2 Kings 3:13-17 And Elisha said to the king of Israel, What have I to do with you? get you to the prophets of your father… We are apt to believe that the Spirit of God is a solitary agent acting by its own strength and conquering by its own power. We think of the beauties of holiness as themselves sufficient to inspire. Shall the hand of God work in unison with the harp of man! Shall the soul be aided to its vision of Divine glory by listening to the strains of a purely human melody and thrilling to the notes of an instrument with mundane strings! Elisha says "Yes," he calls for a minstrel before prophesying. The minstrel was probably a man vastly inferior to himself, and was perhaps not a religious man at all; yet Elisha was not ashamed to use him for the service of God. Was he here again influenced by the memory of Elijah, by the tendency to imitate his master? Did he remember how that master was fed by ravens? Did he remember how the mightiest was supported by the ministration of the meanest? Did he remember how the mere secular forces of life had been made to serve the kingdom of God? I think it likely. Elisha must have felt that if the tempestuous soul of his master could be content to be fed by earthly streams, the quiet river of his own life might well be thus satisfied too. At all events he was content. He was satisfied to sun himself in a worldly beauty, to cheer himself into the work for God by a study of the work of man. At the time when he had nothing to draw with, he let the Samaritan bring the pitcher. In the hour when his alabaster box was broken, he allowed his costliest treasures to be carried in earthen vessels. And the Christian Church has ever followed the example of Elisha. The voice of the Church has ever increasingly been, "Bring me a minstrel!" She began without the minstrel — in the humble precincts of an upper room. But she found that she needed stimulus. She was marching as an army to battle, and, like an army marching to battle, she acquired a blast of music. Christianity has ascended the hill to the tune of trumpets on the plain; and the feet of the Christian soldier have moved in unison with the measure of an earthly melody. The religion of the Cross has proceeded up the dolorous way crowned with the flowers of the world's field. It has availed itself of every secular aid. It has beautified the places of its worship. It has imparted human graces to its heavenly services. It has cultivated by natural art the voices of its choristers. It has sent its prophets to drink at the wells of worldly wisdom. It has given a literary form to its liturgies It has incorporated with its psalmody the sentiments of men not called inspired. (George Matheson, D. D.) Parallel Verses KJV: And Elisha said unto the king of Israel, What have I to do with thee? get thee to the prophets of thy father, and to the prophets of thy mother. And the king of Israel said unto him, Nay: for the LORD hath called these three kings together, to deliver them into the hand of Moab. |
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