Floating Axe

Elisha the prophet, in the Lord’s power, performed such amazing miracles. II Kings is packed with accounts of the miracles of both Elijah and later Elisha. For instance, there was the time Elisha declared a barren woman and her husband would have a son the next year. Then there was the time when that child died of a high fever. Elisha literally lay on the child until he began to breathe. He cured Naaman of leprosy by having him dip seven times in the Jordan River.

Those were all huge, life changing works of God. But, somehow, the account of the floating axe head has always seemed even more astonishing. The story is tucked in amongst those wonderful miracles and could be missed. Maybe the reason it strikes me as so amazing is because it was not a life and death situation.

Basically, in my own words, this is what happened. Elisha’s followers said they needed a bigger house. So Elisha said okay and told them to go with him to the Jordan River and cut down some strong straight timber. While they were felling trees, one man’s axe head flew off and clunked into the river. The poor man was horrified. Not only could he not finish his job but the axe head was borrowed. Elisha calmly asked where in the river the axe had gone down. He proceeded to take a branch and throw it into the very spot. Suddenly the axe head appeared floating on top of the water.

Maybe you’ve never wielded an axe or even carried one but I have. An axe head is heavy. The last time (many moons ago!) I tried to split a pine knot into rich pine splinters, I declare the axe had gotten heavier than before. Lifting it above my head was hard enough. Bringing it down with cutting force to the very spot needed was yet another. I think I settled on two or three splinters, just enough to light the fire that night. Let Charles with his rippling muscled, calf-delivering arms split the rest!

No one was about to die because Elisha’s follower lost that axe head. But it was a borrowed tool! Could the man not afford his own axe? If he couldn’t afford his own, how could he pay the owner for the lost axe? Elisha recognized his plight and decided to remedy it. He threw in a stick and up floated the axe head.

Feathers float; only God could make iron float.

Just as centuries later Jesus, the Son of God, stepped into an ordinary life crisis and turned water into wine at a wedding, so God stepped into an ordinary life crisis during a timbering day by the Jordan and lifted a heavy axe head to float on the water.

Do you think that man or any of the other workmen ever forgot the floating axe? What impact did it have on their lives? Even today, as I read about it, I’m touched by the realization that God cares about the seemingly insignificant problems we have.

For with God nothing shall be impossible. Luke 1:37