In this paper, the boundary integral equation (BIE) method is employed to investigate the radiation and scattering of time‐harmonic elastic waves by obstacles of arbitrary shape embedded in an infinite medium. Based on the vector BIE, entirely free of Cauchy principal value integrals, an efficient numerical scheme using quadratic isoparametric boundary elements is proposed. Furthermore, the difficulty of non‐uniquess of a solution inherent with BIE formulations for exterior elastodynamic problems is studied numerically and analytically. The counterparts of the combined Helmholtz integral formulation method for elastodynamics together with the least‐square or Lagrange‐multiplier technique are derived and applied to overcome this difficulty successfully. In addition, the elastic‐wave fields radiated or scattered by either a spherical cavity or a rigid sphere in an infinite medium are calculated and the results are compared with the analytical solutions to demonstrate the accuracy and versatility of the proposed numerical scheme.