The Death of Elisha - Northern Elijah & Elisha: A Mirror-Reading
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image: Wikimedia commons (link).
This is a mirror-reading of The Death of Elisha Narrative. If you don’t know what mirror-reading is, please visit this page. The Death of Elisha Narrative is primarily concerned with whether Elijah died from his sickness or not and also why the king of Israel shot the arrow of deliverance.
If you’d like a less technical overview, please check out my podcast episode on this narrative. If you’re not familiar with Northern Elijah & Elisha, be sure to check out all of the podcast episodes in that series. I used Tzemah Yoreh's work as the basis for my Northern Elijah/Elisha Source. My mirror-reading map and commentary are listed below. In my commentary, I refer to the author of the Northern Elijah/Elisha source as “M”, after Tzemah’s labeling of the source as “Miracle Workers”.
Mirror-Reading Map
The map below shows how I derived the opposing narrative from the Biblical narrative. It relies primarily on mirrors/echos and cause/effect. For more information about mirrors/echoes, causal chains and my methodology, please visit this post.
Commentary
Please note that “M” refers to the author of the opposing narrative
Did Elisha Die Of His Sickness?
The opposing narrative has Elisha dying from his sickness, whereas M still involves Elisha (his bones), but it is the dead Moabite that’s revived instead. It seems odd that M wouldn’t want Elisha to recover from his sickness and raises the question as to how Elisha’s death benefited M’s agenda.
The Arrow Of Deliverance
In the opposing narrative, it is only the king of Israel involved in taking the bow and arrows, shooting it out the window and declaring it to be the arrow of deliverance from Syria. Since Elisha wasn’t part of the event, M had to insert Elisha into it and does this by having him give the kind of Israel instructions regarding the bow and arrows. Additionally, he promotes Yahweh as the God of Elisha and Israel by naming the arrow “the arrow of Yahweh’s deliverance”.
Elisha & Israel
M promotes that idea that Elisha was not a traitor by having the king of Israel cry over him and referring to him as “father” and as “the chariot of Israel, and the horsemen thereof”. Having Elisha prophecy a pro-Israel event would further solidify Elisha as a prophet for Israel.