2 Kingschapter 4
44 verses · Jeremiah, by tradition · 6th century BC · History
Now the wife of one of the sons of the prophets cried out to Elisha, “Your servant, my husband, is dead, and you know that your servant feared the LORD. And now his creditor is coming to take my two children as his slaves!”
Introduction
Jeremiah, by tradition, History, 2 Kings Overview.
This chapter leaves the kings offstage, and that is its first lesson. It gathers accounts of Elisha among ordinary households in the northern kingdom, a debt, a childless home, a famine and a hungry company of prophets. Its first hearers knew the law that let a creditor take a debtor's children, knew olive oil as money, and knew which days people travelled to see a prophet. Listen for how often the help comes through what is already in the house. Listen also for a mother who will not be turned away. The chapter shows God at work at the scale of a kitchen.
Context
- Who
- Ordinary Israelites in debt, childless, hungry, or grieving
- What
- Accounts of Elisha meeting the needs of a widow in debt, a household at Shunem, and a company of prophets in famine.
- Where
- A prophet's widow's house, the town of Shunem in the Jezreel valley, Mount Carmel, and Gilgal.
- When
- The ministry of Elisha under Joram of Israel, about 850 BC.
- Why
- To show that God's care reaches ordinary households as surely as it reaches kings and armies.
Historical context
The chapter is Elisha's, and no king appears in it. Debt slavery is the situation in the first story, and it was legal. A creditor could take a debtor's children into service to work off what was owed, and Israel's law limited the term and required release while the practice stayed real and ruinous. A widow with two sons about to be taken had no other asset and no male relative acting for her.
Show the rest of the historical context, 3 more paragraphs
The remedy uses ordinary household equipment: borrowed jars from the neighbours, the door shut, and one small flask of olive oil. Oil was money, since it was the region's main cash crop and was exported by the jar, so the miracle pays the debt and leaves an income.
The Shunammite's guest room is described in detail because it shows how a travelling prophet lived, a small walled chamber built on the flat roof furnished with a bed, a table, a stool and a lamp. Her husband asks why she is going out, since it is neither new moon nor Sabbath, which tells a reader that those were the days people normally travelled to hear a prophet, a working calendar of religious life in the north.
The boy's collapse in the field with a cry about his head, at harvest in the Jezreel plain, reads as heat stroke. The last two scenes are famine stories: a poisonous wild gourd gathered by someone who did not know the plants and thrown into a communal stew pot, and a man from Baal-shalishah bringing twenty barley loaves of the firstfruits, an offering that by law went to the priests and is redirected here to a hungry prophetic community in a country whose official priesthood served calves.
Significance
These are small miracles for small people, and that is the point. A widow, a childless woman, a poisoned pot, and a hundred hungry men.
Show the rest of the significance, 1 more paragraph
For first hearers under kings who spent their attention on wars and shrines, this said their God was working at the level of a household jar of oil and a boy with sunstroke.
This chapter in Jewish lifeWhat this chapter is in Jewish life and reading.
What is done
This is the chapter of 2 Kings most often heard in the synagogue. Of the twenty-five chapters of the book, only three carry a Haftarah use at all, and this one carries two of them, so a congregation that keeps the annual cycle hears part of this chapter twice in the year. It is read once beside the portion that carries the promise of a son to Sarah, and once beside the portion that opens the law of skin disease, where the reading runs on past the end of this chapter into the account of Naaman. Both uses belong to both rites. The card above prints the portions and the extents from the site's own reading table, so they are left unrepeated here.
One difference in practice does stand behind the card and is worth a reader knowing. In the first of the two uses the Ashkenazi and Sephardi rites begin at the same verse and stop at different ones. The Ashkenazi reading runs to the end of the account of the Shunammite's son and closes with the boy alive. The Sephardi reading stops earlier, while the woman is still setting out for the prophet, so the two rites end the year's hearing of this chapter on two different notes, one on the child restored and one on a mother on the road. The site's reading table at src/lib/hebraic/readings.ts carries both extents, and the source of this paragraph is that file.
