And it came to pass as they went on, and talked, that behold, a chariot of fire and horses of fire; and they parted them both asunder; and Elijah went up by a whirlwind into the heavens.
Elijah does not die. Fire comes between him and Elisha, and a whirlwind takes him up. Commentators ask three things here. What does the fiery chariot mean? Why did God give Elijah this exit? And what did Elisha gain by watching?
The fire is not decoration. The Christian's Friend reads it through Psalm 68, quoting an older translation that counts God's chariots as thousands of angels.
"The chariots of God are twenty thousand, even thousands of angels" (Psalm 68:17). So we may conclude that the chariot and the horses of fire are the expression of angelic power. The psalm adds, "The Lord is among them, as in Sinai, in the holy place." So we may also gather that the Lord Himself was in the middle of this display of His power. We may be the surer of this because Scripture often uses the whirlwind as a symbol of His presence, though in judgment. The fire also speaks of judgment. The holiness of God must always look like judgment to His people when they are not walking in His ways. Yet that same holiness is their eternal security and blessedness.
The way he left matched the man. William Kelly points out that heaven is not a place of fire — so the sight marked a turning point for Elisha.
Elijah was in fact a man with a heart and tongue of fire, if I may say so. All his ministry had that character — consuming and judicial, of all men most unsparing. But God let Elisha see him caught up in a chariot of fire, with horses of fire, and with a whirlwind mounting up to heaven. That makes this new starting point of Elisha's important. For heaven is not the place of fire. God's consuming judgments may break out there at times. But heaven, I repeat, is usually not the place of fire. It is the place of love, of peace, of divine glory, of rest and peace, unbroken by sin. And so Elisha was to have his ministry marked by these very qualities.
Elijah had once asked God to take his life. C. H. Mackintosh sets that prayer beside what God actually did.
Had Elijah received his request, how much he would have lost! How much better to be carried up to heaven in a chariot of fire than to be taken away in a fit of impatience! Elijah asked for the latter, but God gave him the former.
Elisha was carrying a promise from his master. J. G. Bellett notes that the walk and the talk never pulled his eye away.
All the time the eyes of Elisha were open. His heart was on the word of his master. He had hidden the promise there, and though he keeps moving on, there is no distraction. The walk and the talk, the circumstances of the journey, had not disturbed his spirit or turned aside his eye. So when the horses and chariot appeared, and Elijah was about to be carried up to heaven, Elisha's eye was on them. He saw his master going up, and got the mantle.
The double portion had a purpose: the work still waiting in Israel.
His past history was closed, so to speak, when his master left. Along with Elijah's mantle he received, as promised, a double portion of his spirit. That was his equipment for the new service he was to carry on among the people of Israel, in the power of resurrection and grace.
A chariot carried Elijah. H. L. Rossier contrasts that with the way Christ went up.
This chariot and these horses of fire were angels (2 Kings 6:17). Their look matched Elijah's character, since as a prophet of the law he had acted by the fire of judgment in Israel. It was not at all like this when the Saviour ascended. He needed no angelic escort to serve Him or to carry Him into heaven. He went up by His own power, having been declared Son of God in power by resurrection. A cloud, the dwelling place of the divine glory, received Him at once and carried Him up from before the eyes of His disciples (Acts 1:9).
Elijah left the world without dying. William Kelly sets him beside Enoch, and reads both as advance signs.
Enoch and Elijah both lived in times of great and growing wickedness. Both were prophets of judgment that would not sleep. God took both of them on high without death. This was a witness of the great taking up that will be the portion of all the living saints who remain. The Lord Himself will descend for them from heaven, and they will be caught up together with the dead saints, raised to meet the Lord in the air.
- Prayer — Elijah once asked to be taken away in a fit of impatience; God gave him a chariot of fire instead.
- Presence — the fire and whirlwind speak of angelic power, with the Lord Himself in the middle of it; the fire means judgment, yet God's holiness is His people's safety.
- Character — fire matched Elijah, the prophet of judgment; but heaven is a place of love and peace, and Elisha's ministry took those marks instead.
