this with the uh the well known gospel account of the man asking jesus you know first of all let me let me go and and bury

bury my father right and jesus says let the dead bury bury their own dead so it it's a contrast to that. At the same time, I don't think we should take the words of Elisha as saying he was in any way hesitant to become a follower of Elijah, because his actions thereafter in basically turning the farm implements into firewood and sacrificing all of the oxen and then feeding them to the people are clearly indicative of the fact that he's leaving behind that vocation. It's not like he kept his net so he can go back and be a fisherman instead. he's getting rid of everything that formerly defined his life because now his life will be entirely entirely full of nothing but following the prophet elijah and becoming his assistant

and eventually then his his replacement yeah i've always thought when jesus says you know hey if you're not willing to leave father and mother you cannot be my disciple elisha in this situation He's not unwilling to. I mean, far from it, right? Yeah, far from it. He basically just wants to tell them goodbye and that he will no longer be living with them and working with them and for them. Instead, God has called him to something else.

And this is a forward glimpse to the same thing that's going to happen in the Gospels Or you have the Elijah figure, John the Baptist, who is going to cast his mantle, as it were, who's going to decrease in order that his replacement, the new Elisha, Jesus himself, so that he can take on that prophetic role, be the one who comes after John. So in this very transition from Elijah to Elisha that we're going to see, that is a foreshadowing of the same transition that we are going to witness when John decreases and eventually dies, is martyred, and then all focus shifts to Christ, who, like Elisha, has a name that means God saves or the Lord saves. Yeah, and that's it, man. We are out of time, so next week we will get into chapter 20, going to get into some wars, so that'll be fun. For now, we'll have to leave it right there. Elisha slaughtered all the oxen and is getting ready to start learning what it means to be the prophet of the Lord. And so we will get more familiar with him in the upcoming weeks. Chad, I'll see you next week.

All right. See you then. I'll see you next time.