Q: In reference to the Bible story about the ax head lost in the river that was retrieved according to Elisha’s instruction to throw in a stick (see II Kings 6:5, 6), I’ve searched some Bible commentaries, but haven’t found an explanation. What is the spiritual significance of the stick?
—A reader in Arizona, US
A: According to the original Hebrew text, Elisha sheared the stick off a tree growing on the banks of the Jordan River. The prophet Ezekiel saw in his vision that Jordan’s trees symbolized the trees God caused to grow on the third day of creation. On this day, God created the tree spiritually—“before it grew,” before there was “rain upon the earth” or there was “a man to till the ground” (Genesis 2:5). In his vision, Ezekiel explained that the leaves of the tree provide man’s “medicine” (Ezekiel 47:12). The Hebrew word medicine in this text (rapa') means to “heal; restore; mend.” However, the word encompasses more than the physical restoration of the body. It can also mean to “repair” or “fix” anything. In its earliest signification it meant “to put [anything] back together” or “restore.” The stick that Elisha threw into the Jordan’s water was linked to the healing, regenerative power of the tree on the third day of creation, and its effect was “to put [the ax] back together” and “restore” it.
Elisha was not the first to demonstrate the healing and restorative power represented by the tree. Moses did so at Marah, when the waters were too bitter to drink: “And the Lord shewed him a tree, which when he had cast into the waters, the waters were made sweet” (Exodus 15:25). Jacob also demonstrated this power when he restored his livestock’s fertility by throwing rods (i.e., sticks) hewn from trees, into water: “And he set the rods . . . before the flocks . . . in the watering troughs when the flocks came to drink, that they should conceive when they came to drink. And the flocks conceived before the rods . . .” (Genesis 30:38, 39).
