Tag: elisha

A Double portion

Elisha and Elijah crossed the Jordan river, in the same place where the sons of Israel had entered into Canaan led by Joshua. Elisha knew that Elijah was going to be taken from him – he heard this prophecy three times from the sons of the prophets. Elisha anticipated this moment and he had a plan. What was his plan? to become greater than his master!

We read:

When they had crossed over, Elijah said to Elisha, “Ask what I shall do for you before I am taken from you.” And Elisha said, “Please, let a double portion of your spirit be upon me. 10 He said, “You have asked a hard thing. Nevertheless, if you see me when I am taken from you, it shall be so for you; but if not, it shall not be so.” 

(2 Kings 2:9-10)

It is a hard thing to ask indeed. but what our God promises – He fulfills. Not because He likes the man, or because the man is worthy – no! Because God is faithful.

Was Elisha worthy? Let’s look how he behaved, from the moment his master left him:

And Elijah went up by a whirlwind to heaven. 12 Elisha saw it and cried out, “My father, my father, the chariots of Israel and its horsemen!” And he saw Elijah no more.

(2 Kings 2:12)

What was Elisha shouting? Many interpretations were given about this shout. Can it be that he was actually saying in other words: God! I saw it! I saw the chariot and horsemen! Now give me what you promised!

And we continue reading:

He took the mantle of Elijah that fell from him and struck the waters and said, “Where is the Lord, the God of Elijah?” And when he also had struck the waters, they were divided here and there; and Elisha crossed over.

(2 Kings 2:14)

What is this language? “Where is the Lord, the God of Elijah?” Is this the gentleman that we expect a man of God to be? Not really…

So Elisha really spoke to God in kind of demanding. And our God gave him what he asked for: a double portion of the spirit – even though, in our human judgemental mind, we may say his is a rude and arrogant person.

And from now on, we see that Elisha really got a double portion – on one hand he performs many more miracle than his master did. But unlike his master, he is very much appreciated by the kings and the high society. He is the kind of man that likes to be acknowledged of what he is – A man of God.

Let’s look into the following story:

Now there came a day when Elisha passed over to Shunem, where there was a prominent woman, and she persuaded him to eat food. And so it was, as often as he passed by, he turned in there to eat food. 9 She said to her husband, “Behold now, I perceive that this is a holy man of God passing by us continually.10 Please, let us make a little walled upper chamber and let us set a bed for him there, and a table and a chair and a lampstand; and it shall be, when he comes to us, that he can turn in there.”

(2 Kings 4:8-10)

This is “a holy man of God”! Rich people want to host him in their house. He is famous. He is adored. Was Elijah like this? No. Elijah was persecuted. He had to escape from the king and his wife.

And we see more of this in how Elisha dares to behave in front of Naaman, the Aramaic captain:

So Naaman came with his horses and his chariots and stood at the doorway of the house of Elisha. 10 Elisha sent a messenger to him, saying, “Go and wash in the Jordan seven times, and your flesh will be restored to you and you will be clean.”11 But Naaman was furious and went away and said, “Behold, I thought, ‘He will surely come out to me and stand and call on the name of the Lord his God

(2 Kings 5:9-11)

Naaman did not expect such an attitude. This was not accepted. But this is Elisha who got a double portion of the spirit that had been upon Elijah. He, and only he, can act like this.

There are more examples of this arrogance of Elisha in 2 Kings. For example how he speaks to the King in Samaria in chapter 6.

A spiritual principle

The principle we learn from Elisha is that when we approach God and ask for a gift – a spiritual gift – God wants to bestow on us. We might not be perfect, we may not be very nice. We certainly are considered sinners. It does not mean we cannot ask for gifts. And we can ask for a double portion of the Spirit!

Epilogue

The place where Elisha accepted the double portion, is the same place where the sons of Israel entered into the land. But there was another event that took place in the exact same place:

John testified saying, “I have seen the Spirit descending as a dove out of heaven, and He remained upon Him. 33 I did not recognize Him, but He who sent me to baptize in water said to me, ‘He upon whom you see the Spirit descending and remaining upon Him, this is the One who baptizes in the Holy Spirit.’

(John 2:32-33)

Was this spirit, descending from heaven, a double portion? a triple portion? or infinite?

Gustave Doré. The Baptism of Jesus

Evidence for Global Climate Change in the Bible?

desert

When Joshua entered the land of Canaan, did he meet the same land with the same climate that we know today?

