Gechazi, the servant of the prophet Elisha, provides a vivid example of how a student's reverence for his teacher can border on the absolute. When Elisha dispatched him on an urgent mission — "Gird your loins and take my staff in your hand" (II Kings 4:29) — Gechazi set out immediately, staff in hand, striding through the countryside.
Strangers stopped him along the way and asked where he was going. Gechazi answered without hesitation: "To revive the dead." He was heading to the home of the Shunammite woman, whose son had just died, and he fully expected the staff of Elisha to restore the child to life.
The strangers were incredulous. "Can you revive the dead? Is it not written: 'The Lord puts to death and brings to life'?" (I Samuel 2:6). Only God has power over life and death. Who do you think you are?
Gechazi's response was immediate: "My master, too, puts to death and brings to life." He equated Elisha's power directly with God's power. The Mekhilta preserves this exchange not to praise Gechazi — who was a deeply flawed figure elsewhere in the tradition — but to illustrate the principle that the fear of one's teacher should equal the fear of Heaven. Even a servant as imperfect as Gechazi understood instinctively that a true prophet channels divine authority. What God can do, God's chosen vessel can do through Him.