“And there came a man from Baal-shalishah, and brought the man of God bread of the firstfruits, twenty loaves of barley, and fresh ears of corn in his sack.”
A new means of sustenance, more complete than the preceding, is brought to the sons of the prophets who are gathered around Elisha at Gilgal. First of all there are twenty loaves of barley, a poor food, representing as in the dream of the Midianite (Judg. 7), Christ in His humiliation; then ears of grain, firstfruits gathered in the land of Canaan, a type of Christ in resurrection, the grain that Israel long before had tasted in the same place after having crossed the Jordan. Thus the prophetic remnant will gradually come to know, with self-judgment, all the resources they possess in Christ. These resources will be dispensed to them by the Lord, standing with them in spirit. He will feed His poor with bread, as He did during His sojourn on earth. He will make the feeble understanding that they have become fruitful. “Give the people that they may eat.” These are the same words that Elisha had pronounced before in connection with the pot that had been rendered healthful. The thought no longer occurs to them to add their own labor to this food, for it is complete. They “left thereof, according to the word of Jehovah,” just like the five thousand men in Jesus’ time. What would they lack henceforth?
This entire chapter shows us the way by which the believers of the remnant will be led, under the direction of the Holy Spirit. They will be led on from the knowledge of the travail of Christ’s soul to revive them (through self-judgment and their making experience of their own incapacity for good by which all their activity is marked), to the satisfying of all their needs. They will be led all the way through to the knowledge of Christ the Man, bringing holy life into the midst of death, and by their appreciation of a Christ in humiliation, then in resurrection, He becomes their abundant provision. They “left thereof, according to the word of Jehovah.” Others, too, might feed on it; this meal in offered in grace to all.
We have thus been present, in this chapter, at the miracles of the age to come, and this not without finding in them a source of blessing for ourselves. In 2 Kings 2 we have found, in the person of Elijah, the Spirit of Christ sent in grace to the remnant; in 2 Kings 3 the Spirit of Christ rejecting Israel in order to take account only of Judah, and nevertheless acting in grace toward all; finally in 2 Kings 4, the resources of the Spirit of Christ spread out for those who are faithful among the people, then for the sons of the prophets who pass through all the phases of a tribulation in which their faith is profoundly exercised.
What an age that was! What an age we are in! What an age will that of the end times be! But in all ages the Lord has a remnant He loves, sustains, rejoices over, and nourishes—in His eyes the true salt of the earth.