God raised 2 men from death to life through contact with Elisha
from 2 Kings 4:8–37 & 2 Kings 13:21
re-told by Debbie Dunn
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Story Highlights:
* God allowed Elisha to raise son of an older couple back to life.
* A dead man came back to life through contact with Elisha's bones.
* Elisha performed twice as many miracles as Prophet Elijah did.
Last week, we heard about 2 letter-E guys who never died.
Question: Who were they?
Answer: Elijah and Enoch
We will now hear some miracle Bible tales where God allowed somebody to be raised from the dead.
Several weeks back, we had already heard the story where Prophet Elijah brought a widow’s son back to life.
[SOURCE: 1 Kings 17:17–24]
RINGLEADER: Hooray for the widow! Hooray for Elijah!
Group repeats
Question: After Elijah went to Heaven by way of a whirlwind in a Chariot of Fire, who was the special prophet who took his place?
Answer: Elisha
That’s right. Elisha. God also gave Prophet Elisha the ability to raise somebody from the dead.
RINGLEADER: Who did Elisha bring back to life?
Group repeats
I’m glad you asked. You see, during the 50-plus years Elisha served God as His special prophet, he had to travel a lot.
When he came to this one special town, he always stayed at the home of an older couple with no kids.
One day, God allowed Elisha to work a miracle so that the older couple had a baby boy. Many happy years went by. That baby boy grew, and grew, and grew, until he was grown.
But, …, one sad day, he died in his mother’s arms. Determined that this would not be the end of her son’s story, she ran and ran, looking for the man of God called Elisha. When she finally found him, she told him what had happened.
Elisha went to her home and prayed to Almighty God. Soon, her son sneezed 7 times and came back to life.
[SOURCE: 2 Kings 4:8-37]
RINGLEADER: Hooray for God! Hooray for Elisha!
Group repeats
As I mentioned before, Elisha served God as His special prophet for over 50 years. We'll hear about some of his other miracles another time. But right now, I'm going to tell you the strange story of what happened with Elisha’s bones after he was dead.
RINGLEADER: Huh??? Tell us that story.
Group repeats
Okay. After serving God as a prophet for over 50 years, Elisha eventually died. They placed his body in a tomb.
A long enough time had passed that his body now looked like a skeleton.
One day, a man died. His buddies took his dead body and decided to bury him near the location of Elisha's tomb.
But, …, uh-oh! Before they were able to bury him, they looked up. Yikes! They saw a bunch of raiders from the town of Moab heading in their direction.
Quickly, they looked around. They needed to find a place to dump his body before they ran away to safety.
RINGLEADER: Did they dump him in Elisha’s tomb?
Group repeats
They sure did. They threw his dead body into Elisha’s tomb and then ran for their lives.
Picture this. The Bible states that when his body touched Elisha’s bones, the man came back to life. And he stood up on his feet.
Can you imagine how puzzled he would have been?! He probably didn’t know those bones belonged to Elisha. All he would have realized was that he had been dead, and now he was alive again.
[SOURCE: 2 Kings 13:21]
Can you picture the surprised looks on his buddies' faces when he managed to track them down to say, “Hey, I’m alive again.”
RINGLEADER: That’s freaky but cool!
Group repeats
I agree. It sure was!
By the way, you might recall that before Elijah boarded the Chariot of Fire, he gave Elisha two wishes. The first wish came true for sure as Elisha served God as His special prophet for over 50 years.
Let's get Elisha to remind you of his second wish.
ELISHA: Elijah, please let me inherit a double share of your spirit.
That wish also came true because Elisha performed twice as many miracles as Prophet Elijah did. One example was that Elijah brought 1 person back to life. As for Elisha, during his lifetime, he brought 1 person back to life. After he died, somehow, that dead man miraculously came back to life by coming into contact with Elisha's bones.
Question: As a bit of a review, who were the 3 letter-E guys who either never died or had the God-given ability to raise a person back to life?
Answer: Elijah, Enoch, and Elisha.
Any questions or comments?
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Do you want more stories about Prophet Elijah? If so, visit the chapter called ‘4 other Important Prophets of Israel: Samuel, Elijah, Elisha, & Nathan from my EXPLORE BIBLE STORY dot org website.
Click here to get more stories about important prophets like Samuel, Elijah, Elisha, & Nathan.
My ever-expanding Explore Bible Story dot org website includes Bible stories and Biblical Family Trees about
- Creation, Adam, & his Descendants
- Noah, the Ark, & the Flood
- Abraham & Sarah
- Isaac & Rebekah, Esau & Jacob
- Jacob & his 4 wives
- 12 sons of Jacob who became known as the 12 Tribes of Israel
- Moses who was from the line of Levi
- Joshua who became leader of Israelites after death of Moses
- 12 Judges of Israel including Deborah, Gideon, & Samson
- Kings of Israel including Saul, David, & Solomon
- 4 Major Prophets: Isaiah, Jeremiah, Ezekiel, & Daniel
- 12 Minor Prophets of Israel
- 4 other important Prophets of Israel: Samuel, Elijah, Elisha, & Nathan
- Jesus Christ, our Messiah, Lord, Savior, & King of king
- 12 Disciples of Jesus
- Apostle Paul & other Significant Followers of Christ
- Triune God: God the Father, God the Son, God the Holy Spirit
- The Free Gift of Salvation & The Sinner's Prayer
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- About the author: Debbie Dunn
