2. Elijah and Ahariah. Elijah again retires from the history till an act of blasphemy on the part of Ahaziah, the son and successor of Ahab, causes God to call him forth.
(1) Message to Ahaziah. Ahaziah met with an injury, and, fearing that it might be unto death, he, as if to prove himself worthy of being the son of idolatrous Ahab and Jezebel, sent to consult Baalzebub, the idol-god of Ekron; but the Angel of the Lord told Elijah to go forth and meet the messengers of the king (2 Kings i :3, 4), and as sure them that he shall not recover. Suddenly reappearing before their master, he said unto them, 'Why are ye now turned back?' when they answered, 'there came a man up to meet us, and said unto us, Go, turn again unto the king that sent you, and say unto him, thus saith the Lord: is it not because there is no God in Israel that thou sendest to inquire of Baalzebub, the god of Ekron? Wherefore thou shalt not come down from that bed on which thou art gone up, but shalt surely die.' (2) Armed Men. Conscience seems to have at once whispered to him that the man who dared to arrest his messengers with such a communica tion must be Elijah, the bold but unsuccessful re prover of his parents. Determined to chastise him for such an insult, he sent a captain and fifty armed men to bring him into his presence; but lo! at Elijah's word the fire descends from Heaven and consumes the whole band I Attributing this destruction bf his men to some natural cause, he sent forth another company, on whom though the same judgment fell, this impious king is not satis fied till anther and a similar effort is made to capture the prophet. The captain of the third band implored mercy at the hands of the prophet, and mercy was granted.
(3) Death of Ahaziah. Descending at once from Carmel, he accompanies him to Ahaziah. Fearless of his wrath Elijah now repeats to the king himself what he had before said to his mes sengers, and agreeably thereto, the sacred narra tive informs us that Ahaziah died.
(4) Translation of Elijah. The above was the last more public effort which the prophet made to reform Israel. His warfare being now accom plished on earth, God, whom he had so long and so faithfully served, will translate him in a chariot of fire to Heaven. Conscious of this, he deter
mines to spend his last moments in imparting Divine instruction to, and pronouncing his last benediction upon, the students in the colleges of Beth-el and Jericho; accordingly, he made a cir cuit from Gilgal, near the Jordan, to Beth-el, and from thence to Jericho. Wishing either to be alone at the moment of being caught up to Heaven; or, what is more probable, anxious to test the affection of Elisha (as Christ did that of Peter), he delicately intimates to him not to ac company hint in this tour. But the faithful Elisha, to whom, as also to the schools of the prophets, God had revealed his purpose to remove Elijah, declares with an oath his fixed determina tion not to forsake his master now at the close of his earthly pilgrimage. Ere yet, however, the chariot of God descended for him, he asks what he should do for Elisha. The latter, feeling that, as the former's successor, he was, in a sense, his son, and, therefore, entitled to a double portion: or rather. conscious of the complicated and diffi cult duties which now awaited him, asks for a double portion of Elijah's spirit. Elijah. acknowl edging the magnitude of the request, yet promises to grant it on the contingency of Elisha seeing him at the moment of his rapture. Possibly this contingency was placed before him in order to make him more on the watch, that the glorious departure of Elijah should not take place without his actually seeing it. Whilst standing on the otherside of the Jordan, whose waters were mirac ulously parted for them to pass over on dry ground, and possibly engaged in discourse about anointing Hazael king over Syria, angels descend ed, as in a fiery chariot, and, in the sight of fifty of the sons of the prophets and Elisha, carried Elijah into Heaven. Elisha, at this wonderful sight, cries out, like a bereaved child, 'My Father, my Father, the chariot of Israel and the horsemen thereof ;' as if he had said, Alas! the strength and saviour of Israel is now departed! But no; God designed that the mantle which fell from Elijah as he ascended should now remain with Elisha as a pledge that the office and spirit of the former had now fallen upon himself. J. W. D.