2 Kings 2 Devotional

The Same God After Elijah

“Then he took the cloak of Elijah that had fallen from him and struck the waters. “Where now is the LORD, the God of Elijah?” he asked. And when he had struck the waters, they parted to the right and to the left, and Elisha crossed over.”2 Kings 2:14 (BSB)

Three times Elisha refuses to leave his master (2:2, 2:4, 2:6). He asks for a double portion of Elijah's spirit, then watches Elijah go up into heaven in a whirlwind (2:9-11). Alone at the Jordan, he strikes the water with Elijah's fallen cloak, asking where the LORD, the God of Elijah, is now, and the river parts (2:13-14). The prophet was gone, but the LORD was not. At Jericho the same God heals a deadly spring by his word (2:21-22).

The chapter ends with a hard scene. A group of boys jeers at Elisha on the road, he curses them in the LORD's name, and two bears maul forty-two of them (2:23-24). It is neither softened nor given as a pattern to imitate. Contempt for the LORD's messenger is not a small thing. Servants of God come and go, but Hebrews says Jesus Christ does not change from one age to the next (Hebrews 13:8). Whatever helper you lose, the God who worked through them remains.

To think about: When someone you relied on is gone, what helps you remember that God himself has not left?