14 Days in the Company of Elijahಮಾದರಿ

Day 9: Calling Elisha (1 Kings 19:9–21; 2 Kings 8:13; 9:1–10)

When the Lord sent Elijah back into action after his brief sabbatical, he commissioned him to anoint two kings and a prophet: Hazael of Aram, Jehu of Israel, and Elisha, son of Shaphat, as Elijah’s own successor (1 Ki. 19:15–16). Of the three anointings, Elijah completed only one before the end of his ministry; it was left to Elisha, his anointed replacement, to carry out the prophetic recognition of the two kings, both of whom would be usurpers used by God to punish the evil monarchs who preceded them (2 Kings 8 and 9).

Elijah’s anointing of his successor isn’t done in the usual manner of pouring oil over his head. Instead, Elijah finds Elisha, who is occupied in a prosaic farmer’s task—plowing a field with a pair of oxen. It must be a large field, since it takes twelve pairs of oxen to plow it; if the field belongs to Shaphat, Elisha’s father, it means that Elijah has disrupted the routine labor of the son of a wealthy landowner. Without speaking a word, Elijah passes by Elisha and throws his mantle or cloak over him (1 Ki. 19:19). The prophet’s mantle was a symbol of his authority and his own anointing as God’s messenger.

Elisha clearly understands the man of God’s wordless gesture, because he abandons the oxen and runs after Elijah, who apparently just kept on walking after flinging his mantle over the young farmer. Elisha promises, “I will follow you,” asking only for a moment to kiss his parents farewell. Like the Lord had done with him in the cave on Sinai (1 Ki. 19:9–13), Elijah probes Elisha’s understanding with an imperative and a question: “Go back again. For what have I done to you?” (1 Ki. 19:20, NRSV). Elijah is asking Elisha to analyze: “What do you think just happened here?”

Elijah just keeps on walking, but Elisha obeys the prophet’s imperative. He goes back to the abandoned oxen on his father’s farm—but only long enough to demonstrate how he understands the significance of that thrown mantle. He slaughters the oxen, uses their wooden yoke as fuel for a cooking fire, and feeds the meat to the workers (1 Ki. 19:21a). He understands that his old life, comfortably situated as a wealthy landowner’s heir, is definitively over. He has been called to a new life, and he embraces the call: “Then he set out and followed Elijah, and became his servant” (1 Ki. 19:21b, NRSV).