And it came to pass when they had gone over, that Elijah said to Elisha, Ask what I shall do for thee, before I am taken away from thee. And Elisha said, I pray thee, let a double portion of thy spirit be upon me.
Elijah's last journey ends beyond the Jordan. There he turns to the man who refused to leave him and offers him anything he asks. What Elisha asks shows what he has become — and the words "double portion" are often misread.
Elijah does not put the question earlier in the journey. He waits until they cross the river — the place of death.
Arrived on the other side of Jordan, outside the land, all is at once changed. Not until then does Elijah say, "Ask what I shall do for you." Grace puts all the power of a risen man at the disposal of Elisha. Death has opened the way for the outflow of sovereign grace. How little we realize the profound fact that all the grace and power of the risen Christ are at our disposal. What an opportunity for Elisha! He has only to ask and he will receive. His faith rises above anything the natural heart might want, and at once he asks for a double portion of Elijah's spirit. He realizes that if he is to remain on earth in Elijah's place, he will need the spirit of Elijah.
An open offer exposes the one who receives it. A single sentence was about to reveal everything Elisha had learned on that road.
The parting moment has come. Elijah is about to be caught up to heaven. Elisha will lose his master and stay behind in a nation turning away from God — a nation that was once the Lord's people. In this solemn moment Elijah speaks his final word, "Ask what I shall do for you, before I am taken from you." Could Elijah have made this offer before? Is it not, as it were, the supreme test for Elisha? Will the answer show whether Elisha has entered into the spirit of his call? Will it show what Elisha has before him — earthly gain, selfish ambition, and worldly power? Or is his one purpose from now on to stand in the prophet's place?
The phrase does not mean twice the power his master had.
Not a double portion compared with Elijah's, but a double portion compared with any other as a successor of Elijah. A double portion was the firstborn's portion. He asked for this, for the firstborn's portion.
The eldest son's larger share was not a luxury. It equipped him to stand in his father's place.
The "double portion" was the firstborn's share (Deuteronomy 21:15-17). It made him able to represent the dead father well, and to keep up the honour of his name. All in the Church are firstborn ones (Hebrews 12:23). God gives them blessings that believers in earlier ages never knew. Nothing could be richer than the portion we have in the risen Christ — that "better thing" which God has "provided for us" (Hebrews 11:16). By the power of the Spirit we come to enjoy it. So we are made fit to represent the absent Christ well in the place where He was rejected.
Elisha's answer matches another man who was told to name what he wanted.
This reminds me of Solomon in 2 Chronicles 1. Solomon had shown that he was taking his throne in the right spirit. Then God appears to him and says, "Ask what I shall give you." Elisha's answer to Elijah is like Solomon's answer to God. Solomon does not ask for the life of his enemies, nor for riches and honours for himself. He asks for wisdom to carry out the service given to him over the Lord's people.
Read this way, the verse stops being history and becomes an examination.
Let me ask you a question. Suppose the Lord Jesus were about to leave this world. Suppose He said to you tonight, "Ask what I shall do for you, before I am taken from you." What answer would you give? Remember: whatever you asked for, whatever kind of thing you asked, it would show plainly what your heart is set on. Your request would declare what was in your heart. Our prayers show the real state of our souls more than anything else — even more than our conversation. A heart that is truly loyal to Him has one ruling desire: "I want to represent You on this earth." That was what Elisha asked for.
- Death first. Elijah makes the offer only after they cross the Jordan; death opens the way for such grace to flow out.
- Test. "Ask what I shall do for you" is a test of the heart, exposing whether Elisha wanted earthly gain or his master's place.
- Firstborn. The "double portion" is the eldest son's share. It is measured against other possible successors, not against Elijah himself.
- Representation. That share let the heir represent his father well; Elisha wanted it so he could represent the man going to heaven.
- Us. All in the Church are firstborn ones, and the Spirit fits them to represent an absent Christ in the place where He was rejected.
And he said, Thou hast asked a hard thing if thou see me when I am taken from thee, it shall be so to thee; but if not, it shall not be [so].
Elijah answers his servant Elisha with a warning and a condition. The request is hard, and it all turns on one thing — will Elisha see him go?
Elijah does not refuse. He compares it with what people usually chase after:
Elijah replies, "You have asked a hard thing." To gain riches, fame, and worldly power may bring hard work and frustration of spirit. But they are not "hard" things. Men of the world can get these material advantages. To get spiritual power, or to give it, is entirely outside what the natural man can do. Still, says Elijah, "if you see me as I am being taken from you, it shall be so for you, but if you do not see me, it shall not be so." Elisha will get the double portion of spiritual power only if he sees Elijah in his new position as the ascended man. The sight of Elijah in heaven will be the secret of Elisha's power on earth.
The closing words carry as much weight as the promise:
"You have asked a hard thing!" — spiritual power is not easy to get. "If you see me as I am being taken from you, it shall be so for you": so there was a way to get spiritual strength. "...but if you do not see me, it shall not be so" — there was no other way to get spiritual strength.
The phrase is easy to misread as twice Elijah's power. It comes from inheritance law:
"Please let there be a double portion of your spirit on me." Not a double portion compared with Elijah's own. It is a double portion compared with any other successor of Elijah. A double portion was the firstborn's portion. He asked for this, for the firstborn's portion.
What Elisha wanted was not just a copy of his master:
He wanted to inherit the zeal for God and righteousness that had filled and marked his master. But he wanted it with a spirit of grace that Elijah had perhaps lacked. The "double portion" rested upon Elisha. Men might wonder at the change that came over him, but it was a secret between God and his soul.
Elijah's condition is simple:
Nothing can be more simple; it is, "If you see me taken." We do not read that Elisha ever saw him more than the once. On the contrary, it says, "He saw him no more." But he saw him taken, and that is the point. Show me the ruler of this world who could say to his subject, "If you see me in a certain position, I will give you something of myself." That is what we have here.
One writer sees the same secret in the first Christians:
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 steadily into heaven he could say, "Behold, I see the heavens opened, and the Son of Man standing at the right hand of God." That vision filled Stephen with power from on high. So, like his Master, he can pray for his murderers. While the stones fall, he quietly commits his spirit to the Lord Jesus. So too the Apostle of the Gentiles begins his Christian life with the sight of Christ in the glory.
The picture points forward to Christ:
Elijah spoke with authority. At this point he is a picture of the risen Christ, who has boundless blessings to give to His own. Faith now sees Christ risen and glorified... Elisha did see his master taken up, and received his mantle as it came down on him. The risen Christ has sent down to us the Holy Spirit.
Wanting the gift was not enough. Elisha also had to keep his eyes open:
Watchfulness was also necessary so that he might not lose sight of the prophet at the moment of his departure. "They went on and talked," apparently busy with various subjects, but Elisha's eye kept only one object in view. He could be interested in all the things the rich heart of his master was telling him, but his eye was undivided. He just did not want to miss that solemn moment. We are not called, as Elisha and the first disciples were, to see Jesus going up into heaven in the cloud. But should we not have the same attitude toward His coming as they had toward His departure?
- Hard, not impossible. Anyone can reach money and fame. No natural man can get spiritual power, or give it. That is why Elijah calls the request hard.
- Firstborn's portion. The double portion is the eldest son's share, not twice Elijah's power. It marks Elisha out from any other successor.
- One condition, one channel. See Elijah go, and the gift is yours. Miss it, and there is no other way to spiritual strength.
- Sight before service. Seeing the ascended man is the secret of Elisha's power on earth. Stephen and Paul began the same way.
- A single eye, mid-conversation. Elisha walked and talked yet never let his master out of view; the gift went to the man who did not look away.
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.