Then he took the mantle of Elijah that had fallen from him,
and struck the water, and said,
“Where is the LORD God of Elijah?”
And when he also had struck the water, 
it was divided this way and that;
and Elisha crossed over.
(2 Kings 2:14, NKJV)

What defines you? Many of us are defined by our work, service, or occupation. We commonly identify people by their occupation or profession, so we speak of Bob, the plumber, Maryanne, the nurse, and Tom, the teacher.

The Old Testament prophets played a unique role in the plan of God for his people. But unlike angels sent from heaven, they were the LORD’s earthbound messengers—frail human agents sent to his wayward children. Frequently, they heralded a message of repentance, and they used various means to communicate the word of the LORD. Many of them were writers and their writings became an integral part of the Holy Scriptures. Isaiah, Jeremiah, and Amos are examples of these author-prophets who continue to influence lives today through the written Word.

Elijah and Elisha are prime examples of the non-literary prophets. They did not pen any of the books of the Bible, though their deeds are recorded in the Scriptures so we can learn from their ministry and example. What made this prophetic duo unique was the miraculous signs that accompanied their ministry. Specifically, Elisha, the prophet, was defined by his miracle-working power. The LORD granted his request for a double portion of Elijah’s miracle-working anointing.

But there is more to Elisha’s miraculous signs than a simple display of God’s power. In scope and sequence, Elisha’s miracles run parallel to the miracles of Jesus in a most remarkable way.
However, before we consider the miracles of Jesus and Elisha, we should first be aware that their names are identical in meaning. In his commentary on 1 & 2 Kings, Iain W. Provan makes the following statement:

…that the names “Joshua,” “Elisha,” and “Jesus” have essentially the same meaning (“God saves”), and that John the Baptist is so clearly identified in the Gospels with Elijah, it is intriguing that more is not explicitly made in the NT of the Jesus-Elisha connection.[i]

With these words, Provan has clearly identified the Jesus-Elisha connection that is at the heart of the Elisha Code. The first clue in interpreting the Elisha code is found in the names of these two Bible characters. Both men are identified as saviors of their people.

The second clue or identifying marker comes in the miracles they performed.

Let’s begin by looking at the first miracle of Elisha’s public ministry.

            The people of the city said to Elisha, “Look, our lord, this town is well situated, as you can see, but the water is bad and the land is unproductive.”

          “Bring me a new bowl,” he said, “and put salt in it.”

          So they brought it to him. Then he went out to the spring and threw the salt into it, saying, “This is what the Lord says: ‘I have healed this water. Never again will it cause death or make the land unproductive.’” And the water has remained pure to this day, according to the word Elisha had spoken. (1 Kings 2:19-22, NIV).

There is a striking similarity between Elisha’s first public miracle and Jesus’ first miracle—his turning of water into wine as recorded in John 2:1-12. Both miracles involve the transformation of water—foul water into good water by Elisha—and good water into amazing wine by Jesus.

Both men act at the request of others. Both solve the problem before them by unexpected means.
Jericho is located on the plain of Jordan River near the very saline waters of the Dead Sea. Why was the water bad and the land unproductive? The obvious answer is the high salt content in the soil and water. But what does Elisha do? He asks for a new bowl full of salt.

Can you imagine the consternation of the onlookers as this rooky prophet throws a bowl full of salt into this alkaline spring? Can you hear them muttering, “Good grief! How will that help?”
But Elisha spoke the word of the LORD, “I have healed this water. Never again will it cause death or make the land unproductive.”

In the same way, Jesus, the Word incarnate, spoke transformation over the contents of six twenty-to-thirty-gallon stone jars at the Cana wedding. Imagine the astonishment of the servants who having poured in water, moments later draw out the finest of wines.[ii]

This miraculous sign pointed to the divine nature of the Messiah. He not only duplicates the Elisha miracles but elevates them to a new level. Furthermore, Jesus has been busy transforming the contents of earthen vessels—human vessels—since that time to this present moment.

Which of Elisha’s miracles do believers most readily recall? Undoubtedly, it is the healing of the leper Naaman (2 Kings 5). The story of this Syrian general is frequently taught in Sunday School and occasionally it forms the text for a Sunday sermon. From Elisha’s long series of miracles, pastors and teachers most often cite this account of a healed leper.

In Matthew’s Gospel, following the Sermon on the Mount, the first miracle Jesus performs is the healing of a man with leprosy.

