So we have the usual religious appeal: “Is there not here a prophet of the Lord, that we may inquire of the Lord by him?”
Elisha now assumes a new attitude, and one certainly not destitute of spiritual grandeur. Turning to the king of Israel, he said:
“‘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.’”
Observe that this address was made to the very king of Israel. It simply means that the God of Israel had nothing to do with the king of Israel, and yet Israel was understood to be a theocracy. The form was theocratic, but not the power.
Think of a man bearing the name of God, and yet being godless! A temple deserted of its deity is surely a melancholy sight, but what shall be said of the man from whose heart the Spirit of the living God has utterly departed?
Elisha seems to have inherited the taunting spirit of his great predecessor: “Get thee to the prophets of thy father, and to the prophets of thy mother.”
Who can say with how bitter a taunt the word “mother” was pronounced in this connection?
The evil that men do goes on for many a day—not only to the end of their life-time, but it lives after them.
This is a taunt that is founded on reason. If men have been serving a god for seven years past, surely it can not be unreasonable to refer them to that god in the time of their extremity. What is faith if it can not be tested? What is the value of an altar if you can not go to it and find lying upon it direct answers to your prayer?