2 Kings 13:21 - Exposition

And it came to pass, as they were burying a man, that. "They" is used indefinitely of some unnamed Israelites, like the French on. Certain persons, it does not matter who, were burying a man, i.e. about to bury him, and were carrying the corpse to the grave, when an interruption occurred. Behold, they spied a band of men —rather, the band , i.e. the band of that year— and they cast the man into the sepulcher of Elisha. There was no time for ceremony. Hastily, and somewhat roughly, it may be, the bearers of the body thrust it into Elisha's tomb, which happened to be at hand, and from the mouth of which they were able to remove the closing stone. They did not "throw" the body in, but pushed it in. And when the man was let down. The man was not "let down." Our translators seem to have been unacquainted with the Jewish mode of burial. They imagine that Elisha's tomb is a pit dug in the ground from the surface downwards, like a modern grave, and the man has therefore to be "let down ," or to "go down " (marginal translation) into it. The Revised Version avoids the mistranslation, but weakens the force of the original. Translate, and when the man came , etc. And touched the bones of Elisha, he revived. The violent push given to the corpse imparted to it a movement which brought it in contact with the bones, i.e. the body ( 1 Kings 13:31 ) of Elisha, as it lay, wound in its grave-clothes, but uncoffined, on the floor of the sepulchral chamber. At the moment of contact the dead man came to life—"revived." And stood up on his feet. In many Jewish tombs the sepulchral chamber would allow of this.