Why each of the two portions was paired with this chapter is a question the classical sources in this lane's corpus do not answer, and this site proposes no answer of its own. What can be said from the table is that both pairings join a passage of the Torah to a passage of the Prophets about a body, a birth promised to a woman past hope in the one, and a disease of the skin in the other.
How it is read
The corpus keeps twenty-two notes on this chapter, more than on any other chapter of 1 to 13, and two translations carry them. Sixteen are Rashi in the Metsudah Tanach series of Lakewood, New Jersey, under CC-BY, and six are Metzudat David in the Sefaria Community Translation under CC0, which is the only chapter in this range where that second translation stands. The identifications come first. The widow of the first verse Rashi names as the wife of Obadiah, and he notes that Targum Jonathan renders the phrase for the sons of the prophets as the disciples of the prophets throughout Scripture (Rashi on II Kings 4:1:1). Her jar he reads as enough oil for an anointing, and he works the Hebrew letter that opens the word against two other places where the same letter behaves the same way, with Radak's alternative in the Metsudah footnote (Rashi on II Kings 4:2:1).
The miracle of the oil is read as a lesson in how a miracle should be done. On the order to shut the door Rashi says that it affords respect to the miracle for it to come about in secret (Rashi on II Kings 4:4:1). Metzudat David reads the instruction about the vessels as a widening of the circle, from people outside her house, and he takes the added clause as a clarification covering every one of her neighbours (Metzudat David on II Kings 4:3:1). On the bringing of the vessels Rashi is brief, and the Metsudah footnote adds Radak's report that broken vessels were brought and became whole and were filled too (Rashi on II Kings 4:5:1). The stopping of the oil he glosses plainly and then gives the reading of the Midrash Aggadah beside it, that the price of oil went up (Rashi on II Kings 4:6:1). Her return to the prophet Rashi reads as a request for commercial advice, whether to sell or to hold for a better price, and he gives Elisha's answer as an instruction to sell, with enough to pay the debt and enough left to live on until the dead are raised, which the Metsudah footnote reports Malbim taking as a blessing of life to the resurrection (Rashi on II Kings 4:7:1).
The Shunammite is given a family and a character. Rashi reads the word for her standing as important, and he reports from Pirkei of Rabbi Eliezer that she was the sister of Abishag the Shunammite, with the Metsudah footnote adding Radak's identification of her as the mother of the prophet Iddo (Rashi on II Kings 4:8:1). Her recognition of Elisha as a holy man Rashi grounds in what she saw in her own house, citing the tractate Berakhot, and he draws a general rule from it, that a woman recognises her guests better than her husband does (Rashi on II Kings 4:9:1). Metzudat David reads the purpose of the upper room as solitude, a place to be alone (Metzudat David on II Kings 4:10:1). Her standing in the doorway he reads as a response to the prophet's manner, that when she saw he was not speaking to her face to face she distanced herself and stood out in the doorway (Metzudat David on II Kings 4:15:1). The promise of a son Rashi reads as a guarantee of her own health as much as of a birth, with the Metsudah footnote carrying Metzudat David's alternative that the phrase measures a full nine months in the womb (Rashi on II Kings 4:16:1), and he settles the vowel that makes the same phrase work at the next verse (Rashi on II Kings 4:17:1).
The death of the boy and the ride to Carmel are read in short strokes. Metzudat David sets the scene of the child going out to his father among the reapers on that same day (Metzudat David on II Kings 4:18:1). The boy's cry Rashi renders as sickness in the head, with the footnote adding Radak's observation that those in pain commonly repeat their cries (Rashi on II Kings 4:19:1). Her order to the servant Rashi reads as urgency, an instruction to hurry and to hold nothing back on her account, with Radak's note in the footnote that the commentators divide over whether she walked beside the donkey or rode it (Rashi on II Kings 4:24). Metzudat David glosses the prophet's sight of her as from a distance (Metzudat David on II Kings 4:25:1). Her answer to Gehazi Rashi treats as an abbreviated verse, where the question is implied and the answer alone is written (Rashi on II Kings 4:26:1). Her taking hold of the prophet's feet Metzudat David reads as a matter of the prophet's honour (Metzudat David on II Kings 4:27:1). Three further notes are one line each, on the day that came (Rashi on II Kings 4:11:1), on the phrase for her trouble on their account (Rashi on II Kings 4:13:1), and on who Elisha was speaking to at the fourteenth verse, which Rashi answers as Gehazi (Rashi on II Kings 4:14:1).
