After this Elisha went for a time to the ancient haunts of his master on Mount Carmel, and thence returned to Samaria, the capital of his country, which he seems to have chosen for his most permanent dwelling-place.
[37] The name Elisha means "My God is salvation."
[38] Gen. xiii. 10. "The city of palms" (Deut. xxxiv. 3).
[39] Jos., _B. J._, IV. viii. 3; Robinson, _Bibl. Researches_, i. 554.
[40] Abarbanel's notion that they meant "Ascend to heaven as Elijah did" is absurd.
[41] [Hebrew: kereha] This means bald at the back of the head, as [Hebrew: nibbeha] (_gibbeach_), means "forehead-bald" (Ewald, iii. 512). Elisha could not have been bald from old age, since he lived on for nearly sixty years, and must have been a young man. Baldness involved a suspicion of leprosy, and was disliked by Easterns (Lev. xxi. 5, xiii. 43; Isa. iii. 17, 24, xv. 2), as much as by the Romans (Suet., _Jul. Cæs._, 45; _Domit._, 18). Elisha's prophetic activity lasted through the reigns of Joram, Jehu, Jehoahaz, and Joash (_i.e._, 12 + 28 + 17 + 2 years).
[42] The [Greek: katepaizon] of the Vat. LXX. implies persistent and vehement insult. The Post-Mishnic Rabbis, however, say that Elisha was punished with sickness for this deed (_Bava-Metzia_, f. 87, 1).
"What reinforcement we may gain from hope, If not, what resolution from despair." MILTON, _Paradise Lost_, i. 190.
Ahaziah, as Elijah had warned him, never recovered from the injuries received in his fall through the lattice, and after his brief and luckless reign died without a child. He was succeeded by his brother Jehoram ("Jehovah is exalted"), who reigned for twelve years.[43]
Jehoram began well. Though it is said that he did "that which was evil in the sight of the Lord," we are told that he was not so guilty as his father or his mother. He did not, of course, abolish the worship of Jehovah under the cherubic symbol of the calves; no king of Israel thought of doing that, and so far as we know neither Elijah, nor Elisha, nor Jonah, nor Micaiah, nor any genuine prophet of Israel before Hosea, ever protested against that worship, which was chiefly disparaged by prophets of Judah like Amos and the nameless seer.[44] But Jehoram at least removed the _Matstsebah_ or stone obelisk which had been reared in Baal's honour in front of his temple by Ahab, or by Jezebel in his name.[45] In this direction, however, his reformation must have been exceedingly partial, for until the sweeping measures taken by Jehu the temple and images of Baal still continued to exist in Samaria under his very eyes, and must have been connived at if not approved.