2 Kings 2:19-22 And the men of the city said to Elisha, Behold, I pray you, the situation of this city is pleasant, as my lord sees… What a true picture is here delineated of things on earth! What a living sample of its present state! Look where you will, go where you please, there is something pleasant and something unpleasant. May we not hereby learn how sin has defaced this fair creation, so that nowhere can perfection be seen. And now, therefore, the Lord will bring good out of evil. He will make this city a resting-place for his prophets. I. IN WHAT PART OF THE WATERS DID ELISHA EXERT HIS POWER? It was the spring. This conveys a deep spiritual truth. We can easily perceive that, had Elisha's attention been directed to the water only a few yards from the fountain-head, his labour would have been for nought. As fast as he sweetened the running water, the bitter fountain would still pour out its venom. But we do not so readily see and allow that, except the corruption of human nature be attacked at the fountain-head, the heart, all other remedial measures can only work a passing effect, since the bitter stream of innate depravity will still run out. II. THE MEANS ELISHA USED. "And he said, Bring me a new cruse," etc. Salt is a conspicuous article in Scripture. It was a pledge of fidelity, and is so still in the East. If you once cat salt with an Arab, his life is pledged for your life, Some few grains of salt and bread pass the lips, and then the words are used — "By this salt and bread I will not betray thee"; and in the Book of Chronicles we read — "The Lord God of Israel gave the kingdom over Israel to David by a covenant of salt" (2 Chronicles 13:5). Salt was also a sign cf maintenance. Thus, in the Book of Ezra, the adversaries of Judah, in stating their case to Artaxerxes the king, say, "Now because we have maintenance from the king's palace" (Ezra 4:14), which is literally, as rendered in the margin, "because we are salted with the salt of the palace" — i.e., supported at the king's charge. When a native of the East means to say he is fed by any one, he uses the expression, "I eat such an one's salt." Salt was also a constant accompaniment of the ceremonial law. "Every sacrifice shall be salted with salt," are the words of Jesus; and it is in this sense that we find our Lord and His apostles using salt figuratively for grace, saying, "If the salt have lost its saltness, wherewith will ye season it? " (Mark 9:49, 1). Thus the means used by Elisha to heal the waters point to another deep spiritual truth — they remind every one of this inquiry, Have ye salt in yourselves? Is grace working in your heart, "mortifying your evil and corrupt affections, and inclining you daily to exercise all virtue and godliness of living"? But there is another feature in the means here used which may convey a useful hint — they were contrary to nature, contrary to any means that man would have employed to produce a like effect. Salt, we know, renders water bitter and nauseous instead of sweet and pleasant to drink, and naturally, therefore, the salt would have served but to increase the brackishness of the fountain. The fact, then, of Elisha using a remedy opposed to the effect wanted, not only went to make the miracle more evident, more palpable, but it also confirmed a stumbling truth — namely, that grace and nature are contrary the one to the other — that the ways of God (so far as seen in this fallen world) and the ways of man in curing an evil are altogether different; both will use means, but the means which it pleases Jehovah to use are not those which man would choose or even think of. "My thoughts are not your thoughts, neither are your ways my ways, saith the Lord " (Isaiah 4:8). Surely these opposites — these unlikely means fetching a good end — are meant to teach us something. What can it be? They were intended to humble man, and to bring him into submission to the righteousness of God. "God chooses foolish things of the world," or things foolish in the world's sight, to "confound the wise" (1 Corinthians 1:27). (G. L. Glyn.) Parallel Verses KJV: And the men of the city said unto Elisha, Behold, I pray thee, the situation of this city is pleasant, as my lord seeth: but the water is naught, and the ground barren. |
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