And the man of God said, where fell it?.... For though endowed with a spirit of prophecy, he did not know all things, and at all times; and if he did know where it fell, he might ask this question to lead on to the performance of the miracle:and he showed him the place; the exact place in the river into which it fell:and he cut down a stick, and cast it in thither; he did not take the old helve and throw in, but a new stick he cut off of a tree; some think he made of this another helve or handle, of the same size and measure with the other, and that this being cast in was miraculously directed and fixed in the hole of the iron at the bottom of the water, and brought it up with it; but, as Abarbinel observes, there is no need to suppose this; the wood was cast into the precise place where the iron fell, and was sent as it were to call it up to it:and the iron did swim; it came up and appeared, and was bore on the surface of the waters; or, "and made the iron to swim" ; which some understand of the wood cast in, as if it had some peculiar virtue in it to draw up the iron; but it was not any particular chosen wood, but what first occurred to the prophet ; and the meaning is, that Elisha caused it to float, contrary to the nature of iron.
Puy "fecit supernatare", Pagninus, Montanus, Vatablus; so Junius & Tremellius, Piscator. Vid. Friese, Dissert. de Ferro Natante, sect.