Daily Manna, Year Two · Day 150 · May 30
Round About Elisha
“And Elisha prayed, and said, LORD, I pray thee, open his eyes, that he may see. And the LORD opened the eyes of the young man; and he saw: and, behold, the mountain was full of horses and chariots of fire round about Elisha.”
Horses along the low hills all the way round a small town, chariots ranked behind them, in the grey before anyone inside is properly awake.
The army is there for one man. Elisha has been telling the king of Israel where the Syrian raiding parties will camp, so accurately that the king of Syria calls his staff together to find the informer and is told there is not one: Elisha telleth the king of Israel the words that thou speakest in thy bedchamber. So he sends horses, and chariots, and a great host, by night, to arrest a prophet in Dothan. The servant goes out early, sees the ring of them, and says the sensible thing. Alas, my master! how shall we do?
Elisha does not ask for the army to be moved. He asks for the young man's eyes. LORD, I pray thee, open his eyes, that he may see. Then the detail that does the work: the mountain was full of horses and chariots of fire round about Elisha. Round about Elisha, with the servant beside him, inside the ring the whole time he was panicking. A psalm states it as a standing arrangement, that the angel of the LORD encampeth round about them that fear him, and delivereth them. Nothing new arrived on that hill. What the young man received was the sight of what was already there.
The fire never charges, incidentally. The Syrians are struck blind, walked into Samaria and given dinner: set bread and water before them, that they may eat and drink, and go to their master. Pray Elisha's prayer this week for one person you can name who is standing where that servant stood. You will hear yourself asking for their eyes rather than their circumstances.
Daily Manna runs on a two-year cycle. The year one reading for day 150 is I Change Not (Malachi 3:6).