How God’s Story Continues With or Without Me (2 Kings & 2 Chronicles)
Do you believe God’s work depends on you? Elijah’s story reminds us that while people come and go, God’s mission always moves forward.
2 Kings 1 - 3; 2 Chronicles 21 - 22
Today's Scripture Passage
A Few Thoughts to Consider
Have you ever felt like you’re indispensable?
In some ways, everyone wants to feel this way. We want to think that when we’re gone, we will be missed. But the truth is that God’s grand story continues with or without us. This was a lesson modeled by the life of Elijah and Elisha.
In 2 Kings 1-3 and 2 Chronicles 21-22, we see a period of turmoil and prophetic activity in the history of Israel and Judah. Both sections depict the consequences of abandoning Yahweh for pagan worship and highlight the role of prophets in guiding and correcting the kings. The transition from Elijah to Elisha is central to this narrative. 2 Kings 2 starts with these words: 1 “The time had come for the Lord to take Elijah up to heaven in a whirlwind. Elijah and Elisha were traveling from Gilgal, 2 and Elijah said to Elisha, ‘Stay here; the Lord is sending me on to Bethel.’”
As Iain Provan writes, “The narrative about the ascension of Elijah is in some ways very puzzling.”[1] The first puzzle is Elijah’s apparent reluctance to allow Elisha to journey with him prior to his being taken up to heaven in a whirlwind. Is Elijah testing Elisha’s resolve? As John Goldingay notes, “Admittedly, it is almost as if Elijah is trying to avoid designating Elisha as his successor, as if he is trying to put him off or to get rid of him; but if so, Elisha passes this test.”[2]
The trip Elijah and Elisha take has symbolic significance. “Gilgal,” August H. Konkel writes, “is most often identified with the site of Israel’s first encampment in the land. Just a few kilometers east of Jericho, the Israelites erected a memorial of twelve stones to commemorate their crossing of the Jordan.”[3] As Paul House says,
The trip from Gilgal to Bethel to Jericho to the Jordan retraces the first movements Israel made in the promised land (cf. Josh 1–8), and the parting of the Jordan may also remind readers of the crossing of the Red Sea. Such a scenario calls attention to the similarities of Elisha’s succession of Elijah and Joshua’s succession of Moses (Num 27:18–23; 1 Kgs 19:15–21). Therefore, the text stresses the continuity of God’s message and God’s messengers in Israel’s history and places Elijah on a par with Moses. The reverse tracing of Joshua’s itinerary also serves as a reminder that every foot of the promised land belongs to God and is under the authority of God’s word.[4]
We should also note that Elisha's (God saves) and Joshua’s (the LORD saves) names have similar meanings. As Provan notes, “We are meant to read the one story against the background of the other.”[5] This whirlwind reminds us of Job 38:1, where “the Lord answered Job from the whirlwind.” As Konkel says, “The force and power of the wind are symbolic of the majestic and holy presence of the divine. The storm is the means by which the immanence of God can be perceived, somewhat like the storm on Mount Sinai (Ex. 20:18–19).”[6]
The beauty of this narrative is that it gives us a wonderful picture of God’s ongoing activity in this world. Elijah was a mighty prophet of God, and yet God’s work continued after he was gone.