- Sight — Elisha's eye never wandered from his master; he saw him go, and received the mantle and the promised double portion.
- Preview — Elijah and Enoch left without dying, a sign of living saints caught up to meet the Lord; yet a chariot carried Elijah, while Christ went up by His own power.
And Elisha saw [it], and he cried, My father, my father! the chariot of Israel and the horsemen thereof! And he saw him no more. Then he took hold of his own garments and rent them in two pieces.
Elijah goes up to heaven, and Elisha stands alone. His cry names what he sees, and his torn clothes answer it. Commentators differ over whether the title he shouts belongs to the heavenly power that took Elijah, or to Elijah himself.
Elisha's part in this scene is that he looks and sees. One writer treats that sight as a picture of what gives a Christian strength on earth:
Do we not know that faith's vision of Christ in the glory is the secret of power for the Christian on earth? Was it not strikingly so in the case of the first Christian martyr? Looking up steadily into heaven he could say, "Behold, I see the heavens opened, and the Son of Man standing at the right hand of God." In the light of that vision Stephen was so filled with power from on high that, like his Master, he could pray for his murderers. While the stones were falling, he calmly committed his spirit to the Lord Jesus.
Some take the words as Elisha's reading of what carried Elijah up. On this view he sees, in that angelic power, the same power that will one day rescue his nation:
My impression about "the chariots of Israel and its horsemen" is that Elisha's faith connects the chariots of God with Israel. That is why he calls them the chariots of Israel. As a prophet he looks at the angelic power that was taking Elijah up, and sees in it the deliverance of Israel by that same power. For us it is the power that worked in Christ when God raised Him from the dead and seated Him at His own right hand in the heavenly places.
Others hear the cry as spoken about Elijah. One man was worth more to the nation than its horses and riders, and the nation could not see it:
He felt that the people of God had lost their surest defence, although the people themselves were too blind to understand it. In the same way the saints are today the world's most precious asset, whether people see it or not.
The verse records a double fact: Elisha saw him go, and then saw him no longer. One writer draws a line between the two: what ended was only the sight on earth.
He sees him in the heavens to which he had ascended, but on earth he sees him no more. Has this no voice for the Christian? Does not the Apostle say, "Even though we once regarded Christ according to the flesh, we regard him thus no longer"? These words in no way mean that we should stop considering Christ in His path through this world. We are still to learn from Him, and to delight our souls in His lowly grace, His tender love, and infinite holiness. They plainly tell us, however, that we are no longer to know Him in connection with Israel and this world.
Elisha does not simply take off his old clothes. He tears them, so that they can never serve him again:
Elisha tears his own garments in two. They will serve him no longer, for he now has Elijah's mantle, the double portion of his spirit. It is in this power that he will walk among the people of Israel. May it be the same with us! May we tear up our old garment after having put on Christ, so that we may present Him in testimony to the world!
Years later a king of Israel wept over the dying Elisha and used the same words. One writer draws out what they meant then:
Joash comes down, weeps over Elisha's face, and says, "My father, my father! The chariots of Israel and its horsemen!" — the same words Elisha himself had used when he saw the prophet going up to heaven. That is, he acknowledged him to be the strength of Israel. What makes it so moving is that Elisha was dying; all natural vigour was leaving him. Elisha had acknowledged that the strength of Israel was not in horses or chariots, but that he himself was their strength. In the same way Joash the king of Israel now acknowledges the dying Elisha, and God confirms the word.
- Sight. Elisha saw Elijah go. That sight is what makes everything else in the verse possible.
- Power. A sight in heaven becomes strength on earth. Stephen saw the Son of Man at God's right hand, and prayed for his killers while the stones fell.
- Defence. The cry names Israel's real protection. Commentators differ on whether it points to the angelic chariots or to Elijah himself. Both readings agree on one thing: Israel's safety never lay in its own horses and riders.
- Loss. He saw him no more. The tie on earth is gone, not the person. Elijah is still known, but now in heaven.
- Tearing. Elisha could never wear those clothes again. He ends the old life at the same moment he receives the new power, and writers apply this to Christians who have put on Christ.