1 Kings19:19–21

The mantle thrown, the mantle taken up verbal / quotation: confirmed

The אַדֶּרֶת (ʼaddereth, H155) that Elijah flings at Elisha here is the same garment Elisha picks up from the ground at Jordan and strikes the water with at the crossing of Jordan. The Verifier confirms the shared rare lexeme. Cambridge joins the two scenes explicitly: this was the mantle “which Elisha took up after the departure of Elijah into heaven,” whose use on the Jordan made the sons of the prophets say the spirit of Elijah rested on him. K&D supply the logic that makes the pair one action in two parts: the cloak was the sign of the vocation, so the throwing was the call and the taking up was the succession.

2 Kings 2:14

basis: Verifier: shared Hebrew lexeme H155 ʼaddereth (rare, in 12 vv), with H477 ʼĔlîyshâʻ and H452 ʼÊlîyâh. The rare common noun, not the proper names, carries the verbal link; there is no quotation claim in either direction.

The commission four verses earlier, executed without oil structural / thematic: confirmed

At Horeb the LORD had told Elijah to anoint Hazael, Jehu, and Elisha son of Shaphat of Abel-meholah as prophet in his place. Verse 19 is the discharge of the third command and the only one Elijah performs himself. The Verifier confirms the shared lexemes, including the rare name Shaphat. What the narrative withholds is the anointing: Poole records the honest gap, “whether he did also anoint him is uncertain,” and nothing in vv. 19-21 supplies oil. The mantle stands in its place.

1 Kings 19:16

basis: Verifier: shared Hebrew lexemes H477 ʼĔlîyshâʻ (in 52 vv) and H8202 Shâphâṭ (rare, in 8 vv). Both are proper names identifying the same man, which is weaker evidence than a shared common noun, so the tier is structural and not verbal, consistent with the 2 Kings 3:11 thread below. The real link is narrative: this verse executes the command given four verses earlier. No quotation is claimed in either direction.

The last word of the unit becomes a man's title structural / thematic: confirmed

The unit ends on shârath (H8334), “and he ministered to him.” When Jehoshaphat later asks whether there is a prophet of the LORD to be consulted, Elisha is identified there not by his miracles but by that service. Cambridge, Ellicott and the Pulpit all make the connection, each citing him as the man who “poured water on the hands of Elijah,” and the Pulpit sets the pattern alongside Joshua as minister of Moses (Exodus 24:13; Joshua 1:1). The shared lexemes the Verifier reports for the pair are the three proper names, so the link is a link of persons and pattern rather than of vocabulary.

2 Kings 3:11

basis: Verifier: shared Hebrew lexemes H477 ʼĔlîyshâʻ (in 52 vv), H8202 Shâphâṭ (in 8 vv), H452 ʼÊlîyâh (in 65 vv). All three are proper names identifying the same persons, which is weaker evidence than a shared common noun; tiered structural rather than verbal for that reason. The servant-verb H8334 shârath is not shared with 2 Kings 3:11.

Tsemed: a pair, an acre, a measure of a man's estate structural / thematic: confirmed

צֶמֶד (tsemed, H6776) is rare, and its other uses are exactly the ambiguity the commentators argue over here. At Job 1:3 and 42:12 pairs of oxen count a man's wealth, which is why JFB reads the twelve as “indicating that he was a man of substance.” At 1 Samuel 14:14 and Isaiah 5:10 the word measures land, which is the basis of Ewald's rendering, reported by Ellicott and the Pulpit, that Elisha was plowing twelve yoke of ground. The Pulpit answers that the “yoke of oxen” of v. 21 settles the sense here. The Verifier confirms the shared lexeme in each case; it cannot settle the disputed rendering, and we do not claim it does.

Job 1:3 · 1 Samuel 14:14 · Isaiah 5:10

basis: Verifier: shared Hebrew lexeme H6776 tsemed (rare, in 15 vv) at each ref, with H1241 bâqâr (in 172 vv) at Job 1:3 and H3627 kᵉlîy (in 276 vv) at 1 Samuel 14:14. A genuine lexical family, cited for the range of the word's sense, not for any quotation or dependence.

