Elijah’s history as a prophet of judgment ends in 2 Kings 1. 2 Kings 2 presents the end of his career and the mysterious happenings that accompanied this great event.
In the Word we meet many mysteries, secrets hidden from all eternity in the heart of God, things that eye has not seen, nor ear heard, and that have not entered into the heart of man. These mysteries remained unknown under the old covenant, but there is not a single one which is not revealed to us by the Spirit of God in the New Testament. Yet nevertheless, despite this revelation the Word is full of mysterious things which spiritual intelligence alone discovers. The Lord could make them clear to us in a few words, but for our greatest profit and for the greatest joy of our souls He allows us to discover them. It is only by study done with prayer in dependence upon the Holy Spirit and by seriously applying ourselves to the things of God that we find the key to these enigmas. Thus we learn to recognize a hidden sense in a fact that appears to be simple, just like a diamond that an ignorant person takes as an ordinary stone, but which dazzles with its brilliance the one who applies himself to cut it. The second part of John 1 and chapter 21 of the same Gospel (John 21) are full of these hidden treasures. The same is true of our chapter (2 Kings 2); scarcely another can surpass it in interest, in intimate experiences, in prophetic revelations, in majestic grandeur. In presenting Elijah and Elisha to us it speaks of Christ and of His Spirit; it is above all else a typical chapter.
More than once, as for example in the story of the widow of Sarepta (cf. Luke 4:2626But unto none of them was Elias sent, save unto Sarepta, a city of Sidon, unto a woman that was a widow. (Luke 4:26)), God honors the prophet Elijah by making use of him to portray certain specific qualities of His Well-beloved, but the last day of his prophetic career is used to illustrate the life, the death, and the ascension of the Messiah, and the blessings which were bound to flow from thence upon His people. This privilege of Elijah’s is in a measure that of every believer, for each of us is called upon to reproduce the qualities of Christ in the world. If it is true that we are “in Him” before God, it is also true that He is “in us” before the world, and that we are called to manifest Him before the eyes of all. If a Christian is faithful, he will be a copy that will at very first glance make its original known. Whoever does not see in this chapter the truth of which we are speaking has in fact seen nothing. Only, we have said, all is presented to us in a mysterious light. That which adds to the mystery is that Elijah is not alone. Elisha, his fellow prophet and his servant, does not leave him for even an instant and sees him going up to heaven; then he returns to “the sons of the prophets,” whose circumstances take up the rest of our history.