So he departed there, and found Elisha the son of Shaphat, who was plowing, with twelve yoke of oxen before him, and he with the twelfth: and Elijah passed over to him, and cast his mantle on him. He left the oxen, and ran after Elijah, and said, “Let me please kiss my father and my mother, and then I will follow you.” He said to him, “Go back again; for what have I done to you?” He returned from following him, and took the yoke of oxen, and killed them, […]
⛓ Read 1 Kings 19 forward — the whole chapter and its afterlife →Where this passage surfaces again, sorted by the strength of the link. Each kind of reuse — formal quotation, deliberate allusion, faint echo, figural pattern — carries its own mark. Follow any reference to read it in place.
Allusion4
A deliberate verbal borrowing without a citation formula.
'No one who puts his hand to the plow and looks back' directly engages Elisha's call: found plowing, he asks to kiss his parents farewell before following, and Elijah lets him. Jesus radicalizes the precedent—no looking back, no delayed farewell—making the plowing image and the farewell request unmistakable. Very high volume and coherence.
High confidenceThe abrupt prophetic call—Jesus passing by, the brothers immediately leaving father and livelihood—mirrors Elijah's call of Elisha, who left his oxen and his father to follow. Volume lies in the shared call-narrative form (summons in the midst of work, leaving family/trade), and Mark's pervasive Elijah typology raises coherence and recurrence for the pattern, even without direct quotation.
Medium confidenceElijah's call of Elisha — who is plowing, leaves his oxen, and immediately follows — patterns the immediate abandonment of nets/boat/father by the fishermen (vv.20, 22). Strong narrative parallel of prophetic call met by instant, total following.
Medium confidenceElisha's request to 'kiss my father and my mother' before following Elijah, and Elijah's reply, lies behind the would-be disciple's plea to bury his father and Jesus' more radical demand; strong narrative parallel of the call-to-follow scene.
Medium confidence