The other man who cut up his oxen on the day he was called structural / thematic: confirmed

Saul is behind the oxen when the messengers come from Jabesh, and the Spirit of God rushes on him; he takes a צֶמֶד בָּקָר, cuts it in pieces and sends it through Israel. Elisha, behind the oxen when the mantle lands, takes his צֶמֶד בָּקָר, kills it and feeds it to the people. The Verifier confirms the shared lexemes. ⚙ The resemblance is a pattern of Israel's callings, that the animals of a man's old work are destroyed at the moment of his new one, and we offer it as pattern only: the acts move in opposite directions, Saul's toward summons and threat, Elisha's toward farewell and feast, and no commentator in this unit draws the comparison.

1 Samuel 11:7

basis: Verifier: shared Hebrew lexemes H6776 tsemed (rare, in 15 vv) and H1241 bâqâr (in 172 vv). The shared rare noun and the shared collocation are real; the comparison drawn from them is our own reading and is not a quotation or a claimed dependence.

The hand on the plow, in the Gospel structural / thematic: confirmed

Four commentators in this unit reach for Luke 9 unprompted. Ellicott: “It is impossible not to compare this with the similar request made to our Lord (Luke 9:61-62).” Barnes cites the same passage to justify reading Elijah's reply as cold. K&D turns it the other way: as Elisha “has ploughed his earthly field with his twelve pair of oxen, he was not to plough the spiritual field of the twelve tribes of Israel (Luke 9:62).” Since this is a Greek text set beside a Hebrew one, no shared Strong's lexeme is possible and none is claimed; the link is a link of scene and motif, and it is contested in its application, since the Pulpit denies that Elisha's request resembles the Gospel request at all.

Luke 9:61-62

basis: Cross-Testament (Greek to Hebrew): shared Strong's numbers are impossible by definition, so no verbal tier is available. Recorded basis is the shared scene and motif (call, plow, request to take leave of family), named independently by Ellicott, Barnes and K&D. The Pulpit disputes the application, and we record that dissent.

The hand on the plow, and the One who forbids looking back ancient/widely-held

⚙ The Lord's saying, “No one who puts his hand to the plow and looks back is fit for the kingdom of God,” is spoken to a man who asked exactly what Elisha asked: first let me say farewell to those at my house. K&D reads 1 Kings 19 through that text directly, tying Elisha's twelve pair to the twelve tribes whose field he would plow. Ellicott and Barnes make the same comparison, though they use it to convict Elisha of hesitation. The Pulpit's protest is worth keeping in view: Elisha did not ask for delay, and the answer he gave was to burn the plow. ⚙ If the Pulpit is right, then Elisha is not the negative example in Luke 9 but its fulfilment: he puts his hand to the true plow and there is nothing left behind him to look back at. Henry reads the whole unit this way already: “When the Saviour said to one and to another, Follow me, the dearest friends and most profitable occupations were cheerfully left.”

Luke 9:61-62

Called at work, and the feast that follows the call ancient/widely-held

⚙ The shape of this call is the shape of the Gospel calls: the man is found at his trade, the summons is brief, and the response is a meal. Ellicott makes the comparison outright, likening Elisha to “Matthew in Luke 9:27-29” (the reference as printed in the source; the feast he means is Levi's, at Luke 5:27-29), and the Pulpit sends the reader to Luke 5:29, “where Levi makes a ‘great feast' on the occasion of his call.” Gill closes his note on v. 21 by pointing to Matthew 8:21, the Gospel's own echo of the request to go home first. The parallel is not only in the meal but in the economics of it: Levi leaves the tax booth, Elisha eats the oxen and burns the yoke, and in both cases the celebration is the public destruction of a retreat. The mantle thrown by Elijah says nothing and requires everything, which is how the Gospels report “Follow me.”

Luke 5:27-29 · Matthew 8:21-22

The heir who took the servant's place novel

⚙ The unit's last word is shârath, the menial's verb, and the man it is said of owned twelve plows. He is remembered afterwards not as the heir of Abel-meholah but as the one “who poured water on the hands of Elijah” (2 Kings 3:11), and only then does the double portion come to him. Benson draws the ministerial rule, that those should first serve who may hereafter rule. ⚙ We read the sequence as a figure, dimly, of the descent in Philippians 2:5-8, where the One who was rich took the form of a servant, and of John 13, where the water a servant pours is poured by the Master over His disciples' feet. The figure is ours and should be held loosely: no commentator in this unit draws it, Elisha's service is apprenticeship rather than atonement, and the direction of the two descents is not the same.

Philippians 2:5-8 · John 13:4-5 · 2 Kings 3:11