ISRAEL. 
25 
about to be transferred to the guidance of Elisha, were present at Jordan, to witness the 
transmission of liis authority, in the moment of that most wondrous and unearthly 
testimony to his labours, his ascent to immortality without having tasted of the grave . 1 
The Sidonian idolatry was utterly extinguished in Israel. The first public act of 
Elijah had been the extermination of its priesthood by the people, while under the impulse 
of the mighty miracle of Carmel. The last public act of Elisha was the appointment of 
Jehu to the diadem, with the immediate result of rooting out the worship of Baal, and 
abolishing the dynasty by which it had been brought into the unhappy land. 
The general career of Elisha wears the same majestic and vigorous physiognomy 
which marked that of his predecessor. Like him he rescues the Israelite armies from 
successive dangers, paralyses invasion, rebukes the guilt of kings and people, and in all 
things acts as the essential leader of the land. And when, at length, his renown as the 
National Protector becomes so fully acknowledged, that his capture is regarded as the first 
necessary achievement of the war, he defeats at Dothan the army sent to seize him, and 
completes the demonstration of power by a new miracle, before whose magnificence 
imagination droops the wing; he shows the armies of heaven descending, to guard the 
city of the servant of the Lord. 
The healing of Naaman, “ the captain of the host of the King of Syria,” extended 
the renown of Elisha’s powers. But the event is here alluded to merely for the purpose of 
noticing a cavil, grounded on his supposed permission to the Syrian general to worship an 
idol in compliance with authority: “ When my master goeth into the house of Rimmon, to 
worship there, and he leaneth on my hand, and I bow myself in the house of Rimmon: . . . . 
the Lord pardon thy servant in this thing.” Elisha’s only answer is, “ Go in peace.” 
Those Avords are simply the common form of dismissal. The prophet’s commission was 
ended, Avhen the miracle was wrought; he was not empowered to enter into other subjects. 
“ Go in peace,” was simply the declared termination of a Divine act, to which nothing Avas 
to be superadded by either the counsel or the agency of man. 
With the overthroAV of the altars of Baal, the ultimate task of the prophet Avas evidently 
complete. Israel still continued idolatrous; but the zeal of the neAV king, doubtless advised 
by Elisha, and rendered safe by the influence of his character among the people, had relieved 
the nation from a worship not only of the most corrupting vice, but of the most remorseless 
cruelty, for human victims were burnt in its fires. Erom this period, during three reigns, 
we scarcely hear his name; until Joash the king comes to seek his counsel in a new emer¬ 
gency of the state; but he is then in extreme old age, and on his death-bed. Yet his 
character as the National Defender is recognised in the language of the king, at an interval 
of perhaps half a century from his public life. IJoav poAverful must have been its impres¬ 
sion, in the days when the state Avas trembling for its existence, and he stood, the embodied 
strength of Israel. Joash exclaims over his expiring hour, “ My father, my father, the 
chariot of Israel and the horsemen thereof.” Thus identifying his mission with that of his 
master, and giving him the same illustrious title, Avliich, from his own lips, and the shout of 
the prophets, had followed the ascending glory of Elijah . 2 
1 1 Kings, vi. 13, &c. 
2 2 Kings, xiii. 14. 
