And he left the oxen and ran after Elijah and said, “Let me kiss my father and my mother, and then I will follow you.” And he said to him, “Go back again, for what have I done to you?”
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?
The mantle cast on a working man
Elijah says nothing. The mantle itself carries the message, and Elisha understands it.
Leslie M. GrantThe 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.
Asking to kiss his father and mother
Commentators differ over Elisha's words. Some see a good son honouring his parents before a hard new life begins.
A J PollockYet 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.
C. H. MackintoshThe 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.
"Go back again — what have I done to you?"
Elijah neither argues nor insists. His reply hands the decision back to Elisha.
Hamilton SmithElijah'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.
Elijah nothing in his own eyes
The reply also says something about the speaker. Elijah is not recruiting for himself.
H. L. Rossier"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!
Elijah was not the Lord
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?
William KellyThe 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!
Two voices, one decision
The scene puts a question to every reader: which voice do you obey when the two pull opposite ways?
J. G. BellettThis 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.
Summary
- 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.