           When Jesus came down from the mountainside, large crowds followed him. A man with leprosy came and knelt before him and said, “Lord, if you are willing, you can make me clean.”
           Jesus reached out his hand and touched the man. “I am willing,” he said. “Be clean!” Immediately he was cleansed of his leprosy. Then Jesus said to him, “See that you don’t tell anyone. But go, show yourself to the priest and offer the gift Moses commanded, as a testimony to them” (Matthew 8:1-4, NIV).

This miracle acted as a signal—a beacon of hope. A new era had dawned. Surely, the prophets of old had returned. After a long absence, they had returned in spirit and power. Those who were alert to the Scriptures could read the signs of the times. The first sign was visible in the transformed body of this leper. The incurable leper had been cured!
Surely the final words of the prophet Malachi were being fulfilled:

            “See, I will send the prophet Elijah to you before that great and dreadful day of the LORD comes. He will turn the hearts of the parents to their children, and the hearts of the children to their parents; or else I will come and strike the land with total destruction” (Malachi 4:5-6, NIV).

The ministry of John the Baptist was the fulfilment of this prophecy, and now Jesus the miracle worker was on the scene duplicating the wonders of Elisha’s ministry. The Old Testament dynamic duo had returned, and the string of miracles recorded in Matthew chapters eight through ten bear witness to this thesis. Each successive miracle acts as a signpost helping us to crack the Elisha code.

Before we continue our look at these signposts, a word of clarification is warranted. When we consider the return of Elijah and Elisha in New Testament times, we should not view this as a form of biblical reincarnation. The Bible does not support an intrusion of Hindu religious philosophy into Christian theology.

When Jesus says of John the Baptist “he is the Elijah who was to come” (Matthew 11:14, NIV), Jesus is speaking metaphorically as he so often did. Other examples of Jesus employing metaphors are statements such as “I am the bread of life” (John 6:35) or “I am the gate for the sheep” (John 10:7).
In clear and direct language, Jesus was stating that John was the prophetic fulfillment of Malachi 4:5-6, the last passage of the Old Testament covenant.

John the Baptist’s link to Elijah is best summed up in the words of the angel Gabriel spoken to John’s father, Zechariah, before the conception of this New Testament prophet:

“He will bring back many of the people of Israel to the Lord their God. And he will go on before the Lord, in the spirit and power of Elijah, to turn the hearts of the parents to their children and the disobedient to the wisdom of the righteous—to make ready a people prepared for the Lord” (Luke 1:16-17, NIV).

Matthew immediately follows up his account of the healing of the leper with the healing of the centurion’s servant (Matthew 8:5-13). Again, there is an unmistakable link here. Elisha healed Naaman, a foreign military leader of leprosy. Similarly, Jesus, the New Testament healing prophet, after healing a leper, commends the great faith of a foreign military leader before going on to heal this Roman centurion’s servant.

The perceptive Jewish reader of Matthew’s Gospel would be intrigued by this juxtaposition of events. But alas, because we may not be steeped in the Jewish Old Testament tradition, we can too easily breeze past these accounts and see no connection between what Jesus is doing and what Elisha did.

The second most frequently sited miracle of Elisha is the raising of the Shunammite’s son from the dead. See 2 Kings 4:8-37. Again, there is a parallel story of bringing a child back to life in Matthew’s Gospel.

While he [Jesus] was saying this, a synagogue leader came and knelt before him and said, “My daughter has just died. But come and put your hand on her, and she will live” (Matthew 9:18, NIV).

The circumstances of the synagogue leader are strikingly similar to the plight of the Shunammite. In both cases, after the death of their child, they travel to their local healing prophet—respectively Elisha and Jesus—fall on their knees before him and plead for the prophet’s intervention. The healing prophet responds by traveling to their home, going alone into to a private room, and raising the child back to life.

Is this similarity a coincidence? Perhaps. If there were two or three instances of similarity in the miracles of Elisha and Jesus, we could chalk it up to coincidence, but as we continue to explore further, we will see a distinct pattern developing. Remarkably many of the miracles of Jesus resemble the miracles of Elisha, though they often rise to a new or higher level.

A classic example of this is Jesus’ feeding of the five thousand. This miracle is found in each of the four Gospels. Furthermore, Matthew and Mark record not one, but two mass feedings, the feeding of the five thousand (Matthew 14:13-21, Mark 6:30-44) and the feeding of the four thousand (Matthew 15:29-39, Mark 8:1-9). But who performed the first miracle of mass feeding recorded in the Scriptures? If you guessed Elisha, give yourself a gold star.

             A man came from Baal Shalishah, bringing the man of God twenty loaves of barley bread baked from the first ripe grain, along with some heads of new grain.

           “Give it to the people to eat,” Elisha said.

           “How can I set this before a hundred men?” his servant asked.

