Power of the Dead
N. Hawthorne. 2 Kings 13:20-21 And Elisha died, and they buried him. And the bands of the Moabites invaded the land at the coming in of the year.… A dead man, if he happen to have made a will, disposes of wealth no longer his; or if he die intestate, it is distributed in accordance with the notions of men much longer dead than he. A dead man sits on all our judgment-seats, and living judges do but search out and repeat his decisions. We read in dead men's books, we laugh at dead men's jokes, and cry at dead men's pathos! We are sick of dead men's diseases, physical and moral, and die of the same remedies with which dead doctors killed their patients! We worship the living Deity according to dead men's forms and creeds! Whatever we seek to do, of our own free notion, a dead man's icy hand obstructs us! Turn our eyes to what point we may, a dead man's white immitigable face encounters them and freezes our very heart! And we must be dead ourselves before we can begin to have our proper influence on our world which will then be no longer our world, but the world of another generation, with which we shall have no shadow of a right to interfere. (N. Hawthorne.) Parallel Verses KJV: And Elisha died, and they buried him. And the bands of the Moabites invaded the land at the coming in of the year. WEB: Elisha died, and they buried him. Now the bands of the Moabites invaded the land at the coming in of the year.