Then the men of the city said to Elisha, "Please note, our lord, that the city's location is good, as you can see. But the water is bad and the land is unfruitful." Sermons
1. There are waters of sin. Men may dispute about the universality of the Deluge in the days of Noah. But here is a flood about whose universality there is no doubt. The Gulf-stream has a well-defined course. But the stream of sin is everywhere. Certain forms of disease are peculiar to certain countries. But the disease of sin is found in every land. (1) There are corrupt currents in our national life. Our political parties are far from being what they ought to be. Compared with those concerned in the government of other countries, perhaps our statesmen may stand high. But compared with the requirements of God's Law, compared with the standard which ought to be required of those who would legislate for a Christian nation, how far short they come! We may thank God for a Christian queen, but who will say we have a Christian legislature? There are Christian men in it, no doubt. But, alas I what an absence of Christian principle in many of the representatives of our people! Some of them notorious atheists. Some of them trampling on the most sacred laws of God and man; and yet - what a mockery! - the professed lawmakers of the nation. What laws in the interests of the Sunday observance, in the interests of morality, in the interests of sobriety and temperance, could we expect from lawgivers who care for none of these things? Truly our political life needs to be purified. We need a reformed parliament in the highest and best sense. (2) There are corrupt currents in our social life. Perhaps, after all, our legislature is but a fair reflection of our national life. No community that was decidedly Christian would return an avowed atheist as its representative. No community that had a high standard of morality would return men notorious for their wickedness. And then the condition of the press also affords an index to the state of public religion and morality. What vile rubbish is circulated in the form of the novel! What corrupting abominations in the shape of newspapers issue from the London press! The same demoralization and degradation which in heathen lands and in ancient Israel were wrought by the worship of idols, are now being wrought by the circulation of bad literature. The immense circulation which some of the worst of these publications have reached affords an unhappy indication of a low standard of public morality. (3) There are corrupt currents in our commercial life. Those who are engaged in business know well that it is so. Customers too often attempting to defraud those who supply them with what they need. Sellers too often attempting to defraud those who buy their goods. Those who are in the employment of others robbing them with one hand while they take their pay with the other. There is a curse upon all ill-gotten gain, that all the excuses of the world, all the benedictions of the wicked, never can undo. Wealth gotten by dishonesty or fraud, wealth gotten at the temporal, moral, or spiritual expense of others, is a foul stream, that will bring its blight upon the whole life, and leave it smeared with slime. 2. How are these corrupt currents to be cleansed? How is this foul stream to be purified? Ah! there is only One who can do it. Laws will not do it. Good resolutions will not do it. Jesus is the great Healer. He pours in the fresh stream of water of life upon the diseased currents of the world. (1) He works through his Word. As Elisha cast the salt into the bad water of Jericho, so Jesus casts the purifying influence of the gospel into the polluted stream of human life. He brings its influence to bear upon the conscience and the heart, alarming men by the fear of death and the terrors of the judgment, and winning them by the still small voice of kindness and of love. (2) He works also through his people. Christians are to exercise a purifying influence upon the world's life. "Ye are the salt of the earth," are the words of Jesus. The full force of this statement is only realized when we remember that in the natural world salt is the great antidote against corruption. To withhold salt from a prisoner used to be, in the dark ages, the most cruel way of bringing about a slow and gradual death, and that under its most loathsome form. Hence it is that the ocean is, as it has been called, "the chemical bath of the world." It is the salt that is in it which is its chief preservative against corruption, and not only so, but which renders it such a source of life and health. Now, just what the salt is to the sea, and what the salt was to the waters of Jericho, Christians are to be to the life of the world. They are not to lose their savor by not exercising an influence upon the world. Then the world is pretty sure to exercise an influence upon them. No; but they are to carry with them into all the relationships of life the teachings of the gospel and the Spirit of Christ. Here is the practical work which Christians have to do in reference to the corrupt currents of which we have been speaking. Every grain of salt exercises an influence, small though it may be. Exercise what influence you have as citizens to secure that public positions shall be filled with Christian men. Resist the spread of impure and vicious literature, and counteract it so far as you can by helping to circulate books and newspapers and magazines of a healthy and moral tone. Let your influence in business and in social relationship be on the side of Christ and purity and truth. 