Healing of the Waters
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is pleasant, as my lord seeth: but the water is nought, and the ground
barren.” The spring that in former years had been pure and life-giving,
and had contributed largely to the water supply of the city and the
surrounding district, was now unfit for use.
In response to the plea of the men of Jericho, Elisha said, “Bring
me a new cruse, and put salt therein.” Having received this, “he went
forth unto the spring of the waters, and cast the salt in there, and said,
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Thus saith the Lord, I have healed these waters; there shall not be from
thence any more death or barren land.”
2 Kings 2:19-21
.
The healing of the waters of Jericho was accomplished, not by any
wisdom of man, but by the miraculous interposition of God. Those
who had rebuilt the city were undeserving of the favor of Heaven;
yet He who “maketh His sun to rise on the evil and on the good, and
sendeth rain on the just and on the unjust,” saw fit in this instance to
reveal, through this token of compassion, His willingness to heal Israel
of their spiritual maladies.
Matthew 5:45
.
The restoration was permanent; “the waters were healed unto this
day, according to the saying of Elisha which he spake.”
2 Kings 2:22
.
From age to age the waters have flowed on, making that portion of the
valley an oasis of beauty.
Many are the spiritual lessons to be gathered from the story of
the healing of the waters. The new cruse, the salt, the spring—all are
highly symbolic.
In casting salt into the bitter spring, Elisha taught the same spiritual
lesson imparted centuries later by the Saviour to His disciples when
He declared, “Ye are the salt of the earth.”
Matthew 5:13
. The salt
mingling with the polluted spring purified its waters and brought life
and blessing where before had been blighting and death. When God
compares His children to salt, He would teach them that His purpose
in making them the subjects of His grace is that they may become
agents in saving others. The object of God in choosing a people before
all the world was not only that He might adopt them as His sons and
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daughters, but that through them the world might receive the grace that
bringeth salvation. When the Lord chose Abraham, it was not simply
to be the special friend of God, but to be a medium of the peculiar
privileges the Lord desired to bestow upon the nations.
The world needs evidences of sincere Christianity. The poison of
sin is at work at the heart of society. Cities and towns are steeped in