Old Testament Miracles

The whole of Scripture is full of incidents of divine intervention in the affairs of men. From one aspect that is what Scripture is all about. If you leave the miraculous in that sense out of Scripture you wouldn't have much left. The flood, the confounding of tongues at Babel, the overthrow of Sodom and Gomorrah and so on were all events outside the ordinary course of nature and came about by the direct intervention of God. However, these events were not miracles done through the instrumentality of men. Nevertheless, there were great signs and wonders done in Old Testament times through the instrumentality of persons such as Moses, and it is some of these that it is proposed to comment on.

Miracles by the instrumentality of persons begins with Moses. God used Moses to do signs before Israel (Exodus 4:1-9) and before Pharaoh; "Signs and wonders" (Exodus 7:3). Moses brought upon Egypt the ten plagues and ultimately Pharaoh and his host were drowned in the Red Sea (Exodus 14:30). However, miracles that correspond to the miracles of Christ were foreshadowed rather in the miracles performed by Elijah and Elisha. Thus we have the following in the days of Elijah:-

(1) The withholding of rain (1 Kings 17:1) leading to Elijah being fed by the ravens (1 Kings

17:2-6) and then being sustained by a widow woman (1 Kings 17:7-16).

(2) Then we have the widow woman's son brought back from the dead (1 Kings 17: 17-24). This

miracle foreshadows the Lord's raising up of dead persons in the Gospels.

(3) In the following chapter we have Elijah's sacrifice upon which the fire of God fell (1 Kings

18:1-40) and then the great pour of rain that ended the drought (1 Kings 18: 41-46).

(4) When we come to second Kings we have the miracle of judgement, when Elijah brought

down the fire of God (2 Kings 1). Christ's disciples referred to this incident and wanted it

applied to the Samaritans, but Christ pointed out that this was not the kind of thing he had

come to do (Luke 9:54/55).

(5) In the next chapter Elijah is taken up by a whirlwind into heaven, but when he went he was

able to fulfil Elisha's wish to have a double portion of his spirit. This does not mean, as it

might appear, twice as much of the spirit that Elijah had, but the firstborn's share - this was

twice that of other siblings (Deuteronomy 21:15-17).

In the days of Elisha we have:-

(1) Elisha healing the waters of Jericho (2 Kings 2:19-22). However this was followed by the

curse on the little boys (2 Kings 2:23-25).

(2) In the following chapter Elisha was able to show how to defeat Moab (2 Kings 3).

(3) Then Elisha multiplied the oil (2 Kings 4:1-7).

(4) This was followed by the gift of a child to the Shunammite followed by its restoration to life

when it had died (2 Kings 4:8-37). The gift of a child to an elderly couple reminds us of the

parents of John the Baptist and the restoring to life of the dead child foreshadows the raising

up of dead persons by Christ.

(5) Later in the same chapter we have Elisha dealing with the poisonous colocynths in the pot,

followed by the multiplying of food in a way similar to Christ's feeding of the five

thousand (2 Kings 4:38-44).

(6) In the following chapter we get the healing of Naaman the Syrian and then the leprosy of

Naaman fastening upon Gehazi (2 Kings 5). Healing lepers was something Christ did on

more than one occasion.