3. Is there one in whose heart and life the stream of sin is still flowing unchecked and unchanged? What have those waters of sin done for you that you thought so pleasant to the taste? Have they never been bitter waters? Have you never suffered the penalty of sin's consequences? Have you never startled at the whisper of an accusing conscience? Has not sin left its blight upon your life? Have you not found, like the men of Jericho, that though the outward surroundings of your life are pleasant, yet the current of your desires and pleasures is only bringing evil with it, and your life is barren of any good or useful fruit? If you think, as some do, that you can yet make it all right by your own exertions, you are making a great mistake. You can never undo the past. Christ alone can give you forgiveness through his blood. Go to him and ask his mercy. Go to him and ask his help to overcome temptation, to conquer old habits, to get rid of old associates. How happy the moment when you hear the Savior of the world, the Son of God, your future Judge, saying to you, "Thy sins be forgiven thee; go in peace"! What moment in the sinner's experience on earth can compare with that when he bears a voice from heaven saying, "Thus saith the Lord, I have healed the waters? 4. But even God's people sometimes need a healing of the waters too. The Christian, too, needs a purifying from sin's corrupting influence. Let the salt of the Divine Word be freely used by God's children, that it may exercise its purifying, preserving influence upon their spiritual life. Our lives would be far holier, far purer, far happier, far more fruitful than they are, if we kept our minds more in contact with the influence of the Word of God. 5. And then there are the bitter waters of sorrow. Trial and suffering will always be bitter to the taste. But he who is the Man of sorrows, and acquainted with grief" knows how to sweeten the bitter cup. Many a tried and troubled Christian has experienced that, "though no chastisement for the present seemeth to be joyous, but grievous, nevertheless afterward it yieldeth the peaceable fruit of righteousness to them that are exercised thereby." Many a time our most bitter trial proves to be our sweetest blessing. We fear as we enter into the cloud, but we see a new vision of Jesus there, and before all is over we learn to say, "Master, it is good for us to be here." The salt of God's Word, here also, has power to purify the diseased waters of unbelief and to sweeten the bitter waters of affliction. In all our troubles we may hear the voice of Jesus saying, "I have healed the waters." 6. To every one who has experienced the healing power of Jesus the exhortation may be given - Be a sweetener of life for others. Is there strife between neighbors, between brethren, between fellow-Christians? Don't do anything to embitter it. Rather seek to be at peace and to cultivate peace with all men. "Blessed are the peacemakers: for they shall be called the children of God." Are there persons known to you in poverty. Try to sweeten life for them by giving them a little of your comforts. Are there young persons, lonely, and far from home and friends? Try to sweeten life for them by a little kindness and attention. Are there some known to you who are going down the broad way to destruction? Give them some message from God's Word, spoken in kindness, that may help, as the salt at Jericho, to purify the muddy current of their life. Learn of Jesus how to do good to others. And though you may but cast in the salt into life's bitter waters, he will bless your efforts, and you will hear him say, "Thus saith the Lord, I have healed the waters." - C.H.I.
And the men of the city said unto Elisha. Jericho, a city of high antiquity, was one of the most important in the land of Palestine. Its walls were so broad, that at least one person — Rahab — had her house upon them. Silver and gold were so abundant that one man — Achan — could stealthily appropriate 200 shekels. Between the city and the far East, there had existed for years, before its occupation by the children of Israel, a wide and extensive commerce, of which the "goodly Babylonish garment," purloined in the act of dishonesty just mentioned, may be accepted as proof. The New Testament notices of Jericho are full of interest. The lonely limestone rocks behind the city formed the scene of our Lord's temptation. It was down the banks of the Jordan, at Jericho, the Master had previously gone to be baptized. Three times in Jericho did our Blessed Lord give sight to the blind. Once in Jericho, the descendant of Rahab the "hostess" accepted the hospitality of Zaccheus the publican. For five hundred and fifty years a doom had lain upon Jericho. She had been the first city to resist the advance of Israel under the leadership of Joshua. She was therefore not only condemned to fall "before the captain of the Lord's host," and amid the much ceremony with which we are all familiar — the annihilation was accompanied with a terrible curse. The man who ventured to rebuild Jericho was to lay the foundation in his first-born, and in his youngest son to set up the gates. Josephus describes the district in his day as quite a fairyland, with its palms