HEBREW WORD STUDY – CHARIOTS OF FIRE –  RAKAV  ISH   

II Kings 6:17:  “And Elisha prayed, and said, LORD, I pray thee, open his eyes, that he may see. And the LORD opened the eyes of the young man; and he saw: and, behold, the mountain was full of horses and chariots of fire round about Elisha.”

Even as a child listening to the story of Elisha’s servant and his seeing the chariots and horses of fire I felt something disturbing about all this.  Does God really need an army of foot soldiers riding on wooden chariots pulled by horses to defend us?  You read further in this story and you find that God never used his army to do battle with the army of Syria.  What God simply did was to strike all the soldiers blind.  

I know of no Scriptural record of these fiery horses and chariots ever entering into battle with an earthly or fleshly foe.  Usually God deals with a threatening army by using simple methods, like making four lepers appear like a massive army and scaring the pants off of battle-ready soldiers.   In the case of Gideon and Jehoshaphat, God caused confusion in the camp of the enemy such that they killed each other off.  Even when God uses His heavenly special ops to waste the enemy it is usually just one lone angel or maybe just Himself.

Is it just a show of power like the United States sending in the 7^th Fleet when things heat up in the Middle East?  Maybe, but the Syrians never saw what the servant saw, they were struck blind.  Perhaps they saw something so powerful it blinded them as it did Paul on the Damascus Road.  

Consider for a moment, the word rakav has many other usages other than chariot.  The word sus means many more things than horses. Looking at the word for chariot we find that its original use was to express a mode of transportation.  Since a chariot was the most common mode of transportation for an ancient army we have attached the English word chariot to rakav.  Actually a rakav could be a tank, jet aircraft, or even a warship.  It might be a starship or a go-kart.  In other words, a rakav is simply a mode of transportation.  I read a story in the Akkadian where a rakav was used to transport someone through a portal to the gods. The word for horse is sus which really means a force or power which moves this rakav from this one point to another. 

You know I have heard and read many stories of people who claim to have visited heaven.  The only stories I truly believe are the ones told by people who express the words of Paul.  “I have seen things too wonderful to describe.”    The only way to describe the supernatural is to put it in terms of the natural.  If someone says they saw an actually chariot pulled by horses in heaven, I am hanging on to my wallet.  But if that persons says: “The only way I can describe it is like a chariot pulled by horses, but that is not what I really saw.” I will ease up a little.    

So what did Elisha’s servant see?  I have no idea as he saw into the supernatural world and only those given a glimpse of the supernatural and God’s glory can understand.  Elisha prayed that God would open the eyes of his servant.   The word open is pakah in  Hebrew and it is the word that is used for the opening of a door from a prison or confined spaced to view and enter the outside world.  

Here is my thought, a portal opened from the heavenly realm.  The servant saw something that not everyone is allowed to see especially the Syrians who worshipped pagan idols. So God struck them blind.  What did the servant see, I believe it was the brilliance of God’s loving kindness something only those who belong to Him can see.

One thing we can be sure of, that same protection that Elisha’s servant saw is still with us today surrounding us and protecting us.  If it was the love of God the servant saw, then one day we who love Him will also see it and maybe chariots or vehicles of fire is the only way to describe it.