It is both heartening and, simultaneously frustrating, when the commentators appear unable to agree among themselves. It shows that our wrestling with the text is not a matter of being thick, but a genuinely thorny text that even learned scholars accept is not immediately apparent.

I am currently working on a set of sermon in 2 Kings. My preparation this week has been in 2 Kings 13 . Most of it is straightforward enough as Old Testament narrative goes, except for the following weird little incident:

Then Elisha died and was buried.

Now Moabite raiders used to come into the land in the spring of the year. Once, as the Israelites were burying a man, suddenly they saw a raiding party, so they threw the man into Elisha’s tomb. When he touched Elisha’s bones, the man revived and stood up!
—2 Kings 13:20-21  (CSBA)

The two most pressing questions are:

1. Why did this happen?
2. Why is this here?

It is entirely natural to jump into the commentaries to try and figure it out. Unfortunately, they all seem to disagree with one another!

There are those commentators who just think the episode is entirely nuts and, therefore, should probably be rejected as genuine. Typical of such views is Raymond Calkins (as quoted by Dale Ralph Davis):

The story recounted in vs. 21 is without parallel in Scripture. Nowhere else do we find even a hint of magic power in the bones of the dead. It is a relic of superstitious belief which somehow crept into the tradition concerning Elisha. But it is at least token of our awareness that in death we have dealings with eternity. To be quickened by contact with the living soul of a holy man, though he were dead, is one thing. For a man to come to life because his dead body touched the bones of a saint is something which finds no warrant elsewhere in what we are taught in the Bible of the ways of God.

So, there you have it. This is just a bogus story, God doesn’t work this way, strike it from the record. Needless to say, without any manuscript evidence to reject it, anybody who takes biblical inspiration, infallibility and inerrancy at all seriously will not find this a particularly compelling answer to a tricky episode.

Amongst those less inclined to reject it as some fanciful extra-biblical addition, theories vary. There are those who do very little to help us address those two key questions and content themselves with making bare observations. Typifying this approach is Paul House:

Not even death stops this prophet’s ministry. His predictions about Syria’s defeat live on, of course, as do his miraculous powers… This final Elisha story provides a fitting summary of the prophet and his ministry. Long says, “As he was a man of power in life (chaps. 2-7), moving and persuasive even in stories told about him (2 Kgs 8:1-6 ), so now his awesome powers continue working in death, confirming the prophet and foreshadowing the victory to come.” Elijah has gone to heaven without dying; Elisha has kept giving Israel life after he has died.

This approach only begins to approach the ‘why did this happen?’ question and doesn’t really get us very far in answering ‘why is this here?’ It feels like it makes legitimate and reasonable observations, but contents itself to say no more than that.

Iain Provan goes to more trouble to move beyond mere observation and offers a specific answer to our two questions by reiterating the details and making similar observations to House and then asking, ‘But why should we be told this here? What is the point?’ He first roots the text in the wider covenantal context arguing that ‘God was unwilling to destroy Israel because of Abraham and was “unwilling to destroy” Judah because of David… The two kingdoms are ultimately being treated by God in the same way, whatever the apparent differences we have perceived thus far between them.’ God would not cut off Israel for Abraham’s sake and would not cut of Judah for David’s sake. This section of the narrative is immediately followed by the incident with Elisha’s bones. Provan then argues:

The connection between this story and the verses that follow seems to lie in the use in verse 21 of that same verb ŝlk that is found in verse 23 and in 2 Kings 17:20 . The Israelites “throw” the body (presumably unwillingly) into the tomb; God unwillingly “throws” Israel into exile. The point appears to be this: Elisha, the great protector of Israel, is dead. His was an age when “God saved” Israel (cf. the Hb. root yš^c underlying the name “Elisha” and the words “deliverer” in v. 5 and “victory” in v. 17), even in the midst of great sin (cf. 13:1-7, 14-19). With the passing of that era, Israel has entered a time in which devastating judgement will not long be held at bay. They are shortly to enter the tomb of exile, to be cast out of God’s presence with not so much as a remnant left… Yet even in exile, there is hope. If contact with the great prophets of the past is maintained, through obedience to their teachings (we presume), death may yet be followed by unexpected resurrection (cf. Ezek. 37:1-14 ), defeat by victory.

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