and roses, and fragrant balsams and thickly. dotted pleasure grounds — a perfect garden and paradise of Eastern beauty. At the period of the text, however, things were very different. The spring was still suffering from the old doom pronounced against Jericho, it was noxious, unfit for drinking, prejudicial to the soil: "The men of the city said unto Elisha " — who was at this time residing here in the sacred college — "Behold. I pray thee, the situation of this city is pleasant, as my Lord seeth, but the water is naught, and the ground barren."1. The Gospel is "a new cruse" for the world. Christianity comes not in "the oldness of the letter" and the law, but in "the newness of the Spirit." The Gospel, too, begins at the origin of the evil — the heart — that is "the spring of the waters." What is needed is "a clean heart and a right spirit"; the poison is at the fountain-head, and must be dealt with there. Once again, like the salt in the cruse, how unlikely and insufficient at first sight the simple Gospel appears for the world's conversion. The words with which Elisha accompanied the casting in of the salt, and the consequent working of the miracle, are very noticeable: "Thus saith the Lord," exclaimed the prophet, "I have healed these waters." How the change was effected, we cannot tell. Means were employed to show that God in His greatest works has a place for the instrumentality of man. Elisha "cast in" the salt. 2. In the redemption of a lost world, God has room for the energies of believing men. "As ye go, preach." "Sow beside all waters." But God is the grand agent. The power of the healing waters comes from the Great Physician. "The new cruse" and "the salt" in it, both are God's sufficient honour for poor sinful men to be their administrators — let God be "All in All." There was no mistaking the result of the Divine interposition by the hand of Elisha in relation to the bitter waters of Jericho. "Thus saith the Lord, there shall not be from thence any more death or barren land." 3. The figure is that of the Gospel again, both in its influence on society at large and the individual believing heart. Put "the new cruse" and "the salt" once really in, and a new heart leads to a new life, and the world at large, once its springs are really touched, feels it through all its tributaries and ramifications. What has Christianity not done for the social life of man? It has abolished polygamy. It has put honour on the marriage tie. It has created lazar-houses for the sick, and asylums for the penitent profligate. What has it not done for the cause of civil liberty? It has struck the fetters from men. It has proclaimed freedom of conscience. What has Christianity not done for the commercial enterprise and the outward prosperity of the world? The missionary is the pioneer of the merchant. (H. J. Howat.) (L. A. Banks, D. D.) I. IN WHAT PART OF THE WATERS DID ELISHA EXERT HIS POWER? It was the spring. This conveys a deep spiritual truth. We can easily perceive that, had Elisha's attention been directed to the water only a few yards from the fountain-head, his labour would have been for nought. As fast as he sweetened the running water, the bitter fountain would still pour out its venom. But we do not so readily see and allow that, except the corruption of human nature be attacked at the fountain-head, the heart, all other remedial measures can only work a passing effect, since the bitter stream of innate depravity will still run out. II. THE MEANS ELISHA USED. "And he said, Bring me a new cruse," etc. Salt is a conspicuous article in Scripture. It was a pledge of fidelity, and is so still in the East. If you once cat salt with an Arab, his life is pledged for your life, Some few grains of salt and bread pass the lips, and then the words are used — "By this salt and bread I will not betray thee"; and in the Book of Chronicles we read — "The Lord God of Israel gave the kingdom over Israel to David by a covenant of salt" (2 Chronicles 13:5). Salt was also a sign cf maintenance. Thus, in the Book of Ezra, the adversaries of Judah, in stating their case to Artaxerxes the king, say, "Now because we have maintenance from the king's palace" (Ezra 4:14), which is literally, as rendered in the margin, "because we are salted with the salt of the palace" — i.e., supported at the king's charge. When a native of the East means to say he is fed by any one, he uses the expression, "I eat such an one's salt." Salt was also a constant accompaniment of the ceremonial law. "Every sacrifice shall be salted with salt," are the words of Jesus; and it is in this sense that we find our Lord and His apostles using salt figuratively for grace, saying, "If the salt have lost its saltness, wherewith will ye season it? " (Mark 9:49, 1). Thus the means used by Elisha to heal the waters point to another deep spiritual truth — they remind every one of this inquiry, Have ye salt in yourselves? Is grace working in your heart, "mortifying your evil and corrupt affections, and inclining you daily to exercise all virtue and godliness of living"? But there is another feature in the means here used which may convey a useful hint — they were contrary to nature, contrary to any means that man would have employed to produce a like effect. Salt, we know, renders water bitter and nauseous instead of sweet and pleasant to drink, and naturally, therefore, the salt would have served but to