page_title: Elisha
section_title: Wonder-worker
hierarchical_section_title: Elisha / Bible stories / Wonder-worker
caption_attribution_description: English: A Famine in Samaria (2Kings 6:18-30) Русский: Голод в Самарии (4 Цар. 6:18-30)
context_page_description: Elisha was, according to the Hebrew Bible, a prophet and a wonder-worker. Also mentioned in the New Testament and the Quran, Elisha is venerated as a prophet in Judaism, Christianity and Islam. Amongst new religious movements, Bahá'í writings refer to him by name. His name is commonly transliterated into English as Elisha via Hebrew, Eliseus via Greek and Latin, or Alyasa via Arabic, and Elyesa via Turkish. He is said to have been a disciple and protégé of Elijah, and after Elijah was taken up in a chariot of fire, he gave Elisha a double portion of his power and he was accepted as the leader of the sons of the prophets. Elisha then went on to perform twice as many miracles as Elijah.
context_section_description: Elisha cleansed the infected waters of Jericho which were considered to be a cause of miscarriages and fatalities. To relieve a prophet's widow importuned by a harsh creditor, Elisha so multiplied a little oil as to enable her, not only to pay her debt, but to provide for her family needs. There is a Jewish tradition, or legend, that the woman's husband was Obadiah, the servant of King Ahab, who hid 100 prophets in two caves. To reward the rich lady of Shunem for her hospitality, he obtained for her from Yahweh, at first the birth of a son, and subsequently the resurrection of her child, who had died. To nourish the sons of the prophets pressed by famine, Elisha changed a pottage made from poisonous gourds into wholesome food. He fed a hundred men with twenty loaves of new barley, leaving some left over, in a story which is comparable with the miracles of Jesus in the New Testament. The Cambridge Bible for Schools and Colleges notes that the focus of this narrative does not dwell "on the increase of the bread by a miracle, and we are left to accept the result as either brought about in that way, or by the appetites of the men being satisfied with a small quantity."
  Elisha cured the Syrian military commander Naaman of leprosy but punished his own servant Gehazi, who took money from Naaman. Naaman, at first reluctant, obeyed Elisha, and washed seven times in the River Jordan. Finding his flesh "restored like the flesh of a little child", the general was so impressed by this evidence of God's power, and by the disinterestedness of His Prophet, as to express his deep conviction that "there is no other God in all the earth, but only in Israel." Elisha allowed Naaman to continue in the service of the Syrian king and therefore be present in the worship of Rimmon in the Syrian temple. In the Christian tradition, Jesus referred to Naaman's healing when he said, "And there were many lepers in Israel in the time of Elisha the prophet: and none of them was cleansed but Naaman the Syrian."
  Elisha's public political actions included repeatedly saving King Jehoram of Israel from the ambushes planned by Benhadad, ordering the elders to shut the door against the messenger of Israel's ungrateful king, bewildering with a strange blindness the soldiers of the Syrian king, making iron float to relieve from embarrassment a son of a prophet, confidently predicting the sudden flight of the enemy and the consequent cessation of the famine, and unmasking the treachery of Hazael.
  Other miracles Elisha accomplishes include the recovery of an axe fallen into the waters of the Jordan. He administered the miracle at Dothan, half-way on the road between Samaria and Jezreel. At the siege of Samaria by the king of Syria, Elisha prophesied about the terrible sufferings of the people of Samaria and their eventual relief.
  Elisha then journeyed to Damascus and prophesied that Hazael would be king over Syria. Mindful of the order given to Elijah, he directs one of the sons of the prophets to anoint Jehu, the son of Jehoshaphat, as king of Israel, and commissions him to cut off the house of Ahab. The death of Jehoram, pierced by an arrow from Jehu's bow, the ignominious end of Jezebel, the slaughter of Ahab's seventy sons, proved how faithfully executed was the Divine command. After predicting to Jehoash his victory over the Syrians at Aphek, as well as three other subsequent victories, ever bold before kings, ever kindly towards the lowly, "Elisha died, and they buried him."
caption: A Famine in Samaria (illustration by Gustave Doré from the 1866 La Sainte Bible)
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