Greater Men and Women of the Bible by James Hastings: 351. The Mantle of Prophecy

Online Resource Library

Commentary Index | Return to PrayerRequest.com | Download

Greater Men and Women of the Bible by James Hastings: 351. The Mantle of Prophecy


Subjects in this Topic:



I



The Mantle of Prophecy



1. Elisha was God's gift to Elijah in his dark hour. He had scarcely uttered, in magnificent despair, his burning words, “I, even I only, am left,” when God gave him the name of a young man already fit to be anointed as prophet in his room. Elijah could recognize no kindred spirit, except in the sudden flame of Carmel's fire, but God could discern the possible reformer in a young farmer at the plough, as He had already discovered Gideon on the hidden threshing-floor. Whether Elijah had any previous knowledge of Elisha or not, the direction given was sufficiently clear to enable him to find his successor. Abel-meholah was situated in a rich agricultural district in the country of Manasseh, on the west side of Jordan. In a field there Elijah found the man he sought. There were twelve yoke of oxen, each yoke ploughing a furrow. The last of the twelve men, following each his plough, was Elisha the son of Shaphat. Into the midst of this peaceful and busy scene came Israel's renowned prophet, and passing over to Elisha, cast his mantle upon him. Probably no word was spoken. The mantle was the sign of prophetic office and power, and the symbolic act was at once apprehended by Elisha. For a moment he stood in amazement, not unmingled with awe, at the high calling thus suddenly come to him. When he fully came to himself, Elijah had passed on, and was already leaving the field. The call was given, but he to whom it was given was left absolutely free to accept and obey it or not as he willed. The casting of the mantle conveyed the call; Elisha's conscience interpreted it, and his will accepted it.



2. He ran after Elijah at once and asked permission to kiss his father and mother before leaving all to follow him. This request is proof of how heartily and definitely he accepted the commission; how ready he was, at the call of God, to break with the life of ease, and take up the hard work of a prophet to an unwilling people. The response of Elijah has seemed to some to convey a rebuke, as if he were “indignant at this re-awakening of desire for the world.” But this request meant the forsaking of the world, not the desire for it. The fact that Elisha did return indicates that the man who heard the words did not take them as a rebuke. They meant in all probability simply that Elijah refused all responsibility in the matter, referring the young neophyte to his Lord, from whom the call had come.



Elijah was no hard Stoic, unnaturally trampling on the sweet affections of the soul. He was no despotic spiritual guide full of gloomy superstition, like the grim Spaniard, Ignatius Loyola, who seemed to hold that God liked even our needless anguish and our voluntary self-tortures as an acceptable sacrifice to Himself. When St. Francis Xavier, on the journey of the first Jesuits to Rome, passed quite near the castle of his parents and ancestors, the teachings of Loyola would not suffer the young noble to turn aside to print one last kiss upon his mother's cheek. Such hard exactions belong to that sphere of will-worship and voluntary humility which St. Paul condemns. Excessive violence needlessly inflicted on our innocent affections finds no sanction either in ancient Judaism or in genuine Christianity.1 [Note: F. W. Farrar.]



3. Elisha rose to the height of that day's call. He turned back to the oxen and servants, he took the yoke of oxen he himself was using, he killed them, lighted a fire with the ploughshare, cooked their flesh, and feasted his servants. He would have them know that what he was doing he was doing with a glad and a happy heart; he would show them that the day God calls him is no day of sorrow and mourning, but is a red-letter day in his life. Then, leaving father, mother, servants, cattle, and land, his good position, and his comfortable home, he set forth to follow the homeless wanderer. The irrevocableness of his decision, and the joyful alacrity with which he acted upon it, are both indicated by the slaughter of the oxen and the feast with the farm-servants in the open field. The feast, though not perhaps a sacrificial priestly act, had a distinctly religious aspect. It was the formal separation from his past life, and devotion to the new sphere opening up before him. In killing the yoke of oxen with which he had been ploughing, and using the wood of the plough to make the fire, he plainly indicated his final and voluntary separation from the quiet life in Abel-meholah, and the definite surrender of himself to the call and the will of God.



From Paris, his business completed, he set forth for Strassburg; but knowing that the direct route was barred by the war, Calvin made a long detour, reaching Geneva in the latter half of July, and intending to pass only a single night in the city before resuming his journey to the Rhineland. His presence was made known to Guillaume Farel, who was struggling to maintain the Evangelical cause in the recently formed city. Farel, always fiery and eloquent, urged and adjured Calvin to stay and aid in the difficult endeavour. It was a moment of far-reaching decision, for Calvin recognized, as he believed, the Divine call, and, if God had spoken, His voice was to be obeyed. “Farel kept me at Geneva,” he said, writing of the event, “not so much by advice and entreaty as by a dreadful adjuration, as if God had stretched forth His hand upon me from on high to arrest me.” That the task was hard and unexpected was no reason why that Divine summons should be disregarded. God, he thought, had set before him the work to be done. He would enter on it.1 [Note: Williston Walker, John Calvin, 158.]