There is one other tradition regarding E., and tliat the most marvellous of all. His wonder- working power does not terminate with his life. In the spring of the year after his decease a burial is taking place in the cemetery which contains his sepulchre, when it chances that a band of maraud-
ing Moabites comes in sight. The moumeis, In their eagerness either to attack or to escape from the invaders, hastily place the corpse in the tomb of Elisha. No sooner does the body touch the bones of the prophet than the dead man revives and stands upon his feet (IS-*')
Tlie foundation of E.'s character is laid in the strong attections of his home-life (1 K 19"). He learns to call the great ascetic propliet his ' father,' but he never ceases to be attached to his fellow- men. While his career is less impressive than tliat of Elijah, his achievement is to make a common life illustrious. It cannot be said that all the narra- tives show him in an equally favourable light, but on the whole he is represented as humane, large-minded, tender-hearted, a prophet called to comfort, heaJ, and reconcile. Interesting side- lights are thro^^^^ on his character. His (juick per- ception of the litness of things is evidenced by his choice of beasts for a burnt-oU'ering and fuel for his sacrifice (1 K 19-'), his sense of humour by his treatment of the Sjrrian emissaries (2 K 6"), and his tenderness of heart by his tears over Israel's coming misfortunes (2 K 8"). He is constantly (29 times in all) called the man of God, and he proves his love of God by loving men. His religion is to visit the fatherless and widows in their affliction (2 K 4'). And amid all the seductions of court favour he retains the true prophetic simplicity of character and contempt for worldly wealth (5"). Like his great master Elijah, he is eulogized by the son of Sirach (Sir 48"-^*}.
Some of E.'s miracles — the dividing of the Jordan, the increase of the widow's oil, the restora- tion of the Shunammite's son — are almost identical with the recorded miracles of Elijah. The heal- ing of the leper and the multiplying of the barley loaves bring to mind some of tne miracles of Jesus. But it has often been remarked that to find parallels to the miracles of the iron axe-head made to swim, the noxious well healed with salt, the poisoned pot rendered harmless with meal, and the dead man quickened by the touch of the prophet's bone.s, we must go outside the Scriptures. Stanley says that ' E.'s works stand alone in their likeness to the acts of the mediaeval saints. There alone in the sacred history the gulf between biblical and ecclesiastical miracles almost disappears.' And Farrar compares the stories of E. to ' other Jewish haggadoth, written for edification in the schools of the prophets, but no more intended for perfectly literal acceptance in all their details than the lire of St. Anthony or St. Francis.'
Elisha is canonized in the Greek Church, his festival being on the 14th of June.
Literature.— Driver, LOT 186 f. : Wellhausen, Comp. 8889.; W. R. Smith, Proph. oj Itr. 85 fl., IIB, 208 1.; Cornill, Isr. Praph. 14 1.. 33fl. ; Kittel, UM. of Ueii. U. 214 1., 268, 278, 280 fl., 290, 292 J.; Farrar, Bkt. of Kings, U. cit. ; Kuenen. lid. of Iw. i. 360 ff. ; Oraetz, Hist, of Jews (tr. by B. Lowj), i. 213 ; Renan, Hist, of People of Itr. (Eng. tr.), iL 229 9. ; MonUflore, Uibbert Lect. p. 94 1. ; Maurice, Prnphett and Kingt, 142 ; Liddon, Sermotu on OT Subject), 195-334.
J Strachan ELISHAH (r^tS^, *EX.<rd, 'EXeKrai, £/Ma).— The eldest son of Javan according to Gn lU'. In Ezk 27' the Tyrians are said to have procured their piirple dye from the 'isles' or 'coastlands' of E., which shows that we must look for the locality in the Greek seas. Josephus (Ant. I. vi. 1) identified E. with the iEolians ; phonetically, however, this is impossible ; moreover. Greek ethnolo^ made iii;olus the brother, and not the son, of Ton, the Hcb. Javan. Many modern writers have seen Elis in E. ; but the name of Elis properly began with digamma, and is probably the same as the Lat. vril/i.s. Dillmann proposed to identify E. with Southern Italy, and Movers with Carthage; both identifications, however, are inconsistent with the
ELISHAMA
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statement tliat it was the source of the purple dye, and it is difficult to tind any name on either the Italian or the African coast which can be com- pared with that of misluih.
The Tel el-Amarna tablets have thrown a new light on the question. Several of them are letters to the Pharaoh from ' the kinj; of Alasia,' a country which a hieratic docket attached to one of them identilies with the Ejiyptian Alsa. Alsa, sometimes read Arosa, was overrun byTliotbmeslll., and is mentioned in the list of his Syrian conquests enijTaved on the walls of Karnak (Nos. 213 and 23li) .Mospero {Kecueil de Travaux, x. p. 21U) makes Alsa or Alasia the northern part of Coele- Syria. An unpublished hieratic papyrus, however, now in the Ilermilage of St. Petersbur;^, which de- scribes an embassy sent by sea to the king of Gebal in the time of the high priest Hir-Hor, states that the Egyptian envoys were wrecked on the coast of Alsa, where they were afterwards hospitably entertained by the queen of the country. Alsa or Alasia therefore must have adjoined the Mediterranean, and Winckler and W. ftlax Miiller aecordingly propose to see in it the island of Cyprus. Conder had already suggested that AJusia and E. are one and the same. The two chief objections to the identihcation with Cyprus are that the ordinary Egyptian nanic of that island was Asi, and that Thothmes UI. includes the country among his Syrian conquests.