And he departed thence, and found Elisha the son of Shaphat, who was ploughing [with] twelve yokes before him, and he with the twelfth; and Elijah went over to him, and cast his mantle on him.
Elijah was worn out and sure he stood alone. God had just told him that seven thousand in Israel had not bowed to Baal. The first of them He shows him is a farmer at work in a field. The call comes with no sermon, only a cloak thrown over the young man's shoulders as the prophet walks past.
Elijah thought the work rested on him alone. Choosing Elisha answers that fear:
In our own day, with its growing corruption, our outlook is limited. So we often imagine that the work of God depends on one or two devoted and faithful servants of the Lord. We imagine that when they are taken away, all testimony for the Lord will stop. We have to learn that though servants pass, God remains. God has other servants in preparation for His service. And, unknown to us, God has His hidden ones who have not bowed down to prevailing evils.
God found His next prophet behind a plough, not in a palace. Writers see a pattern in this:
The one chosen to take the place of the prophet is not found among the great men of the earth. God is no respecter of persons, and in choosing His servants God is not restricted to the great and noble. He may indeed employ the rich and the learned, kings and priests, as He sees fit. But at times He pours contempt on all our pride by taking up a man from the humblest walks of life to perform the highest spiritual service. So it happens that in the days of Elijah He calls a simple farmer from following the plough to be the prophet of his age.
He was driving the twelfth pair himself. God's call found him hard at work:
Elijah did not find Elisha sitting down enjoying himself or taking a nap in the heat of the day. He found a very industrious man, ploughing with twelve yoke of oxen. This is a good thing to see in the Lord's servants. We see it all through the Bible: God chooses men of action, men of industry, men who can do things... God has called many, many great men from very active lives to serve Him. They proved themselves in their secular calling, and then they proved themselves in the calling of God.
His daily work also matched his future work. One writer reads the field as a picture of the ministry ahead:
His ploughing is typical of the spiritual work God called him to do: ploughing up the consciences of Israel in repentance toward God, so that the seed of the Word of God could be sown.
Elisha was working the last pair himself. Elijah says nothing, and lets the mantle speak:
Elisha is found ploughing with twelve yoke of oxen before him, and "he was with the twelfth" — no doubt a strong and patient farmer. Elijah passes by and casts his mantle on him, showing, I would suppose, that he was to take the place and calling of the owner of it. Elisha clearly understood it that way. But for a moment he yields to his natural affection, and asks permission to go back and kiss his father and mother. The prophet's reply throws him on his own responsibility: "Go back again, for what have I done to you?" It was for him to judge whether Elijah's action toward him had been a divine call or not.
Others press the symbol further, to the power behind the office:
The mantle pictures the Spirit of God, who clothes the one who receives it with spiritual power. So Elisha was to have the same Spirit that Elijah had for serving the Lord.
Elisha was ploughing land the rain had made ready, and the farm was a large one:
The rain Elijah had prayed for had done its work, and the land was ready for ploughing. Twelve yoke of oxen were in use, which shows that Elisha's father was a farmer on a large scale. So Elisha turned his back on good prospects when he accepted the call to follow Elijah. This is what God loves to see in those who serve Him... But, my friends, what has the step cost you? Have you given up something substantial (as people say) to serve the interests of Christ in a needy world?
Elisha shows no shock when the mantle falls on him — a sign, some suggest, that God had been at work in him long before that morning:
God's chosen servants are always trained in secret before they are called to public service. The training ground before the open field — the discipline of training before the noise of battle — is always the order. The future teacher must be taught. The future leader must learn to follow. The future commander must know first how to obey.
- Hidden — Elijah thought the testimony would die with him. But servants pass and God remains, and He keeps ready ones we know nothing about.
- Busy — the call finds Elisha at the twelfth yoke. God calls men already faithful in ordinary work, not idle ones.
- Fitting — the plough matches the mission. Elisha's task was to break up Israel's conscience, so the seed of God's word could be sown.
- Clothed — the mantle, thrown without a word, marked him for Elijah's place and the power to fill it. Elijah's words left the choice with Elisha himself.
