Luke: Jesus, Elijah and Elisha
Luke 7 v 11-17
Soon afterward, Jesus went to a town called Nain, and his disciples and a large crowd went along with him. As he approached the town gate, a dead person was being carried out—the only son of his mother, and she was a widow. And a large crowd from the town was with her. When the Lord saw her, his heart went out to her and he said, “Don’t cry.”
Then he went up and touched the bier they were carrying him on, and the bearers stood still. He said, “Young man, I say to you, get up!” The dead man sat up and began to talk, and Jesus gave him back to his mother.
They were all filled with awe and praised God. “A great prophet has appeared among us,” they said. “God has come to help his people.” This news about Jesus spread throughout Judea and the surrounding country.
In this story, Jesus heals a widow’s son. Then the crowd were overjoyed and stated that a ‘great prophet’ was in their presence.
Elijah and the Widow’s Son
During a drought in Ahab’s reign, God directed Elijah to stay with a widow in Zarephath (1 Kings 17). During this time, God had blessed the widow with unending flour and oil. However, her son became ill and died.
Elijah took him in his arms and went to the upper room. He laid on the boy three times, asking God to bring life back to him. The son was then alive again.
Elisha and the Dead Child
In a previous post, I talked about the woman at Shunammite. Elisha prayed that even though her husband was too old, she would give birth to a child.
Unfortunately, the child becomes ill with headache symptoms. He is taken up and laid on his bed. The woman finds Elisha and asks him to come and heal the boy. By the time Elisha gets to the house, the boy is dead.
Elisha prays and then lies on the boy and he is alive again.
Jesus, Elijah and Elisha
These three stories share some common themes.
In all cases, the child is lifted up, onto a bed or bier. A bier is like a stretcher used to carry a dead body or coffin before burial.
Words are spoken and then the child is revived from the dead. The child is then given back to the mother.
In the cases of Elijah and Elisha, they lie on the body. But Jesus does not even touch the body. He touches the bier and then uses his words to revive the boy. Elisha and Elijah, ask God, but Jesus commands.
The crowd in Luke 7 understood this miracle and linked it to the stories of Elijah and Elisha. These Old Testament prophets were indeed great, but clearly not as great as Jesus.
The Symbolism of Up
In the stories above, all the children are lifted up; either to the upper room, up to their bed or up on a bier.
When people go up, they are symbolically getting closer to God. Think about the Tower of Babel, it was built up toward God. It’s not called the Mine of Babel. They didn’t dig a deep hole in the ground to get to God.
Think about the number of Bible heroes who climb mountains and encounter God.
In the Bible, when we see someone going up a mountain, a hill or in fact elevated above ground level, they are coming closer to God.
This is a very common motif in Scripture and worth looking out for.
Jesus is Greater than Elisha
There are other similarities between Elisha’s life and the miracles of Jesus. These include:
Transforming water (2 Kings 2),
Feeding many people with limited food (2 Kings 4),
Healing lepers (2 Kings 5)
But in all these cases, the miracles Jesus performs far exceed all that Elisha did. And also by a wide margin!