what does healing means ? is the healing fully accomplished in one time or is it a medical treatment ?
does the salt need to act continually ?
what say the hebrews ? thank you
in other words are we sick again if we stop the treatment ?
is it a LONG TIME treatment ?
thank you
In this case, apparently the spring was “healed”. In some areas, brackish water is a problem, especially during times of drought. IF that was the case here, then the spring would give clean, fresh water some times, but some times brackish salt water would seep into the spring’s source and make it bad for drinking. So Elijah throwing salt into the water shouldn’t make any difference chemically. Not only that, but throwing salt into the spring wouldn’t deal with the sourse problem. Anyhow, this being a miracle of God the spring was healed so that it always produced good water.
The Hebrew indicates a one-time permanent healing (or permanent down to the day of the author of 2 Kings anyway).
When the Holy Spirit salts us with fire, though, we are only at peace with one another for as long as we have salt in ourselves. We should seek the salt that salts, not the salt that does not salt; nor (I suppose by the logic of the saying) should we teach that the salting of the unquenchable fire does not salt! (Mark 9:49-50)
I can’t tell from 2 Kings if the salt was washed away by the spring or stayed in the spring to miraculously freshen the water. But we should keep the salting of the Holy Spirit in ourselves: throwing out or washing away the Holy Spirit is never a good thing!
(The incident with Elisha isn’t necessarily an enacted parable of salvation. Although I would bet a Coke that Origen thought so! 
But like many ancient commenters he thought everything in scripture featured four meanings.)
i am sorry, i have not really understood, is possible that the salt was a TREATMENT , a treatment with no end
is it possible that the water was never in really good health (if you need a treatment and not only a remedy you are not really healed in my opinion)
thank you
I can’t tell from 2 Kings if the salt was washed away by the spring or stayed in the spring to miraculously freshen the water.
it seems that it could be a treatment
so maybe the lake of fire is a never ending treatment , where impurity is covered under fire and brimstone: God cant bear uncovered sins
Erwan,
It is hard to guess from your replies, but I think you are trying to take too much from this story. The story is about making poisonous water pure, and about how God’s people (the salt) living in God’s kingdom (also the salt) can purify this world. It may be about other things also, but it is not about how to heal people or be healed from physical diseases.
The people needed fresh water to drink, but the water was bad. Salt is a symbol of purification and preservation. People use salt to keep food from spoiling, to disinfect wounds, and to make bland food tasty. The people knew this. They also knew that salt could not make the water pure.
Elijah threw in the salt because that was what he believed God was telling him to do. The salt did not treat or heal or purify the water. God is the one who made the water good.
God could have told Elijah to speak to the water and command it to be pure. Or He could have had Elijah do something else. I believe that the salt was an illustrated lesson for the people who were watching Elijah. It was probably a lesson for us as well.
Jesus also used salt in at least one of His parables. In Jesus’ parable, the salt represented His kingdom embodied in His people and also His kingdom in the lives of His people. Our presence in the world, as His people, is supposed to keep the world from “spoiling” or “going bad” just as salt in meat can keep the meat from rotting. Our presence is supposed to be a presence that heals, just as salt can disinfect a wound and allow it to heal. Our presence should also make life in this world better for other people. (Make it “taste” better)
Looking around me, I think that we, as His people, may be losing our saltiness.
This story is not an illustration about how to heal people from physical illness, though. If you want to know that, it would be best to study the way Jesus healed people and how that looked. He healed instantaneously, and this is why people believed that He was working miracles by His Father’s hand. If the healings had been slow and had been helped by a doctor, people would have given the doctor credit for the healings.
If it is physical healing of sicknesses that you are asking about, I suggest you visit this website: theelijahchallenge.org/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=222 It helped me, and maybe it will help you, too. Many people have what they call “healing ministries,” but often the people they pray for are not healed. The people are told to believe that they have been healed and then they will be healed. This does not usually work, especially for people who do not know God. It also does not impress the lost.
I hope this helps answer your questions, Erwan. 
Blessings, Cindy
The Hebrew is not clear either way. And it doesn’t seem to be an important narrative detail, nor implied by the story either way.
This is why I said that this story about Elisha is not necessarily an enacted parable of salvation.
The story tends to indicate that the water was pure from that time up until whoever wrote 2 Kings.
The principle that an ongoing treatment is not a remedy, depends on the treatment being something extra, unusually supplied, that the unhealthy person would normally not need.
The Holy Spirit is not something extra being unusually supplied that the unhealthy person would not normally need. Instead we lack, by our sins (and by the sins of people before us), what we were designed to normally have: the Holy Spirit dwelling in and with us, connecting us to the life of the Father and the Son. (The Spirit is the Person of God Who is the gift of God Personally by God Personally to persons, whether those persons are us or the Father and the Son. There is much Christian mysticism in our history on this topic, especially in the Western and Eastern Catholic traditions, although they have some technical differences with each other.)
Consequently, the Holy Spirit is not simply an ongoing treatment for people who are never healed and so who need an ongoing treatment. Sinning against the Holy Spirit is what makes us sick in the first place. Whenever the Spirit is fully in place within our hearts again, we will be fully healed. We will not be impure underneath with a plaster of Holy Spirit on top like an ancient medicinal bandage for keeping infection down.
But if we throw out the Holy Spirit, then we will be sick instead of healthy.
If purgatorial universalism is true (and I believe it is), the lake of fire is the Holy Spirit in a cleaning mode. Eventually the cleaning stops, but the fire of the Holy Spirit remains–because we were supposed to be living in the fire of the Holy Spirit all along.
In short: without God we cannot be good. God is not a medicine we could ideally do without if we were healthy. God is our only spiritual health. When we have God’s fire in our heart, that is the proper fuel for our soul. Without it we go to pieces until we can get it again. And like good fuel, God’s fire cleans us from our impurities when we start accepting Him back into our lives.
But that doesn’t mean we can get rid of God once we are sinless!
Nor does it mean that once we are sinless we are still underneath impure and only wearing God (so to speak) like a covering of our filthiness. (The prophets have harsher things to say against that than anything, calling it “hypocrisy”.)
I am very much against such lines of thought, as are all Christian universalists. Salvation from sin is real; and God is not only a medicine for our sins, but is the source of all our life and goodness.
We need more God to live and be good, not less.
That was really good, Jason. Very insightful. Thanks!