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Commentary Index | Return to PrayerRequest.comKeil and Delitzsch Commentary - 2 King 2:14 - 2:14
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Return of Elisha to Jericho and Bethel, and his First Miracles. - 2Ki 2:14, 2Ki 2:15. Having returned to the banks of the Jordan, Elisha smote the water with Elijah's mantle, saying, “Where is Jehovah the God of Elijah, yea He?” and the water divided hither and thither, so that he was able to go through. אף־הוּא, which the lxx did not understand, and have simply reproduced in Greek characters, ἀφφώ, is an emphatic apposition, “yea He,” such as we find after suffixes, e.g., Pro 22:19; and אַף is only a strengthened גַּם, which is more usual when emphatic prominence is given to the suffix (vid., Ges. §121, 3). The Masoretic accentuation, which separates it from the preceding words, rests upon a false interpretation. There is no need either for the alteration proposed by Ewald, §362, a., of אַף into אַךְ, “he had scarcely smitten the water,” especially as not a single analogous example can be adduced of the use of הוּא אַךְ followed by a Vav consec.; or for the conjecture that the original reading in the text was אֵפֹוא (Houb., Böttch., Then.), “where is now the God of Elijah?” which derives no critical support from the ἀφφώ of the lxx, and is quite at variance with Hebrew usage, since אֵפֹוא generally stands immediately after אַיֵּה, when it serves to strengthen the interrogation (vid., Jdg 9:38; Job 17:15; Isa 19:12; Hos 13:10). This miracle was intended partly to confirm Elisha's conviction that his petition had been fulfilled, and partly to accredit him in the eyes of the disciples of the prophets and the people generally as the divinely appointed successor of Elijah. All the disciples of the prophets from Jericho saw also from this that the spirit of Elijah rested upon Elisha, and came to meet him to do homage to him as being now their spiritual father and lord.