The repetitiveness of each king’s sinful reign, leading the people further and further away from God, establishes that the exile of each kingdom, the present reality of the original audience of the book, is well-deserved. 3 Both the northern kingdom (2 Kgs 17) and the southern kingdom (2 Kgs 25) ultimately experience exile for their sins. The subsequent kings of the divided northern and southern kingdoms follow Solomon’s example and, with few exceptions, continue to lead the people away from the one, true God. Solomon commits idolatry near the end of his life and the kingdom is divided (1 Kgs 11:1–13). But when they walk outside the deuteronomic norms of the covenant, they face discipline and ultimately exile from the land.” 2 Unfortunately, as the book of Kings records, the kings of Israel, beginning with Solomon, do not worship God exclusively or keep his law, and instead of experiencing the blessings of the covenant the nation experiences its curses. Lisa Wray-Beal states this about the message of Kings: “As king and people walk in the torah, they prove their identity as covenant people. 1 Because Israel’s God is the only true God, the people of Israel, led by their king, must exclusively worship God and keep God’s law as written in the Mosaic Covenant if they expect to experience his blessing. The primary theological truth the book of Kings communicates is that Israel’s God is the one and only God, the only true God. We will see this as we examine the Spirit’s role in Elisha’s life from Kings, particularly in the narrative of Elisha succeeding Elijah (2 Kings 2:1–18), and how Elisha’s Spirit-empowered ministry points forward to the Spirit-empowered ministry of Jesus Christ, the inauguration of the new covenant, and what it means for Jesus’s followers to live in the power and presence of the Holy Spirit. Elisha therefore serves as a preview of knowing God in the new covenant through the presence and power of the Holy Spirit.
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In the book of Kings, Elisha is the Spirit-empowered man of God who walks with God, represents God, and shows the way to covenant faithfulness through word and deed.