ELISHA (last half of the ninth century BCE) was a prophet of the northern kingdom of Israel. The prophet Elisha (Heb., Elishaʿ) is presented in the Hebrew scriptures not primarily as a spokesperson for God to king and people, as the other prophets were, but as a holy man and a wonder-worker. In a series of hagiographic tales (2 Kgs. 2–8), his unusual powers are portrayed by his control over nature, his multiplication of food and oil, his healing the sick or raising the dead, and his powers of extrasensory perception. Such stories are similar to the legends of Christian saints and Jewish rabbis.

Elisha is associated with prophetic guilds known as the sons of the prophets; he served as their leader, or "father." The social status and religious purpose of such communities are quite unclear from the texts, so they shed little light on the nature of Elisha's prophetic...