Then the men of the city (Jericho, mine) said to Elisha, “Please notice, the situation of this city is pleasant, as my lord sees; but the water is bad, and the ground barren.”
And he said, “Bring me a new bowl, and put salt in it.” So they brought it to him. Then he went out to the source of the water, and cast in the salt there, and said, “Thus says the Lord: ‘I have healed this water; from it there shall be no more death or barrenness.’” So the water remains healed to this day, according to the word of Elisha which he spoke (2 Kings 2:19-22).
Here we have Elisha’s first miracle. He healed the sick waters of the town called Jericho. As we see in further detail tomorrow, he was more specifically breaking a curse over the town by removing what was poisoning the people through the water. This story is similar to one in a Reader’s Digest magazine which detailed a village in the Swiss Alps facing a rash of illness. Everyone was getting sick and no one knew why. Eventually, men from the city found that they all were drinking from the same Alpine spring, and when they went to the source, they discovered there was a dead pig at the mouth of the spring. Unseen bacteria was passing to the people through the water because of the pig. Once they removed the pig, the village healed. All of us have stuff like the pig polluting our lives. If we will take the time to remove the dead pig, we will heal.
