Chapter 2

Elijah and Elisha are traveling together the day God is taking Elijah home.  They come to Bethel and all the sons of the prophets there already know, as does Elisha.  So they go further to Jericho.  The sons of the prophets there also know that Elijah will be taken.   Then Elijah says he goes on to the Jordan.  For the third time, he tells Elisha to stay behind, but Elisha refuses.  50 prophets also follow along this time.  Elijah parts the Jordan with his rolled up cloak, and he and Elisha go across. 

2022 - This would qualify as another miracle of Elijah.  So we add calling down fire and parting the Jordan to the list.  Still, it is a very short list, and still, John the Baptist, who came in the spirit of Elijah, did no miracles at all.  Therefore, another Elijah is coming, still future.  Perhaps the High Priest of the Man of Sin will claim to be that Elijah, ushering in the Kingdom of God, as evidenced by his power to call down fire.

Elijah asks Elisha what he can give him, and Elisha asks a double portion of the spirit of Elijah.  If he sees Elijah go, this will be granted to him.  As they go on, chariots and horses of fire separate the two of them, and Elijah goes up by a whirlwind.  So in ESV, it does not say the chariots carried Elijah up, but that they separated the two of them, and a whirlwind carried Elijah up. 

2022 - Here we see the spirit of Elijah given double to another prophet.  Elisha, in this sense, also came in the spirit of Elijah.  So that idea is not at all unprecedented when Jesus ascribes the same characteristic to John the Baptist.

9 When they had crossed, Elijah said to Elisha, "Ask what I shall do for you, before I am taken from you." And Elisha said, "Please let there be a double portion of your spirit on me." [2Ki 2:9 ESV]

2021 - I wrote it before, but had forgotten.  Elijah did not go in a chariot of fire, he went in a whirlwind - a tornado.  What I had not noticed before is that there were chariots of fire and horses, plural, not just the one.  In KJV, there is only the one chariot, and horses plural of fire.  Since Elijah so often called down fire, it seems appropriate that fire would be there when he left. 

2022 - This verse:  14 Then he took the cloak of Elijah that had fallen from him and struck the water, saying, "Where is the LORD, the God of Elijah?" And when he had struck the water, the water was parted to the one side and to the other, and Elisha went over. [2Ki 2:14 ESV].  I would call this a miracle performed by Elisha.  So not just Elijah.

2021 - 50 strong men go to search for Elijah's body, thinking the tornado may have dropped him on a mountain or in a valley.  They did not realize that Elijah was gone to heaven in that whirlwind.  The 50 do not find him.

Elisha tears his clothing.  He takes the fallen cloak of Elijah, and strikes the Jordan as he goes back.  It parts for him also and he walks across. 

Elisha heals the water in Jericho by pouring salt in their spring.  There is this interesting pronouncement afterward:

21 Then he went to the spring of water and threw salt in it and said, "Thus says the LORD, I have healed this water; from now on neither death nor miscarriage shall come from it." [2Ki 2:21 ESV]

This implies that something about this water was killing people and causing miscarriages.  But it does so no longer.  Salt removed something bad, it did not impart healing.

2022 - Another miracle performed by Elisha.

As he goes on his way, he causes she-bears to "tear" (does not say kill) 42 young unruly boys.  MSB says they were not children but youths in their late teens and twenties.  Baldness was considered a disgrace at the time.  MSB says it may have just been a derogatory expression, or it could be that Elisha had shaved his head to separate him to his office, or he may have been naturally bald.  The term "go up" was the young men being sarcastic and goading Elisha to "go up" into heaven as Elijah had.  They were pretty nasty young people.  Hence, the bears.