Touched the Bones of Elisha

My daughter was excited to tell me a story about Elisha yesterday that her teacher had told her in Primary and which apparently was his favorite. I had to find it, and I guess we could say that it is the last miracle that came about because of Elisha. We read, “Elisha was fallen sick of his sickness whereof he died.” After the king Joash wept over him and Elisha prophesied to him, “Elisha died, and they buried him.” But that wasn’t the end: “And the bands of the Moabites invaded the land at the coming in of the year. And it came to pass, as they were burying a man, that, behold, they spied a band of men; and they cast the man into the sepulchre of Elisha: and when the man was let down, and touched the bones of Elisha, he revived, and stood up on his feet” (2 Kings 13:14, 20-21). So after Elisha was buried, some Israelites were burying a different man when they got scared from a band of invading Moabites and rushed to put the body of this man in the sepulchre of Elisha. And when this body touched the dead body of Elisha, he was revived and came back to life. George Q. Cannon summarized the story this way: “God accompanied [Elisha] by His power wherever he went. A great and a mighty prophet was he; so great and so mighty, that it is related of him that after his death a band of Moabites came into the land. The people of Israel were burying a man. While in this act, they became frightened at seeing a band of men, and cast the man into the sepulchre of Elisha; and when the man was let down and touched the bones of Elisha, he revived, and stood upon his feet. He was a mighty prophet, and he received those gifts and this power from God, which He bestows upon all those who receive the everlasting Priesthood, and who seek to magnify it in the spirit thereof.” It is fitting that this prophet whose life was so full of miracles would be the cause of one more miracle even after he had died.

            The name Elisha means “God is my salvation” implying that God will save. And so it is fitting that this final miracle that took place at the touch of his body showed that God indeed could save, even to the point of bringing a man back to life. And surely this miracle is meant to point us to the Savior whose own death ultimately brings us all back to life. Because Jesus died and was put in a sepulchre, we too will rise from the dead like this man whose body touched the bones of Elisha. It is interesting that when Jesus died on the cross, He had no bones broken: “Then came the soldiers, and brake the legs of the first, and of the other which was crucified with him. But when they came to Jesus, and saw that he was dead already, they brake not his legs: But one of the soldiers with a spear pierced his side, and forthwith came there out blood and water. And he that saw it bare record, and his record is true: and he knoweth that he saith true, that ye might believe. For these things were done, that the scripture should be fulfilled, A bone of him shall not be broken” (John 19:32-36). Like the lambs eaten at the Passover, not any of His bones were to be broken (Exodus 12:46). Instead, those bones were to rise again and be a witness of the resurrection as He declared to His disciples: “Why are ye troubled? and why do thoughts arise in your hearts? Behold my hands and my feet, that it is I myself: handle me, and see; for a spirit hath not flesh and bones, as ye see me have. And when he had thus spoken, he shewed them his hands and his feet” (Luke 24:38-40). These disciples touched Him and saw that His bones were risen from the grave in a body never to die again. And because He rose from the grave, each of us—like the man whose body touched that of Elisha’s—will also rise from the dead. The power in Elisha’s bones points us to the true power in the bones of the Savior in His resurrected body.

            This story of the miracle performed by Elisha’s dead body reminds me of another story about the Savior. As Jesus was on His way to heal the daughter of Jairus, “A woman having an issue of blood twelve years, which had spent all her living upon physicians, neither could be healed of any, Came behind him, and touched the border of his garment: and immediately her issue of blood stanched, And Jesus said, Who touched me?... And Jesus said, Somebody hath touched me: for I perceive that virtue is gone out of me” (Luke 8:43-46). Just the touch of the body of Jesus healed this woman, even though Jesus did not intentionally do anything to heal her. Just as Elisha did not consciously heal the man whose body touched his, so just the mere touch of the Savior’s garment was enough to heal this woman. This final miracle involving Elisha again points to the Savior who would come and have power to heal both the living and the dead.