- Costly — twelve yoke of oxen was real wealth, and he left it. The passage asks every reader what their own following has cost.
And he left the oxen, and ran after Elijah, and said, Let me, I pray thee, kiss my father and my mother, and I will follow thee. And he said to him, Go back again; for what have I done to thee?
The mantle falls on a man at the plough, and he leaves the oxen and runs. But first he asks one thing, and Elijah's reply is hard to read: rebuke, release, or test?
Elijah says nothing. The mantle itself carries the message, and Elisha understands it.
The mantle pictures the Spirit of God who invests the recipient with spiritual power. So Elisha was to have the same Spirit that Elijah had in reference to serving the Lord. Though Elijah said nothing, Elisha realized what was involved in this. He left his oxen and ran after Elijah, asking him to allow him to kiss his parents goodbye before following him.
Commentators differ over Elisha's words. Some see a good son honouring his parents before a hard new life begins.
Yet Elisha promptly expressed his readiness to follow Elijah. A son's duty and love are right, and rightly held as something sacred. That love led him to ask permission to kiss his father and mother before he began his new work. At a word from Elijah he said farewell to the home, for God's claims are supreme. Discipline is a narrow gate, but it leads into a blessed path.
Others see this as falling short, and measure it against the perfect Servant.
The ties of nature, right enough and really of God in their proper place, are sure, if not kept in their place, to hinder true devotedness. It was all right and very beautiful in Elisha to love his father and mother with the tenderness of a son. But Elijah had just flung the prophetic mantle around him. To say, "Let me kiss my father and my mother, and then I will follow you," was completely below the mark of deep and genuine devotedness. Natural ties are like honey: we must be careful how much we eat and when. Only the true and perfect Servant knew how to balance conflicting claims and keep each one in its place.
Elijah neither argues nor insists. His reply hands the decision back to Elisha.
Elijah's answer throws the responsibility of responding to God's call entirely on Elisha. "Go back again," he says, "for what have I done to you?" He will use neither force nor command. He puts no pressure on Elisha. Elisha must work out for himself what Elijah's act means. He is free to "go back" to his loved ones, or to go forward with the rejected and persecuted prophet.
The reply also says something about the speaker. Elijah is not recruiting for himself.
"Go back again," the prophet answers Elisha, using the same words he had heard from the mouth of the Lord. He was nothing in his own eyes from now on, and this was not the moment to persuade Elisha to follow him. "What have I done to you?" Elijah had not cast his mantle on him to draw him after himself, but that he might be prophet in his place. What a beautiful example this man of God gives us here — humility, self-judgment, unselfishness, obedience, and trust in the Word!
Set Elisha beside the man in the New Testament who wanted first to bury his father. Why did the Lord rebuke him, and not Elisha?
The Lord does not rebuke Elisha for this. Where He Himself was concerned, He did rebuke it — but Elijah was not the Lord, and that is exactly the difference between them. Elijah had no all-absorbing claim that could override a father and a mother. The Lord Jesus had. So it showed a lack of perception, a lack of faith, when the man mentioned in the New Testament wished to go back even to bury his father… The Lord God of heaven and earth was there, and the very first point of faith is that His claim should be supreme. Christ first, and not even the burial of one's father!
The scene puts a question to every reader: which voice do you obey when the two pull opposite ways?
This did not test the prophet's title to God Himself, or his salvation. Elijah had no doubt that Elisha was the Lord's; but this was testing what he thought glory was worth… It is well for us if discipline makes us want it, as it did Elisha. It is well if nature is rebuked — nature, which clings so hard to its life and its rights in us. Nature says, go back and kiss father and mother. The mantle says, go forward after the prophet of God, and that is the voice we should listen to.
- Call — the mantle falls in silence, and Elisha grasps its message: the same Spirit, the same work.
- Claim — the call comes while the plough is moving, and a rival claim meets it at once: father and mother.
- Choice — "Go back again" forces nothing. Elisha is free to go home or to follow a hated prophet.
- Character — Elijah is nothing in his own eyes. He casts the mantle to hand over his place, not to gain a follower.
- Christ — Elijah had no claim that could override a parent. The Lord does, and He asks for first place.