What Does 2 Kings 2:14 Mean?

(14) **Where is the Lord God of Elijah?**—Has He left the earth with His prophet? If not, let Him now show His power, and verify the granting of my request (2Kings 2:9). The words are a sort of irony of faith. Elisha “seeks” Jehovah as the only source of power. (Comp. Jeremiah 2:6; Jeremiah 2:8, where the priests and prophets are blamed for having recourse to idols, instead of asking, “Where is Jehovah?”) **And when he also had smitten.**—The Hebrew *is, also* (or, *even*)* he—and he smote*. There is clearly something wrong. The LXX. does not render the Hebrew *‘aph hû’* “also he,” but copies the words in Greek (αφφω). Keil connects them with the foregoing question, “Where is Jehovah, the God of Elijah, even He?” Thenius objects that this use of *‘aph* is doubtful, and supports Houbigant’s correction, *’ēphô*, an enclitic then—“Where, then, is Jehovah, the God of Elijah? and he smote,” &c. Perhaps *’êphōh* (“where”) was the original reading: “Where is Jehovah, the God of Elijah? Where?”—an emphatic repetition of the question. Or it may be that the words *’aph hû’ wayyakkeh* should be transposed: “and he smote—he also (like Elijah),” &c. The Vulgate has the curious renderings, “And with the cloak of Elias which had fallen from him, he smote the waters, and they were not divided; and he said, Where is the God of Elias now also? And he smote the waters, and they were divided,” &c. Such also is the reading of the Complutensian LXX.; but the variation is simply an old attempt to account for the twofold “and he smote the waters.”