To Elisha they say, "Let us go, we pray thee." They are going to get this deliverance by their own means! Often we are like them. We try to get something we already have in Christ. How foolish we are as Christians. We will take up with most anything we read in the newspaper or hear over the air, but we won't read our Bibles or meditate. Isn't that strange? Only by the Word of God do we get deliverance.
They want to go "unto Jordan"; that's a good start. They want to "take thence every man a beam," for they think they must work to get their deliverance. Is the Spirit made perfect by the flesh? "And let us make us a place there, where we may dwell." They want to make for themselves a place of rest. In response to their requests and plan Elisha says, "Go ye."
Why did Elisha say, "Go ye," when he knew that their work could not produce the deliverance and rest they desired? Someone once asked Mr. Darby how he could get out of the condition described in Rom. 7. He answered, "You have to get into it first. You must see your need before you can understand the remedy for it. You can't get out of something you haven't got into." And so the prophet says, "Go ye." Because every believer has this experience, he must pass through Rom. 7. Elisha passed through the experience as well.