Elisha got started as an independent prophet when he saw the chariot of fire. At that point his predecessor, Elijah, was taken up to heaven in a whirl-wind and a foremost prophet was no more. Fellow-prophets pleaded with Elisha to allow them to conduct a search for their master. He did not approve. When they failed in their search he said that they had ignored a God-given ruling. Elisha staked a claim. With these two prophets we have the beginning of oral, not written, prophecy in Israel. The great writing prophets, Isaiah and Jeremiah, were to take the prophetic tradition to new heights.
No sooner had Elisha embarked on his prophetic task than he ran into trouble. Small boys jeered at him. ‘Get along bald-head,’ was their cat-call. They were making a serious mistake. In 2 Kings 2 we read that Elisha reacted savagely. He turned and cursed them. Two she-bears came out of a wood and mauled 42 of them. So much for those who took the mickey out of one of God’s prophets.
Bald or not, short-tempered or long-suffering, confident or hesitant, Elisha proved to be a worthy successor to the great Elijah. Remember: Elijah was a person of such stature that we are told he appeared with Moses (Mark 9) at the transfiguration. Much would have been expected of any lieutenant who took on Elijah’s role after his departure. Elisha went on, we are told, to fulfil expectations. He performed numerous miracles, including the resuscitating of a seemingly dead boy He demonstrated that a prophet could not only reveal secrets but change the course of events.
Prophets introduced revelation as a ground of religious faith. This was the death-knell of animism and the understanding that natural events and special places – e.g. thunderstorms and wells – were sufficient evidence of divine oversight and activity. Prophets gave men reason to think that God’s revelation might also come in words. Faith became a matter of clarity and definition that led eventually to the composition of the Jewish scriptures and the New Testament documents.
SINGERS AMD RINGERS
The elegant Wimborne Minster magazine reports that the Bournemouth Bach Choir will be performing Handel’s ‘Messiah’ on 20 December in the minster. On 29 December ringers will endeavour to perform 5042 changes of the Lincolnshire Surprise Maximus. The minster has now taken local villages – Holt, Hinton Martel, Horton, Chalbury and Witchampton – under its wing. Leading the ministry team and strengthening the historic link between the Church of England and steam locomotion is Andrew Rowland, a member of the Wimborne Railway Society.
I wish I could say that each of those villages gets a place in Hardy’s stories but memory fails me. Hardy stayed in Wimborne for three years and described it as Warborne in ‘Two on a Tower’.
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