Swimming axe

Elisha’s miracle of making the sunken axe-head swim, contemplated from the truth’s point of view, is not the fabulous aimless thing that mere rationalism surmises. Rationalism cannot say that under certain exceptional circumstances an axe-head could not swim. It can at most affirm that it never knew of such a thing. That is a small matter. Here is such a thing testified; and we are witnesses of a hundred marvels that would have been declared impossible, or “of the devil,” a century or two ago. Plausible suggestions might be made as to the modus operandi of the miracle; but it is unnecessary. It was an unusual operation of that divine power which is manifest in what is called nature in so many marvellous ways. All Bible miracles fall under this reasonable view. We are surrounded by miracle. We live and move and have our being in miracle. We ourselves are miracles—only, common ones. There is absolutely no reason why we should refuse credence to the uncommon.

The purpose of the miracle was a manifestation of divine power, and a beneficent action towards a servant of God. This is the divine philosophy of all Bible miracles, and is a reasonable and beautiful explanation of so much that at first sight stumbles the natural man with his “evil heart of unbelief.” Elisha cut down a stick and cast it into the river, “and the iron did swim.” And the man was able to restore the borrowed axe, the loss of which so troubled him. Elisha’s brethren in the kingdom of God will have power to set the poor on their feet in a way they often desired in vain in the days of the flesh.


1901 Christadelphian p 388