Elisha served the Lord as Prophet in the Northern Kingdom of Israel for more than fifty years, from the end of evil Ahab’s reign, and through the reigns of the just-as-evil Ahaziah, Joram, Jehu, Jehoahaz, and into the early years of Jehoash.
Elisha’s life and ministry were long and fruitful, a time that God demonstrated at least sixteen different miraculous signs. Of all the miracles that God performed during Elisha’s time, the strangest happened after he had died. The story is short…
“Elisha died and was buried. Now Moabite raiders used to come into the land in the spring of the year. Once, as the Israelites were burying a man, suddenly they saw a raiding party, so they threw the man into Elisha’s tomb. When he touched Elisha’s bones, the man revived and stood up!” (2 Kings 13:20–21).
Who was the dead man being carried to the tomb? We’re not told. But as the funeral procession was making its way to the gravesite, a Moabite raiding party appeared on the horizon. Stunned by their appearance, the pallbearers implemented a contingency plan. Finding the first sepulcher, they quickly rolled away the stone and “threw” their dead buddy in atop the decaying bones. Before they could reposition the stone and escape, there was a most shocking development. Their dead buddy wasn’t dead anymore. He “revived and stood up.”
Imagine it. He gets tossed into the grave like a sack of dirty laundry, awakens, shakes off the grave clothes and says, “Where am I?” Who was more surprised, the once-dead guy, or his family and friends. They had been going to a funeral, and now they, and the man still wrapped in the grave clothes were only concerned about evading the Moabites.
Apparently, it was at about this point in the story that someone discovered the grave belonged to the long-dead Elisha. Wow!
This story makes a fitting postscript to the Prophet’s life. God had used him in surprising ways during his extended ministry, and now even after his death.
Elijah had gone to heaven without dying; Elisha doing miracles even after he had died.
“… think on these things” (Philippians 4:8, KJV).
Comments