Part 2: The Blessing of the World

Elisha, The Prophet of God

He said, Then bring meal. And he cast it into the pot; and he said, Pour out for the people, that they may eat. And there was no harm in the pot.—2 Kings 4:41

 In the preceding article we considered five episodes in Elisha’s ministry which represent blessings for Israel. The next five miracles Elisha performed represent blessings that will come for those outside of Israel. We number them six through ten, following the count of the first five.

6) The Pottage Made Wholesome (2 Kings 4:38-41). This is a brief episode of four verses. This miracle occurred at Gilgal, which in the Elijah-Elisha picture represents Sectarianism, where the church began at the outset of the harvest. Here it represents the same. There was a pot of stew for the sons of the prophets, but someone shredded into it a gourd from a wild vine, which was poisonous: “There is death in the pot” (2 Kings 4:40).

Elisha had the cure: “Then bring meal. And he cast it into the pot; and he said, Pour out for the people, that they may eat. And there was no harm in the pot” (2 Kings 4:41). Christendom feeds from the Scriptures, but they have added into the brew false doctrines from the “vine of the earth” (Revelation 14:18), a wild growth in counterfeit of the true vine, our Lord and his church. The doctrine of inherent immortality leads to the doctrine of grotesque unending torture for billions of people. The doctrine of the three-person-god confuses the mind. The meal put into the stew represents the ransom doctrine. This clarifies everything. As the hub of a wheel, the truth radiates out from this central feature. When this doctrine is understood in the kingdom, the noxious brew of Christendom will become healthful and nourishing.

7) Twenty Barley Loaves (2 Kings 4:42-44). The next episode is only three verses. A man from Baalshalisha brought some barley bread and grain of the firstfruits, twenty loaves and some in the husk. Elisha said to set it before the people to eat, but the servant was concerned that there were one hundred people, too many for the limited food. Elisha assured him they would eat as they wished, and yet leave remnants left over, and it was so.

Baalshalisha is mentioned once elsewhere, at the beginning of the kingdom of Israel (1 Samuel 9:4), now again at the reestablishment of the kingdom at Israel. It was springtime evidently, the time of the firstfruits of the barley harvest. The firstfruits of the barley harvest, offered on the third day from the sacrifice of Passover, represents Christ who was raised from the dead on the third day following his crucifixion. Context recounts a miracle in which Christ multiplied barley bread to feed the multitudes, with leftovers (John 6:9); no doubt Jesus would have remembered this episode as an example for his miracle. It represents that the “bread from heaven” would be sufficient to nourish all who come to him for life. This process begins in the Gospel age, but has a wider application in the Millennium.

Two (as well as twenty, two hundred, two thousand) represents the holy spirit, which comes to us through the Scriptures in two parts. The nourishment of Christ will be the nourishment of the holy spirit to the world. The number one hundred is used in the Old Testament as an arbitrarily large number (Proverbs 17:10; Ecclesiastes 6:3), and in Isaiah 65:20 an arbitrarily high life span as evidence of divine blessing. So here the one hundred persons is an arbitrarily large number to represent the world of mankind in the kingdom. The ransom is shown in the Tabernacle as one hundred sockets of silver, so we have a symbolic correspondence to show that the ransom will apply to the entire world.

8) Healing Naaman the Leper  (2 Kings 5:1-27). Naaman of Syria was a Gentile. This incident was used by Jesus to demonstrate that the Gentiles would receive the favors of God through the gospel. During the Millennium those favors will extend even more profusely to the entire world.

Leprosy is a symbol of sin, and this miracle represents the cleansing of the world from sin. It will occur not by some spectacular achievement on their part. Instead it will be through simple obedience to the divine directive to cleanse themselves: humbly, patiently, laying aside the sinful things, and applying noble and honest principles in their lives. Naaman washed in the Jordan, the same river in which our Lord was baptized much later. Probably this shows that the cleansing of the world depends on their acceptance of the sacrifice which Jesus began at Jordan.

Nothing rich Naaman could pay could secure the blessed relief he received. He offered gifts, but Elisha refused them. Nevertheless, the gifts he offered are symbolic of the value of redemption. He offered ten talents of silver, each one the value of a silver socket in the Tabernacle, representing the ransom; ten changes of garments, justification for the world pictured by the ten peoples of Genesis 15:18-21; and of gold 6,000 pieces, suggesting the divine church will cleanse the world from 6,000 years of sin and death.

Elisha said, “Let him come now to me, and he shall know that there is a prophet in Israel” (2 Kings 5:8). By the healing of the nations, the world will know the prophets of God are among them. The seven dippings in Jordan remind us of the seven sprinklings of lepers in Leviticus 14:7 and shows complete cleansing.

9) The Floating Axehead (2 Kings 6:1-7). The sons of the prophets wished to build a home at Jordan, and in the process an axehead dislodged from an axe and fell into the river where it could not be seen and its location could not be certain. It seemed hopelessly lost, and “it was borrowed” (2 Kings 6:5).

So the world wishes a home, an everlasting habitation of comfort, space, and peace. But at the beginning, there was a disastrous loss when Adam and his lovely bride lost their lives by disobedience. The axehead would have been of iron, whose reddish color when oxygenated gives blood its red color, and accounts for the name “Adam,” red or ruddy. The lost axehead represents the lost life of Adam. “It was borrowed”—it was from God.

The prophet took a branch from a tree and placed it in the river about where the axehead went down. Evidently its fingers went under the axehead, and when the wooden branch was permitted to float upward, it bore on it the precious lost item. So from the tree on which Jesus was crucified is borne, symbolically, all the lost hopes of Adam and his race.

The word “Jordan” means judged. This river represents the world of mankind condemned, flowing into the Dead Sea from which there is no natural escape (but see the cure for this in Ezekiel 47). Thus it is an appropriate place for showing the loss of Adam’s life, and regaining it through the ransom sacrifice of Christ who would “taste death for every man” (Hebrews 2:9).

It is interesting that the mention here of Jordan completes a reference to each location prominent in the last journey of Elijah and Elisha together: Gilgal (pot of stew), Bethel (mocking youths), Jericho (sweetened waters), and Jordan (floating axehead). Perhaps this intends to connect the ministry of the Millennial age with the service of the saints who are developed during this age.

10) The Syrian Raiders (2 Kings 6:8-23). Syria was the enemy of Israel in the north. They sent raiding parties against Israel, but Elisha warned the king about them, which saved Israel repeatedly. When Elisha was identified as the source, the king of Syria sent a party to apprehend him. Elisha was in Dothan, the same location where Joseph was sold by his brothers (Genesis 37:17), as though to suggest that Israel, as regards faith in Messiah, is at the same place they were 2,000 years ago.

With the Syrians were “horses, and chariots, and a great host” who came by night and circled Dothan, as Gog will seek to take Jerusalem. Elisha was undaunted, for he knew the even mightier forces of God—“the mountain was full or horses and chariots of fire” (2 Kings 6:17). Elisha prayed for his fearful companion to see also, representing the prayer of the Ancient Worthies to open the eyes of Israel to Jehovah’s protection for them in the impending crisis.

The Syrians were smitten with blindness of a sort. They seemed to see normal things, but be unaware of where Elisha led them, until inside Samaria at the mercy of Israel. And there they did receive mercy. They were fed, watered, refreshed, and sent on their way, which changed their attitude toward Israel so that such raiding parties ceased thereafter. So the world, though intent on damage to Israel, will be blessed by Israel. It will change the world for the better.