increase the brackishness of the fountain. The fact, then, of Elisha using a remedy opposed to the effect wanted, not only went to make the miracle more evident, more palpable, but it also confirmed a stumbling truth — namely, that grace and nature are contrary the one to the other — that the ways of God (so far as seen in this fallen world) and the ways of man in curing an evil are altogether different; both will use means, but the means which it pleases Jehovah to use are not those which man would choose or even think of. "My thoughts are not your thoughts, neither are your ways my ways, saith the Lord " (Isaiah 4:8). Surely these opposites — these unlikely means fetching a good end — are meant to teach us something. What can it be? They were intended to humble man, and to bring him into submission to the righteousness of God. "God chooses foolish things of the world," or things foolish in the world's sight, to "confound the wise" (1 Corinthians 1:27). (G. L. Glyn.) Homilist. I. LIFE AS IT IS. That is, with the pleasant and the painful associated. Now, this is a picture of every man's life.1. It is so materially. How much we have in this material world that is pleasant to our senses, and healthful and strengthening to our bodies; but amidst all there is the painful. There are malarial swamps, pestilential winds, roaring earthquakes, and poisonous minerals and plants, etc. etc. 2. It is so intellectually. There is much in the region of intellect that is pleasant — bubbling springs of thought, tempting regions of inquiry, bright visions and hypotheses bespangling the heavens. But with all this there is much that is painful — dense clouds of ignorance hanging over the scene, hideous doubts howling in the ear, terrific chasms yawning at the feet. 3. It is so socially. How much in social life is pleasant — the friendly grasps, the affectionate greetings, the sweet amenities of those with whom we meet and mingle. But with all this there is much that is painful — social unchastities, hypocrisies, frauds, insolences. 4. It is so religiously. The religious, where the idea of God fills the horizon, there is the infinitely pleasant But in this wonderful region how much of the painful do we experience, what temptation to doubt, what infidelity and blasphemy often assail us, and bring over us the horror of a "great darkness". II. LIFE AS IT MIGHT BECOME. The painful and the pleasant separated. Elisha here separates the painful from the pleasant. Two remarks here. I. The separation was a happy one. He did not take away the pleasant from the painful, but the painful from the pleasant. 2. The separation was a supernatural one. "And he said, Bring me a new cruse," etc. The Gospel is the true" cruse" for separating the painful from the pleasant in the experience of human life. Thank God for the pleasant in your life. Seek earnestly that Gospel cruse whose salt alone can rid your life of all that is deleterious and distressing. (Homilist.) People Elijah, ElishaPlaces Bethel, Gilgal, Jericho, Jordan River, Mount Carmel, SamariaTopics Bad, Barren, Behold, Birth, Cattle, Causing, Dead, Elisha, Eli'sha, Ground, Miscarries, Miscarrieth, Naught, Pleasant, Please, Position, Sees, Site, Situated, Situation, Sterile, Town, Unfruitful, Unproductive, WatersOutline 1. Elijah, taking his leave of Elisha, with his mantle divides Jordan9. and, granting Elisha his request, is taken up by a fiery chariot into heaven 12. Elisha, dividing Jordan with Elijah's mantle, is acknowledged his successor 16. The young prophets, hardly obtaining leave to seek Elijah, cannot find him. 19. Elisha with salt heals the unwholesome waters 23. Bears destroy the children that mocked Elisha Dictionary of Bible Themes 2 Kings 2:19-22 1416 miracles, nature of Library The Translation of Elijah and the Ascension of Christ'And it came to pass, as they still went on, and talked, that, behold, there appeared a chariot of fire, and horses of fire, and parted them both asunder; and Elijah went up by a whirlwind into heaven.'--2 KINGS ii. 11. 'And it came to pass, while He blessed them, He was parted from them, and carried up into heaven.'--LUKE xxiv. 51. These two events, the translation of Elijah and the Ascension of our Lord, have sometimes been put side by side in order to show that the latter narrative is nothing … Alexander Maclaren—Expositions of Holy Scripture Elijah's Translation and Elisha's Deathbed The Chariot of Fire Gentleness Succeeding Strength Preparing to Depart Whether Hope is a Help or a Hindrance to Action? Jericho Itself. Consolations against the Fear of Death. The Country of Jericho, and the Situation of the City. The Baptist's Testimony. Formation and History of the Hebrew Canon. Epistle vii. To Peter, Domitian, and Elpidius. The Upbringing of Jewish Children A Holy Life the Beauty of Christianity: Or, an Exhortation to Christians to be Holy. By John Bunyan. The Twelve Minor Prophets. That Upon the Conquest and Slaughter of vitellius Vespasian Hastened his Journey to Rome; but Titus his Son Returned to Jerusalem. Paul's Departure and Crown; Kings Links 2 Kings 2:19 NIV2 Kings 2:19 NLT 2 Kings 2:19 ESV 2 Kings 2:19 NASB 2 Kings 2:19 KJV 2 Kings 2:19 Bible Apps 2 Kings 2:19 Parallel 2 Kings 2:19 Biblia Paralela 2 Kings 2:19 Chinese Bible 2 Kings 2:19 French Bible 2 Kings 2:19 German Bible 2 Kings 2:19 Commentaries Bible Hub |
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