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at the beginning of Elisha's ministry was so understood, appears from this
circumstance that his ministry never afterwards seems to have encountered active
opposition.
Once more the prophet was pursuing his lonely way where last he had walked in
company with his master. For it will be remembered, that the last station at which
Elijah and Elisha tarried on their way to Jericho and the Jordan was Bethel. And this
also is significant. As regards Elisha, because it must have called up most solemn
thoughts, especially now when he was entering upon his work; and not less so as
regarded the Bethelites who had last seen Elisha in company with Elijah just before
his ascent. It did recall to them the last appearance among them of the two, but only
to make mockery of the event connected with it. But this was to scoff alike at the
dead and at the living prophet, and also at the great power of Jehovah. Thus it was
really open defiance of God, all the more inexcusable that it was entirely
unprovoked, and that it offended against the law of man almost as much as against
that of God. For it was not only a breach of hospitality, but it discarded that
reverence for authority specially of a religious kind, which has at all times been a
characteristic feature in Eastern life.
Slowly had Elisha ascended those 3000 feet which lead up from the low plain of
Jericho to the highlands where Bethel lies.^138
He was climbing the last height - probably up the defile of Wady Suweinit, where the
hills above still bear marks of the extensive forest that once covered them - when he
encountered a band of "young men," who, as the text seems to imply, had gone forth
to meet him. They were not "little children" (according to our A.V.), but young men,
as we infer from the use of the same expression in the case of Solomon (1 Kings 3:7),
when he was about twenty years old, and the application of a similar, even stronger,
designation to the youthful advisers of Rehoboam.^139
And their presence there meant a deliberate purpose. We have no means of
ascertaining how they may have learned the approach of Elisha, or come to know
that the great prophet, whom the fifty strong men had sought in vain, had "gone up,"
even although they may have attached to this only the vaguest notions. But as the
taunt, "Baldhead," was undoubtedly a term of reproach, in whatever sense they may
have used it,^140 so the cry "Go up, go up!" with which they followed him, seems to
us a mocking allusion to the ascent of Elijah.^141
In the spirit that prompted the words of Moses and Aaron (Exodus 16:6- 8), and of
Peter (Acts 5:3, 4), not, we feel assured, in that of personal revenge, Elisha turned
round and pronounced on them that doom which soon afterwards^142 overtook them
in a manner so strange that it seems to have been specially intended to attract public
(^)