Strange Story: II Kings 2 The Company of the Prophets Searched for Elijah

After Elijah was taken to heaven, the company of the prophets begged Elisha to let them go look for Elijah. They persisted until he allowed them to go. Of course, they did not find Elijah.

Why did they want to go look for him? There are two possible reasons. They either expected that God had taken his soul to heaven and left his body somewhere and they wanted to give him a proper burial, or they thought God had simply moved him, translated him from one place to the other (we would call it teleporting) and he was still alive.

Earlier in the story, every school of prophets that Elijah and Elisha came to on that day had already known that Elijah would be taken from Elisha on that day. Did that mean death, or did that mean translation to another place?

From what the budding prophets said, there had been times when God had been translated to another place, he always came back to continue his service at the place where he had been originally assigned. In those cases, moving him miraculously to a different location was for a specific, short-lived assignment only, not a long-term change in assignments. There had also been cases in which God had taken one of His servants to heaven without experiencing death as we know it. Enoch and Moses are examples of this.

The wording used by those pleading with Elisha to let them go look for Elijah does not sound like they are talking about a lifeless body. They refer to Elijah as “your master.” Someone has to be alive to be a master or a leader. It may be that the revelation they had received was not clear, only that Elijah would be taken away. Where Elijah would be taken to was never said.

This group had been watching from the West side of the Jordan. They would have seen the horses and chariot of fire and possibly the whirlwind, but they were not close enough to see clearly that Elijah was in that whirlwind. So they were not absolutely sure, as was Elisha, that Elijah’s body had been taken to heaven.

In the end, we cannot know for sure what their motives were. We just don’t have enough info.

Why Is This in the Bible?

I believe the part about them wanting to look for Elijah is in the Bible to help solidify Elisha’s authority as the man of God for that hour, no longer just an assistant. It is important to recognize that Elijah ended up being one of the most revered leaders in Jewish history. To the Jews there is a very short list of people who occupy the top tier of respected persons in their history. That list includes Abraham, Moses, David, and Elijah. Notice that Elijah was one of the three people that appeared with Jesus on the mount of transfiguration in Matthew chapter 17. If Elijah were still around after the incident with the chariot of fire and the whirlwind, then he was the one the people would want to follow. The fact that they convinced themselves that Elijah was gone for good tells us that they were then ready to follow and obey what Elisha said. Their respect and loyalty were now completely transferred to Elisha because they were convince Elijah was no longer on this earth.