Verse 9
9. Ask what I shall do for thee One last request Elisha is permitted to make, and at a moment when his emotions might have made it a difficult thing for him to present an appropriate request.
Before I be taken away The departing Elijah consciously carries with him into heaven the sympathies and memories of earth. After his departure he will be no less Elijah than before, and he will remember and think of Elisha no less than Elisha will of him; but there will be no more personal communion between them; and so what Elisha has to ask must be asked before Elijah departs, for there may be no requests made of the saints after they are gone from earth.
A double portion of thy spirit This is the sense of the Hebrew, which literally reads, A mouth of two in thy spirit; that is, a mouthful for two persons, a twofold portion. It has an allusion to the law of Deuteronomy 21:17, which provides that a double portion of an inheritance shall be given to the firstborn son; that is, a portion double that given to any other heir. Elisha, as the first and chief spiritual son of Elijah, wisely asks, not that he may become greater than his spiritual father, but that an unusually large endowment of the same spirit that dwelt in Elijah may also rest on him, and thus qualify him to be at least a somewhat worthy successor of Elijah. He wished that he might have more of Elijah’s spirit than any other of the sons of the prophets, and thus be honoured as the first one among them.
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