Verse 1
1. When the Lord would take up Elijah There was a set time in Jehovah’s purpose when this great miracle should be wrought. It was an event of importance to all ages, inasmuch as it would teach lessons of incalculable worth.
Into heaven Literally, the heavens. Into what heaven? Does it merely mean the sky, where the birds fly and the clouds float? That would be a supposition unworthy of the sublime transaction. The only rational interpretation of the words involves the doctrine that Elijah ascended to the heavenly abode of the saints of God. See on 2 Kings 2:11.
By a whirlwind סערה , a storm, a tempest. This was the immediate instrumentality or agent by which he was taken up.
From Gilgal They went from Gilgal down to Beth-el. 2 Kings 2:2. Hence this Gilgal could not have been identical with the place of the same name on the east of Jericho, where Joshua first encamped after passing the Jordan, (Joshua 4:19;) but the modern Jiljilia, on a lofty eminence about half way between Jerusalem and Shechem. Here, in Elijah’s time, there seems to have been a school of the prophets.
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