2nd Kings 2: Elisha’s life foreshadows Peter’s

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Did you realize that the ministry of the apostle Peter was prophesied in Scripture? Just as Eliyahu (Elijah) has a New Testament equivalent in Yokhanan (John the Baptist), Elisha also has a New Testament equivalent: Peter.

How do I know? Just look at their biographical details. Elisha does deviate from Peter’s life from time to time but overall, they are very closely connected to each other and one can teach us much about the other. 

Who does Elisha represent in Messiah timeline? Who are the sons of the prophets? What does this “testing of Elisha” teach us?

This chapter shows us the end of Eliyahu’s public ministry and the beginning of Elisha’s public ministry without his teacher Eliyahu. Each city the two of them traveled on Eliyahu’s final recorded journey are touchstones in the history of the children of Israel, including  Jericho, Gilgal, Bethel, etc. 

Each city represents a time of triumph and a time of defeat in the history of Israel. Eliyahu had schools of the prophets in many cities and Elisha was not his only student. When Eliyahu was on Mt. Carmel, he was alone in public ministry but after that, he gathered students and these junior prophets fanned out through Israel to help teach the people more about God. The fact that they were able to tell Elisha that God was going to take Eliyahu away shows us that God did speak to them. They did not have the same power, or renown as Eliyahu or Elisha, but they did have a connection with God. Each school of the prophets were told about Eliyahu’s final journey. Elisha told all of them to keep it silent. Elisha was actually greater than Eliyahu. Elisha is the Apostle Peter. We can see the Apostle Peter’s mind in Elisha footsteps. 

Elisha asked Eliyahu for a double portion. Normally you cant give something more than you have, yet we see here that Elisha was given a double portion. We also see this in Yeshua that He told His Apostles that they would do greater things than He did. Seems impossible that anyone could do more than the Messiah, but that was Yeshua’s prophesy. 

Eliyahu tells Elisha three times to stay behind and Elisha refuses. Elisha also tells his fellow prophets three times to keep silent. Both of these have parallels in the life of the Apostle Peter. 

There are certain things that both Eliyahu and Moses experienced, including 40 day periods of fasting with God on Sinai. Yeshua also experienced 40 days of testing. Moses, Eliyahu and Messiah are all representations of each other. Eliyahu broke the Yarden (Jordan) open as Moses broke the Red Sea open. Now, they are outside Israel. Eliyahu was lifted up to God outside of Israel’s political boundaries. 

Elisha is being tested many times in this story.

Place	Victory	Defeat
Gilgal
Bethel
Jericho	Yehoshua (Joshua) destroyed it.	A friend of King Ahab rebuilt it.

Apostle Peter also endured many tests. Let’s look at Peter in Luke 22. These events in Elisha’s life versus Peter’s life are not sequential, we are looking at the patterns and lessons. 

“Having arrested Him, they led Him away and brought Him to the house of the high priest; but Peter was following at a distance. After they had kindled a fire in the middle of the courtyard and had sat down together, Peter was sitting among them. And a servant-girl, seeing him as he sat in the firelight and looking intently at him, said, ‘This man was with Him too.’ But he denied it, saying, ‘Woman, I do not know Him.’ A little later, another saw him and said, ‘You are one of them too!’ But Peter said, ‘Man, I am not!’ After about an hour had passed, another man began to insist, saying, ‘Certainly this man also was with Him, for he is a Galilean too.’ But Peter said, ‘Man, I do not know what you are talking about.’

Immediately, while he was still speaking, a rooster crowed. The Lord turned and looked at Peter. And Peter remembered the word of the Lord, how He had told him, ‘Before a rooster crows today, you will deny Me three times.’ And he went out and wept bitterly.” (Luke 22:54–62)

Both Elisha and Peter tells those to keep silent, not to reveal his identity what is going on. 

When Elisha sees Eliyahu go into the clouds, he asks for a double portion. Elisha comes back across the Jordan and is now premiere among the prophets. When Yeshua was taken into heaven, taken up to God, Peter than becomes the primary leader of the community, possessing the “keys to heaven.”  Just because you are the one in charge, doesn’t mean everyone will obey you. Anyone wanting that mantle will be tested. When Elisha comes back, he is tested, too. He split the water just as Eliyahu did and the people saw that Elisha was someone special now. 

The people also looked for Eliyahu’s body for three days and never found it. The people also wanted to recover Yeshua’s dead body but never found it. 

