And it came to pass, as they still went on and
talked
About the donation of the gifts of the Spirit requested, about
the state of religion in Israel, and about the training up of
prophets in the colleges, and about Elisha's succession as a
prophet in his room, and his discharge of that office, and such
like things, as may be supposed, in which he gave him instruction
and advice:
that, behold, there appeared a chariot of fire, and horses
of fire;
either angels in this form, see ( Psalms 104:4
) ( 68:17
) , in which they appeared for the glory and honour of the
prophet, and as emblems of his flaming love and zeal for the
purity of religion, and that his assumption might be conspicuous
to Elisha; and perhaps by this means might be seen by the fifty
men on the other side Jordan: this chariot, drawn with these
horses, was not seen in the heaven, but as running on the earth,
and came between the two prophets, and separated them from each
other, taking up Elijah into it by means of a wind whirling about
him, and which was no other than the ministry of angels; or these
might be a conflux of exhalations or clouds, formed in this
likeness by a supernatural power, and, by the solar rays striking
on them, might appear fiery or red; and so his assumption was
much in such like manner as our Lord was taken up in a cloud, (
Acts 1:9 ) ,
and Elijah went up by a whirlwind to heaven;
body and soul; such a change passing on him, as he went through
the region of the air, which divested him of his mortality and
corruption, and fitted him for the invisible world.