2 Kings 2:7

2:1-8 The Lord had let Elijah know that his time was at hand. He therefore went to the different schools of the prophets to give them his last exhortations and blessing. The removal of Elijah was a type and figure of the ascension of Christ, and the opening of the kingdom of heaven to all believers. Elisha had long followed Elijah, and he would not leave him now when he hoped for the parting blessing. Let not those who follow Christ come short by tiring at last. The waters of Jordan, of old, yielded to the ark; now, to the prophet's mantle, as a token of God's presence. When God will take up his faithful ones to heaven, death is the Jordan which they must pass through, and they find a way through it. The death of Christ has divided those waters, that the ransomed of the Lord may pass over. O death, where is thy sting, thy hurt, thy terror!

2 Kings 2:7. Fifty men stood to view — To observe this great event, Elijah’s translation to heaven, which they expected every moment: and whereof they desired to be spectators, not to satisfy their own curiosity, but that they might be witnesses of it to others. Afar off — As they were not permitted to accompany him to the place where he was to be taken up, as Elisha was, they looked after him as far as they could see, probably from some eminence that overlooked Jordan. They two stood by Jordan — The rest, it is likely, being forbidden to go thither with them.

Stood to view; to observe this great event, Elijah’s translation to heaven, which they expected every moment, now when he had taken his last farewell of all the prophets; and whereof they desired to be spectators, not so much to satisfy their own curiosity, as that they might be witnesses of it to others.

Fifty men of the sons of the prophets - We see by this how large were the prophetical schools. It is implied that the "fifty" were only a portion of the school of Jericho. They ascended the abrupt heights behind the town, from where they would command a view of the whole course of the river and of the opposite bank for many miles.

(7) And fifty . . . went. — Now fifty . . . had gone. Stood to view.—Taken their stand opposite, i.e., directly opposite the place where the two were standing by the brink of the river, yet at some distance behind. They wished to see whether and how the companions would cross the stream at a point where there was no ford.

7 . And fifty men ] It is not without surprise that we come at one single centre upon so large a body of men devoting themselves to a holy life in the service of Jehovah, while Ahab’s children are still on the throne of Israel. There seems also to have been, beside Jericho and Bethel, similar colleges at Gilgal and perhaps on Carmel. It would almost appear as though all those who were true adherents of the Lord had betaken themselves to this life of retirement, that they might escape from the evils which followed so thick in the train of the worship of the Baalim. stood to view ] R.V. over against them , and similarly in verse 15. This rendering stands also as one margin of the A.V. The Hebrew word [ neged ] originally signifies ‘in front’ of anything; but since we are in front of anything which faces us, and it may be said to be in front of us, the adverb in the text has a double use. Here it refers to the position of the sons of the prophets as they stood looking towards the departing couple, while in the next chapter ( 2 Kings 3:22 ) it is applied to the blood which the Moabites supposed they saw ‘on the other side’ of the valley. R.V. has ‘over against them’ in that verse also.

Verse 7. - And fifty men of the sons of the prophets went, and stood to view. It is a harsh judgment to blame the "sons of the prophets" for an idle and shallow curiosity in merely "standing" at a distance "to view" the wonderful event, which Elisha was determined to witness as closely, and associate himself with as intimately, as possible. For the sons of the prophets to have approached nearer, and hung on the skirts of Elijah, would have been an impertinence, Elisha's persistence is only justified by his strong affection, and the special office which he held, of attendant minister. The fifty students showed a courteous sense of what was due to the prophet's desire of seclusion by not pressing on his footsteps, and at the same time a real interest in him, and a reasonable curiosity, by quitting their college and "standing to view" on some eminence which commanded a prospect of the lower Jordan valley. There were many such eminences within a short distance of Jericho. And they two stood by Jordan. At length all other human companionship was shaken off - " they two" stood, side by side, on the banks of the sacred stream, which had played so important a part, and was still to play so far more important a part, in the theocratic history.

All the world, except their two selves, was remote - was beyond their ken; the master and the servant, the prophet of the past and the prophet of the coming generation, were together, with none to disturb them, or interfere between them, or separate them. Jordan rolled its waters before their eyes, a seeming barrier to further advance; and Elisha may naturally have looked to see the final scene transacted in that "plain below a plain," the Jordan bed, sunk beneath the general level of the Ghor, green with lush grass and aquatic plants, and with beds of reeds and osiers, but squalid with long stretches of mud and masses of decaying vegetation, brought down from the upper river, and with rotting trunks of trees torn from the banks higher up. But the end was not yet. Jordan was to be crossed, and the ascension to take place from the plain whence Moses, when about to quit earth, had made his ascent to Pisgah. 2 Kings 2:7

In Bethel, and again in Jericho, to which they both proceeded from Bethel, Elijah repeated the appeal to Elisha to stay there, but always in vain. The taking away of Elijah had also been revealed to the disciples of the prophets at Jericho. Thus they both came to the Jordan, whilst fifty disciples of the prophets from Jericho followed them at a distance, to be eye-witnesses of the miraculous translation of their master. The course which Elijah took before his departure from this earth, viz., from Gilgal past Bethel and Jericho, was not merely occasioned by the fact that he was obliged to touch at these places on the way to the Jordan, but had evidently also the same higher purpose, for which his ascension to heaven had been revealed both to Elisha and to the disciples of the prophets at Bethel and Jericho. Elijah himself said that the Lord had sent him to Bethel, to Jericho, to the Jordan ( 2 Kings 2:2 , 2 Kings 2:4 , 2 Kings 2:6 ). He therefore took this way from an impulse received from the Spirit of God, that he might visit the schools of the prophets, which he had founded, once more before his departure, and strengthen and fortify the disciples of the prophets in the consecration of their lives to the service of the Lord, though without in the least surmising that they had been informed by the Spirit of the Lord of his approaching departure from this life.