God told Elijah to anoint Elisha “as prophet in your place” (1 Kings 19:16). He was a prophet of war who would “sweep up” after Jehu by killing those who opposed God (1 Kings 19:17; 2 Kings 13:3; 2 Kings 9:22). When Elijah called Elisha, he slaughtered his own oxen, burned the yokes to cook the meat, and fed the people (1 Kings 19:21). He would not return to the farm.
Elisha’s persistence resulted in his being given a double portion of Elijah’s spirit (2 Kings 2:9; 15). After witnessing Elijah being taken into the whirlwind, Elisha miraculously divided the Jordan river (2 Kings 2:14). When the men of Jericho complained about bad water; he miraculously made water potable (2 Kings 2:22). On his way to Bethel, he encountered youths who mocked him; he cursed them, and two she-bears mauled forty-two of them (2 Kings 2:24). These miracles established his authority as God’s prophet and spokesperson.
Elisha’s miracles profited the great and the lowly. His miracle of oil helped a widow pay her creditors and spare her children from slavery (2 Kings 4:1-7). A Shunamite woman provided him an apartment. He blessed her and her husband to have a son. When he died from a problem with his head, Elisha raised him from the dead (2 Kings 4:8-37). The same woman benefited from Elisha’s counsel to escape a famine (2 Kings 8:1-6). He purified poison stew, and he multiplied bread for 100 men (2 Kings 4:38-44). In 2 Kings 6:1-6, he made an axe-head float helping one of the sons of the prophets.
Elisha benefited God’s people during time of war. His miraculous counsel ensured the defeat of the Moabites (2 Kings 3). It also protected the king of Israel from Syria (2 Kings 6:8-12). Syria sent a force after Elisha. They surrounded him in the city of Dothan. He told his servant, “Do not fear, for those who are with us are more than those who are with them” (2 Kings 6:16). His servant’s eyes were opened, and he saw the mountains full of chariots of fire. He struck his enemies with blindness and led them to Samaria where they were surrounded. He did not have them killed but fed and returned them to Syria. “The bands of Syrian raiders came no more into the land of Israel” (2 Kings 6:23).
During the siege of Samaria (2 Kings 6:24-7:20), the city was reduced to cannibalism. The king wanted Elisha’s head (2 Kings 6:31). When they came to take him, he said the siege would end the next day (2 Kings 7:1). The officer who came to take his head would see the food restored but would not eat it (2 Kings 7:2). The man was trampled by the mobs leaving the city for food (2 Kings 7:20).
Elisha’s most famous miracle was healing Naaman, a commander of the army of Syria who had leprosy (2 Kings 5). A servant girl informed Naaman about a prophet in Israel who could heal him. After speaking with Israel’s king, who disavowed such ability, Elisha sent for Naaman. He commanded him to dip seven times in the Jordan river to be healed. This river drained the entire Jordan valley into the Dead Sea. It was full of filth. Naaman protested that Syria’s rivers were far cleaner and did not immediately obey Elisha. A lowly servant persuaded Naaman. After the seventh dip, he came up clean (2 Kings 5:14).
Elisha prophesied the death of Benhadad and the rise of Hazael (2 Kings 8:7-15). He had Jehu anointed who avenged the wickedness of Jezebel and Ahab (2 Kings 9). Near death, he instructed Joash to strike the ground with arrows to predict deliverance from Syria (2 Kings 13:1-19). After Elisha died, a dead man was placed on his bones who “revived and stood on his feet.” (2 Kings 13:21).
God worked many wonders through Elisha in a time of great wickedness in Israel. Did God’s people listen to His prophets? Sadly, many of them did not. Years later, Jesus said of Elisha, “And many lepers were in Israel in the time of Elisha the prophet, and none of them was cleansed except Naaman the Syrian” (Luke 4:27). Why were not more healed? “A prophet is not without honor except in his own country, among his own relatives, and in his own house” (Mark 6:4).