            But Elisha answered, “Give it to the people to eat. For this is what the LORD says: ‘They will eat and have some left over.’” Then he set it before them, and they ate and had some left over, according to the word of the LORD. (2 Kings 4:42-44, NIV)

Despite the much smaller scale of Elisha’s miracle, we see a similar pattern in how this miracle rolls out when it is compared with Jesus’ two crowd-feeding miracles. This includes the instructions given by the respective prophet, the response of their doubt-filled followers, and all three accounts conclude by referring to a surplus of leftovers.

Elisha also accomplished the only miracle of supernatural buoyancy found in the Hebrew Scriptures.

           As one of them was cutting down a tree, the iron axhead fell into the water. “Oh no, my lord!” he cried out. “It was borrowed!”
          The man of God asked, “Where did it fall?” When he showed him the place, Elisha cut a stick and threw it there, and made the iron float. “Lift it out,” he said. Then the man reached out his hand and took it. (2 Kings 6:5-7, NIV).

This is a stunning miracle, but Jesus—Elisha’s New Testament prophetic counterpart—elevates supernatural buoyancy to a whole new level. He walks on water (Matthew 14:22-33, Mark 6:45-52, John 6:15-21), and enables Peter to do the same.

There are also a few examples where Elisha’s miracles are more stunning or perhaps personally relatable than those demonstrated by Jesus. Topping this list is Elisha’s miracle of provision for a widow and her two boys who were about to be sold into slavery to cover an outstanding debt. At Elisha’s command, the widow’s jar of olive oil kept pouring golden liquid until there was sufficient to cover every debt and more leftover to live on. See 2 Kings 4:1-7.

This miracle of provision is an appropriate match with Jesus’ miracle in which he sent Peter to catch a fish. In the mouth of the fish was a four-drachma coin Peter was to use for paying the temple tax for himself and Jesus. See Matthew 17:24-27. Both miracles occur for the purpose of paying money that is owed, and both miracles are stunning when you consider how such events could be possible, but the story of the ever-flowing widow’s jar resonates more strongly with our hearts because of this family’s dire need.
In chapters eight through ten of his Gospel, Matthew is painting a portrait for his Jewish audience of Jesus the miracle-working prophet. It is a portrait that most closely resembles the works of the Old Testament prophet Elisha, and this portrait includes a miracle demonstrating Jesus’ power over nature.

            Then he got into the boat and his disciples followed him. Suddenly a furious storm came up on the lake, so that the waves swept over the boat. But Jesus was sleeping. The disciples went and woke him, saying, “Lord, save us! We’re going to drown!”
           He replied, “You of little faith, why are you so afraid?” Then he got up and rebuked the winds and the waves, and it was completely calm. The men were amazed and asked, “What kind of man is this? Even the winds and the waves obey him!” (Matthew 8:23-27).

Elisha also has a power-over-nature miracle in his repertoire. During a time of war with Moab, he was called upon to prophecy as the armies of Edom, Israel and Judah faced death from thirst in the sun scorched desert.

           While the harpist was playing, the hand of the Lord came on Elisha and he said, “This is what the LORD says: I will fill this valley with pools of water. For this is what the LORD says: You will see neither wind nor rain, yet this valley will be filled with water, and you, your cattle and your other animals will drink. This is an easy thing in the eyes of the LORD; he will also deliver Moab into your hands (2 Kings 3:15-18, NIV).

Elisha’s word came true the next morning as the desert of Edom was filled with water.[iii]

The question the disciples asked in that boat more than two thousand years ago still resonates today. “What kind of man is this? Even the winds and the waves obey him!”[iv]

If we are going to rightly interpret the Elisha code, we need a more accurate picture of Jesus. And to get that accurate picture we need eyes that see beyond the shallow surface. We need to comprehend the Old Testament roots of our faith more fully, or we will remain blind to aspects of what Jesus has done and is about to do through his followers in our day.

In his commentary, Iain Provan states that throughout church history “the typological significance of Elisha in relation to Jesus has been downplayed.”[v]

Now is a good time to correct that oversight.

[i] Iain W. Provan, 1 & 2 Kings, Understanding the Bible Commentary Series. Accordance electronic ed. (Grand Rapids: Baker Books, 2012), 234.

[ii] John 2:1-12

[iii] The next morning, about the time for offering the sacrifice, there it was—water flowing from the direction of Edom! And the land was filled with water (2 Kings 3:20, NIV).

[iv] Matthew 8:27, NIV

[v] Iain W. Provan, 1 & 2 Kings, Understanding the Bible Commentary Series. Accordance electronic ed. (Grand Rapids: Baker Books, 2012), 234.

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