Of the two great figures which the wild highland race of Gilead contributed to the history of Israel Jephthah and Elijah Elijah is incomparably the more commanding. Great in himself, he was made greater by the circumstances with which he was in almost perpetual conflict. Elijah was emphatically a prophet of judgment. His life was by turns that of a statesman, whose strong will swayed the fall and rise of kingdoms, and that of a hermit, whose long visions and prayers were unwitnessed by any human eye.
In the narrative before us we notice:
I. The strong, over-mastering affection which bound Elisha to Elijah. It was a relationship on the one side of fatherly affection, on the other of devoted, reverent service. Out of affection for Elisha, no less than for personal feelings of reverence, Elijah said, "Tarry here, I pray thee, for the Lord hath sent me to Bethel." But affection like Elisha's does not always enter into the motives which rule Elijah. It takes, indeed, no thought of self. If it is true affection, it would rather suffer from being close to its object than escape suffering by distance from its object. Hence the exclamation of Elisha, "As the Lord liveth and as thy soul liveth, I will not leave thee." To be tended by the love of an Elisha is a great blessing; to be an Elisha to some solitary soul is perhaps a greater.
II. The vexations and annoyances to which Elisha's devotion to his master exposed him during the last hours of Elijah's life. The schools of the prophets at Bethel and Jericho do not seem to have looked upon Elisha with very favourable eyes. Their jealousy of him was too keen to allow them to understand what was due to the last hours of the great prophet who was so soon to leave them. The answer of every reverent and healthy soul to such a question as theirs is that of Elisha: "Yea, I do know it; hold ye your peace."
III. Notice the solemn interchange of confidence between the departing prophet and his successor. The meaning of Elisha's request was not for a prophetical gift twice as great as Elijah's. It meant, as the Hebrew term implies, the double portion of an elder son. He asked it, not for himself, but that he might be able to do something for others. But the value to Elisha of that parting scene was independent of, and higher than, the great gift which it won for him. Faith does not now see the chariots and horses of fire, but she listens for words which, since the consecration they received on Calvary, mean infinitely more: "Into Thy hands I commend my spirit, for Thou hast redeemed me, O Lord, Thou God of truth."
H. P. Liddon, Contemporary Pulpit,vol. ii., p. 330 (see also Christian World Pulpit,vol. xxvi., p. 145).