A Floating Ax-head

There’s a water story about Elisha that frankly stretches my credulity.

The school of prophets which Elisha led was clearing trees in the Jordan River valley to build a larger place to live. Suddenly someone’s ax-head flew off and fell into the river. What’s worse than losing your tools is losing a tool you borrowed from somebody else. So the poor man turned to the master and explained his plight.

“Where did it fall?” the man of God asked. When he showed him the place, Elisha cut a stick and threw it into the water at that spot. Then the ax head floated to the surface. 2 Kings 6:6

Is there anything this prophet can’t do? Make iron float? My rational mind gropes for an explanation. Maybe Elisha thrust the pole into the water and was lucky enough to spear the axe-head through the haft-hole and lift it up. Why not?

But the first rule of objective literary analysis is sympathy with the author – and I'm not sure the author was intending to convey a simple explanation.

The story became legendary because something extraordinary happened, something not normally explainable. Iron by itself doesn’t float on water, but somehow this iron came back to the surface. The narrator doesn’t help us with an explanation or interpretation. He just tells the story of a poor, hard-working penniless religious worker – not the first or the last in history – who couldn’t afford to lose a borrowed tool, but who went to bed that night shaking his head at how God had somehow gotten him through his tough scrape.

Four Elisha water-stories in 2 Kings 2-6 -- the poisoned well in Ch 2, the ditches in the badlands in Ch 3, Naaman in Ch 5, and the ax-head, illustrate both our need for water and the hazard that water can be. They all also point to a God who cares about people in crisis, little people and big, good people and bad, wealthy and poor. And they show how God meets us not just in the sunshine seasons of life, but when we can’t imagine how we will ever make it through.

We have no record of any sermons Elisha preached or prayers he prayed; his life-story is a collection of deeds. He was a king-maker (2 Kings 9) and he responded to the plight of widows (2 Kings 4). But deep in his soul there was faith in a living God who could make a difference in ordinary people’s lives. Somehow I think this is what the chronicler who collected these stories wanted us to know.

Then, when I re-read some of the other events the Chronicler recounts about Elisha's ministry, like raising to life a boy who had died of sun-stroke (2 Kings 4:13-37), the amazing story of the ax-head isn't quite so surprising.

Image Sources:
Ax and Stump - Edu-Tec Blog
Elisha 1 - Illustrator Unknown, in Henry Davenport Northrop’s "Treasures of the Bible", 1894.
Elisha 2 - In All Honesty