Elisha's Death and Israel's Struggle

Jehoahaz son of Jehu reigns seventeen years. Hazael and his son Ben-hadad oppress Israel. "And the LORD gave Israel a saviour, so that they went out from under the hand of the Syrians." Aram had left Jehoahaz "but fifty horsemen, and ten chariots, and ten thousand footmen."

Jehoash weeps over the dying Elisha: "O my father, my father, the chariot of Israel, and the horsemen thereof." "Take bow and arrows… Open the window eastward… Shoot." "The arrow of the LORD's deliverance, and the arrow of deliverance from Syria." "Smite upon the ground." He strikes three times and stops. "Thou shouldest have smitten five or six times; then hadst thou smitten Syria till thou hadst consumed it."

"And Elisha died, and they buried him." Moabite raiders come; men burying a body throw it into Elisha's tomb, "and when the man was let down, and touched the bones of Elisha, he revived, and stood up on his feet." Hazael dies. Jehoash recovers cities from Ben-hadad, defeating him three times.

An unnamed savior

The "saviour" of 13:5 is not named. Proposals: Adad-nirari III of Assyria, whose campaigns against Damascus (c. 796 BC) weakened Aram; Jehoash or Jeroboam II; or a deliberate anonymity pointing to God. The library's Greek reads "the Lord saved Israel," without a separate savior.

Jehoash in an Assyrian inscription

The Tell al-Rimah stele of Adad-nirari III lists tribute from "Iu'asu of Samaria," generally read as Jehoash of Israel, about 796 BC. It is the first Assyrian text to call Israel's king "of Samaria."

Elisha's bones

Sirach 48:13–14 recalls that Elisha's body prophesied after death. Later Christian reverence for relics sometimes appealed to this story.