2 Kings 13:21

as they were burying a man i.e. Some Israelites had brought a dead body to the burial-place. The body was carried on a bier, and was not enclosed in a coffin (cf. Luke 7:12-14), so that when cast into the grave it would touch any other body which had been deposited there before. In the East the graves are usually excavated in the rock, and closed by a stone at the mouth. The bodies were laid there, but there was no covering them with earth as in burials among western nations.

behold they spied a bandof men] The R.V. omits the italics. The band was a band of the marauding Moabites, at whose approach the Israelites were terrified, and so made all haste to dispose of the corpse they were carrying.

unto the sepulchre of Elisha This must have been nearer at hand than the grave which they intended to use. The distance from which the Moabites were visible allowed the bearers to open the first grave they came to, and there to lay down their burden, but gave time for nothing more. Josephus says that it was the robberswho had killed a man and that theycast him into Elisha's grave (Ant.IX. 8. 6).

and when the man was let down and touched R.V. and as soon as the man touched. It will be seen from the margin of R.V. that the Hebrew means -and when the man went and touched"; a very unusual kind of expression, but which does not warrant the idea conveyed by the A.V. that the body was lowered into the tomb.

the bones of Elisha We need not press the literal sense of -bones", as though a long time had elapsed since Elisha died. The lying prophet of Bethel (1 Kings 13:31), speaking of his own death and burial, says -Lay my bonesbeside his bones".

he revived and stood up on his feet The record of this miracle seems intended to set forth that it was nothing in the prophet himself which had given him the great powers he manifested in his lifetime. Through his dead body God could work a miracle also. -Israel shall well see that He lives, by whose virtue Elisha was, both in life and death, miraculous. While the prophet was alive, the impetration might seem to be his, though the power were God's; now that he is dead, the bones can challenge nothing, but send the wandering Israelites to that Almighty agent to whom it is all one to work by the quick or dead." (Bp. Hall.)