2 Kings 2:19
Ver. 19. And the men of the city said unto Elisha,.... The inhabitants of Jericho, perceiving him to be a prophet, and endowed with a power of working miracles:
behold, I pray thee, the situation of this city is pleasant, as my lord seeth; in a plain, surrounded with gardens and orchards, with vineyards, oliveyards, and groves of palm trees, and other odoriferous ones:
but the water is naught, and the ground barren; that is, that part of it where this water was, or ran, for from thence it became barren; or "caused to miscarry", as the word signifies {q}; not only trees cast their fruit, which it watered, but women became abortive that drank of it, as Josephus says {r}, and so cattle. Abarbinel thinks it was so from the times of Joshua, being cursed by him; but, if so, it would not have been inhabited again; rather this was owing to a new curse, upon its being rebuilt; though this might affect only a small part of the ground, not the whole, as before observed.{q} tlkvm "orbans", Montanus, Vatablus; "facit abortum", Junius & Tremellius, Piscator. {r} De Bello Jud. l. 4. c. 8. sect. 3. 2 Kings 2:20Ver. 20. And he said, bring me a new cruse, and put salt therein,.... One that had never been used, that it might not be thought that the virtue was owing to anything that had been, or was, put into it:and they brought it to him; the pot with the salt in it. 2 Kings 2:21Ver. 21. And he went forth unto the spring of the waters,.... The fountain from whence they flowed, the head of them:and cast the salt in there; which was an unlikely means of making bad water good, since that makes it brackish, and not so drinkable, and what makes ground barren; but this method, contrary to nature, was taken, that the miracle might appear the greater; or, as the Jews express it, be a miracle within a miracle:and said, thus saith the Lord, I have healed these waters; he did not pretend to heal them in his own name, and by his own power, but in the name and by the power of the Lord, to whom he would have it ascribed:there shall not be from thence any more death, or barren land; or miscarrying; no more noxious and mortal diseases should be got by drinking them, nor any abortions occasioned by them in women, cattle, and fruit trees, as had been. 2 Kings 2:22Ver. 22. So the waters were healed unto this day, according to the saying of Elisha which he spake. In the name of the Lord; and not only they remained so unto the time of the writer of this history, but to the times of Josephus, as he testifies {s}, and even to ours; for there is a spring now called Elisha's spring or fountain, of which Mr. Maundrell says {t},"its waters are at present received in a basin about nine or ten paces long, and five or six broad; and from thence issuing out in good plenty, divide themselves into several small streams, dispersing their refreshment to all the field between this and Jericho, and rendering it exceeding fruitful.''So some other travellers {u} say of it, that the water is very clear and cool, and issues in a copious steam. Pliny {w} gives it the name of "Calirroe", the beautiful stream, and speaks of it as hot, wholesome, and medicinal, and of great note.{s} De Bello Jud. l. 4. c. 8. sect. 3. {t} Journey from Aleppo, &c. p. 80. {u} Egmont and Heyman's Travels, vol. 1. p. 331. {w} Nat. Hist. l. 5. c. 16. 2 Kings 2:23Ver. 23. And he went up from thence unto Bethel,.... From Jericho, which lay in a plain, to Bethel, situated on an hill, and therefore is said to go up to it; hither he went, to acquaint the sons of the prophets with the assumption of Elijah, to condole their loss of him, and to comfort and encourage them, and confirm his own authority among them as a prophet in his stead:and as he was going up by the way; the ascent to the city:there came forth little children out of the city; the word for "children" is used of persons of thirty or forty years of age; and though these are said to be "little", they were so well grown as to be able to go forth out of the city of themselves, without any to guide them, or to take care of them; and were of an age capable not only of taking notice of Elijah's baldness, but knew him to be a prophet, and were able to distinguish between good and evil; and, from a malignant spirit in them, mocked at him as such, and at the assumption of Elijah; which they had knowledge of, and to whom, taught by their idolatrous parents, they had an aversion: some Jewish writers {x} say, they were called "Naarim", which we render "children", because shaken from the commandments, or had shaken off the yoke of the commands; and "little", because they were of little faith:and mocked him, and said unto him, go up, thou bald head; go up, thou bald head; meaning not up the hill to Bethel, where his coming was not desirable to the greater part in it, being idolaters; and perhaps these children were sent out to intimidate him with their flouts and jeers from entering there; but having heard of Elijah going up to heaven, as was said, they jeeringly bid him go up to heaven after him, and then they should have a good riddance of them both; thus at the same time mocking at him for his baldness, and making a jest of the wondrous work of God, the assumption of Elijah; which, with behaving so irreverently to an hoary head, a prophet of the Lord, was very heinous and wicked, and therefore what befell them need not be wondered at.{x} T. Bab. Sotah, fol. 46. 2. 2 Kings 2:24Ver. 24. And he turned back, and looked on them,.... With a stern countenance, thereby reproving them, and in order to intimidate them, and make them ashamed, and cause them to leave off, but to no purpose; they repeated their mockeries with great vehemence:and cursed them in the name of the Lord; moved thereunto, not from passion and a spirit of revenge, but by an impulse of the Spirit of God:and there came forth two she bears out of the wood; which are fiercest, and especially when bereaved of their whelps, as these might be; the wood seems to be near to Bethel, perhaps in the wilderness of Bethel, of which see Jos 8:15, and Reland {y} thinks it is the same with the wood of Ephraim, 2Sa 18:6, though the Jews, to increase the miracle, say {z} there was no wood at all, and, if there was, that there were no bears in it; but though those creatures are mostly in northern countries, yet there were of them in Judea, see 1Sa 17:34and tare forty and two children of them; it seems there were more than these; but such a number of them they tore to pieces and destroyed; which was very extraordinary, and was an awful punishment for their wickedness, which they knowingly and willingly committed, and of their parents in them, who had trained them up in such impiety, and put them upon it, and sent them out to do it.{y} Palestin. Illustrat. p. 378. {z} T. Bab. Sotah, fol. 47. 1. 2 Kings 2:25Ver. 25. And he went from thence to Mount Carmel,.... Where Elijah used to frequent, and where also there might be a school of the prophets; this, according to Bunting {a}, was fifty six miles from Bethel:and from thence he returned to Samaria; the capital of the kingdom of Israel; there to bear his testimony against idolatry, to reprove for it, and reclaim from it; this, as the same writer says {b}, was thirty two miles from Carmel.{a} Travels, &c. p. 206. {b} Ibid.
John Gill's Exposition of the Entire Bible.