 The descendants of Joseph came to Joshua and asked, “Why have you given us only one portion of land as our homeland when the Lord has blessed us with so many people?”  Joshua replied, “If there are so many of you, and if the hill country of Ephraim is not large enough for you, clear out land for yourselves in the forest where the Perizzites and Rephaites live.” (Joshua 17:14-15)

When the sons of Joseph are about to conquer their inheritance in the land of Canaan, it seems that the land is covered with forests so they cannot cultivate the land. Where are those forests today?

Then the people went out into the field against Israel, and the battle took place in the forest of Ephraim. The people of Israel were defeated there before the servants of David, and the slaughter there that day was great, 20,000 men. For the battle there was spread over the whole countryside, and the forest devoured more people that day than the sword devoured. (2 Samuel 18:6-8)

When Absalom stirred a rebellion against David, his father, they end up fighting in the forest of Ephraim. later on Absalom was caught by his hair in a big terebinth tree in that forest. Certainly a thick forest!

Then he went up from there to Bethel; and as he was going up by the way, young lads came out from the city and mocked him and said to him, “Go up, you baldhead; go up, you baldhead!” When he looked behind him and saw them, he cursed them in the name of the Lord. Then two female bears came out of the woods and tore up forty-two lads of their number. (2 Kings 2:23-24)

In the story above, Elisha went from the Jordan valley up to the mountains of Bethel. What interests us in this story is the fact that there were bears living in the woods at that area. Today this area is semi-arid.

The land of Israel in the time of the Bible and today

The three stories above, and many others, leads the reader of the Bible to think that the land of Israel is covered with thick forest where numerous beasts live.

When the American author Mark Twain visited the holy land 150 years ago, he was therefore quite surprised to see just the opposite:

“….. A desolate country whose soil is rich enough, but is given over wholly to weeds… a silent mournful expanse…. a desolation…. we never saw a human being on the whole route…. hardly a tree or shrub anywhere. Even the olive tree and the cactus, those fast friends of a worthless soil, had almost deserted the country.”

(The Innocents Abroad, or The New Pilgrim’s Progress, Mark Twain 1867)

How can we explain the difference between what Mark Twain describes and what the Bible tells about the nature of the land?

The Human intervention theory

In the turn of the 20th century, the Ottomans that were the rulers of the whole middle east, started a project of building the Hejaz Railway – a railway for a train that would go from Damascus to Medina. One branch line from this railway went all the way to Haifa on the Mediterranean Sea.

When using a steam locomotive for a train, one needs a lot of wood for burning and generating the steam. It is evident that the Ottomans cut a lot of the woods in the country for the train to operate.

The theory of human intervention claims that because of the railway and also because of overgrazing of the goats of local shepherds, the woods declined dramatically in the end of the 19 century.

As much as the decline of forest in the end of the 19 century is evident, it cannot explain what Mark Twain told us about the land in the middle of the 19 century.

First, when he visited the land in 1867, the Hejaz railway was only a plan. But moreover, the population of the land was scarce. As Twain himself describes: “a desolation…. we never saw a human being on the whole route”. so ‘overgrazing’ does not sound like the real story here.

The Global Climate Change theory

According to this theory, the climate in the time of the bible was different than it is today, and the land of Israel got much more rain compared to our days at that time of Joshua and the kingdoms of Judea and Israel.

There are climatologists that try to show climate changes according to geological evidence. For example: this site.

Do we have any evidence showing that there was more rain in israel in ancient times?

Evidence from the Negev (desert of southern Israel)

In the arid mountains of the Negev, we can find very old terebinth trees of the species: Mt. Atlas mastic tree (Pistacia atlantica)

terebinth

What is interesting about this kind of tree is that it is very common throughout other areas of Israel that are not a desert. But in the mountains of the Negev, this is the only tree that can be found, and most of the individual trees are very old and are estimated to be hundred years old.

This fact led the scholars of botany to believe that those trees were abundant in the Negev a few hundred years ago, or even thousands of years, and the Negev was not so arid as it is today. during the last hundreds of years the Negev became what it is today, and only very old trees remained as living fossils.

Summary

Regardless of what you think about global warming and climate changes, it is quite clear that the land of Israel had more woods and probably more rain in the time of the Bible. The Negev in the time of the Bible was probably wetter and Israel had real natural forests which are rare today.