“But when Peter saw this, he replied to the people, ‘Men of Israel, why are you amazed at this, or why do you gaze at us, as if by our own power or piety we had made him walk? The God of Abraham, Isaac and Iacob (Jacob), the God of our fathers, has glorified His servant Jesus, the one whom you delivered and disowned in the presence of Pilate, when he had decided to release Him.

‘But you disowned the Holy and Righteous One and asked for a murderer to be granted to you, but put to death the Prince of life, the one whom God raised from the dead, a fact to which we are witnesses. And on the basis of faith in His name, it is the name of Jesus which has strengthened this man whom you see and know; and the faith which comes through Him has given him this perfect health in the presence of you all.

‘And now, brethren, I know that you acted in ignorance, just as your rulers did also. But the things which God announced beforehand by the mouth of all the prophets, that His Christ would suffer, He has thus fulfilled.

‘Therefore repent and return, so that your sins may be wiped away, in order that times of refreshing may come from the presence of the Lord; and that He may send Iesous (Jesus), the Christ appointed for you, whom heaven must receive until the period of restoration of all things about which God spoke by the mouth of His holy prophets from ancient time. Moses said, “THE LORD GOD WILL RAISE UP FOR YOU A PROPHET LIKE ME FROM YOUR BRETHREN; TO HIM YOU SHALL GIVE HEED to everything He says to you. And it will be that every soul that does not heed that prophet shall be utterly destroyed from among the people.” And likewise, all the prophets who have spoken, from Samuel and his successors onward, also announced these days. It is you who are the sons of the prophets and of the covenant which God made with your fathers, saying to Abraham, “AND IN YOUR SEED ALL THE FAMILIES OF THE EARTH SHALL BE BLESSED.”

‘For you first, God raised up His Servant and sent Him to bless you by turning every one of you from your wicked ways.'” (Acts 3:12–26)

The people noticed that Peter had great power, which he received from the Messiah just as Elisha had received his power from Eliyahu. Elisha’s first test after walking back over the Jordan is to clean bitter waters from Jericho, which was a very new city in Elisha’s lifetime. Peter has a different yet similar test. Peter glorified God the same way Elisha did. Peter healed the lame man and he was able to walk in life just as Elisha cleaned the water and gave the city their life back. 

Some of us may think that the story of Elisha cursing the youths may be petty, but it has a clear parallel in Peter’s life. 

“Then he went up from there to Bethel; and as he was going up by the way, young lads came out from the city and mocked him and said to him, ‘Go up, you baldhead; go up, you baldhead!’ When he looked behind him and saw them, he cursed them in the name of the LORD. Then two female bears came out of the woods and tore up forty-two lads of their number.” (2nd Kings 2:23–24)

Who does not get mocked at some point in their lives? We all have. We have to just endure it, responding to it just makes it worse. We don’t get to kill our mockers. They weren’t physically attacking Elisha, just harassing him. They were “lads” not grown adults. There were 42 who were mauled, there may have been survivors but was the point of it? Why did God want this story? Let’s look back at the book of Acts at another “petty” incident in Peter’s life. Forty-two deaths seems like a severe overreaction to verbal abuse. 

Let’s read Acts 5:1-11, the account of Anais and Sapphira. The land and the money was a petty, small thing to die over. But there was a deeper matter here and we see that in Peter’s judgement when he said, “Why is it that you have agreed together to put the Spirit of the Lord to the test?….” (Acts 5:9).

The lads did not care about who old Elisha was, his power or prophesy. They were mocking God. That’s why their petty act wasn’t so petty wasn’t so petty and that is the same reason Aninas and Sapphira died. 

King David when he fled Absolom, a particular man who came along, who was a parallel to Peter. That old man stood by David in a way that Peter did not. That old man was blessed by David that when he was old, his house would be put in order. Peter on the other hand, when He denied Messiah three times, he was told that he would not have control over his life, he would be lead to death. Peter became feeble and weak. Elisha also died in feebleness. 

Who are the New Testament equivalent of the “sons of the prophets”? Yeshua’s followers down through time, from the saints of old, the martyrs to our day are the “sons of prophets.” We all learned about Yeshua from those who came before, we all learned the same. We are all the followers of Yeshua. We are following the same path they did. 

There are many prophets who spoke out. Not all their messages are recorded in scripture because their messages were not relevant to all of us. Their messages were limited to a place and time. Prophets are not fortune tellers. When you teach and bring a person closer to God, you have become a prophet in a small sense. We all can pursue God, and there are many gifts, not just prophesy. 

Elisha does deviate from Peter’s life from time to time but overall, they are very closely connected to each other and one can teach us much about the other. 

Speaker: Daniel Agee. Summary: Tammy.