That I may Know HIM - A Devotional

Day 1: The Double Portion

Day 1: The Double Portion

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1. The Double Portion

In Bible days, a man’s first son was entitled to a measure of inheritance known as the “double portion.” What that meant was that, if, for example, every other son were to inherit a plot of land, the first son was to get a double portion of that, which would mean two plots of land. If every other son were to inherit ten cows, the first son was to get a double measure of that, which would mean twenty cows (Deuteronomy 21:16-17).

2. The Sons of the Prophets

Some prophets in the Bible, for example Samuel and Elijah, ran something like a seminary, a school of prophets. The student-prophets of those schools were called “the sons of the prophets” (2 Kings 2:3,5,7). The experience is recorded in 2 Kings 6:1-7, of the effort of the students of one such school, to build themselves a new hostel, when their accommodation got too small for them.

The term, “sons of the prophets,” also referred to a band or guild or company of prophets, who usually gathered around a great prophet-leader for the purpose of common fellowship, worship, or the instruction of the people (1 Samuel 10:5,10; 19:20-23; 2 Kings 4:38,40).

3. The Servant-Son

Among the members of the prophetic company or students, one was usually the ‘head-boy,’ the faithful assistant or ‘apprentice’ to the chief prophet-leader. That person was usually known as the “servant” of the prophet. Joshua was such a servant to Moses (Joshua 1:1-2). Elisha was himself such a servant to Prophet Elijah (1Kings 19:21), as Gehazi was to Elisha (2 Kings 4:25). These servants often stood out more prominently than the rest of the members of the prophetic company.

4. A Father’s Ordeal, and a Prodigal Son’s Neglect

Before Elisha, Prophet Elijah had had one such unnamed servant, who went about faithfully with his master, until the climax of Elijah’s tribulations at the hands of King Ahab and Jezebel his notorious wife. That was after the prophet had defeated and destroyed the false prophets of Baal, after the encounter of fire on Mount Carmel.

In that season of Elijah’s national adversities, it appeared the prophet gradually got isolated; deserted even by many of the members of his prophetic company, because it had gradually become dangerous in Israel to be associated with the now unpopular rebel-prophet. The prophet’s isolation got so severe that he assumed, and accordingly complained to God, that he was the only surviving true prophet in the whole country (1 Kings 19:10,14).

At the peak of those trials, when his very life was being threatened by Queen Jezebel, the prophet had to flee from home, taking with him his servant, his faithful assistant prophetic ‘son.’

That servant went along with Elijah, but only up to a point. When the prophet’s crises began to drive him into his wilderness, the servant proceeded no further with him.

3 And when he [Elijah] saw that [his life was in danger], he arose, and went for his life, and came to Beersheba and left his servant there.

4 BUT he himself went a day’s journey INTO THE WILDERNESS… (2 Kings 19:3-4).

It was as if the servant said, “Sorry, master, my vow is to follow you, but not into your private wilderness. I shall follow you for as long as the going is smooth. I shall follow you into the palaces of kings, and all the places of comfort and glamour, but not into the wilderness. Beyond here, the future has begun to threaten with bleakness, hunger and unpopularity, so I go no further.” The servant rem4ained at Beersheba. Elijah went on without him through the wilderness to Horeb the mount of God.