Two further notes stand on this chapter with no English text in the corpus and are cited here unquoted. They are Malbim on II Kings 4:20:1 and Radak on II Kings 4:23:1. Two is the lowest count of linked notes in the range, which follows from the kept count being the highest.
What the rabbis say
The corpus carries forty rabbinic locators on this chapter, twenty-eight Midrash and twelve Talmud, and the text of none, so each is cited and linked here rather than quoted. The widow and her creditor draw Midrash Tanchuma, Ki Tisa 5:7 and Otzar Midrashim, A Certain Woman From the Wives of the Sons of the Prophets 1:1, and the second of those is a Midrash named for this episode. The shut door draws Midrash Sekhel Tov, Shemot 15:22:1, the filling of the vessels draws Bereshit Rabbah 35:3, which is the same locator the kept note above names for the price of oil, and the selling of the oil draws Pesikta DeRav Kahana 11:15.
The Shunammite carries the heaviest run in the chapter. Her standing draws Midrash Mishlei 31:5, which is the Midrash on the woman of worth, and Midrash Tanchuma Buber, Ki Teitzei 2:1 stands over the whole account from the eighth verse to the seventeenth. Her recognition of the prophet draws Berakhot 10b:22 and Midrash Lekach Tov, Genesis 20:1:4, and the upper room she built draws Berakhot 10b:14 and Jerusalem Talmud Berakhot 4:4:11. Three of those four sit in the tractate Berakhot, which is where the tradition works out what hospitality to a prophet amounts to. The calling of the woman draws Yalkut Shimoni on Torah 841:1 and her answer about living among her own people draws Midrash Sekhel Tov, Shemot 4:15:5.
The promise of a son draws Aggadat Bereshit 28:4 and Bereshit Rabbah 53:2, and the birth draws Midrash Aggadah, Genesis 18:10:1. All three reach back to the promise made to Sarah, which is the pairing the synagogue makes when it reads this chapter beside that portion. The boy's collapse draws Jerusalem Talmud Yevamot 15:2:2 and Midrash Tehillim 26:7, and his laying on the bed draws Sifrei Bamidbar 153:3. Her husband's question about the day she chose to go draws Ein Yaakov (Glick Edition), Rosh Hashanah 1:10 and Ein Yaakov (Glick Edition), Sukkah 2:4, and both of those sit in tractates about the festivals, because the verse names the new moon and the sabbath. The ride draws Midrash Sekhel Tov, Bereshit 24:51:2 and the meeting draws Aggadat Bereshit 70:3.
Gehazi's attempt to push her away draws Berakhot 10b:24 and Jerusalem Talmud Sanhedrin 10:2:23. The staff sent ahead in his hand draws Ein Yaakov (Glick Edition), Pesakhim 6:4 and Ein Yaakov, Pesakhim 6:3, and her refusal to leave the prophet draws Berakhot 61a:23 and Eruvin 18b:6. The staff laid on the child's face without effect draws Pirkei DeRabbi Eliezer 33:8. The prophet shutting the door and praying draws Midrash Shmuel 23:2, and the stretching of his body over the child draws Niddah 70b:8 across verses 33 to 36, with Midrash Tanchuma, Vayakhel 1:6 and Shemot Rabbah 48:1 at the thirty-fourth. The seven sneezes draw Introductions to Amoraic Literature, Part II (Notes and Interpretations for Chapters of the Talmud), Baba Batra, Chapter I 211.
The last four stand on the two food miracles that close the chapter. The famine and the company of prophets draw Sanhedrin 12a:4, the wild gourds in the pot draw Ein Yaakov, Yoma 1:20, and the meal that made the pot safe draws Introductions to Tanaitic Literature, Introduction to Mishnah and Tosefta, The Mishnayot of the Disciples of Rabbi Akiva 432. The twenty loaves of the firstfruits draw Ein Yaakov (Glick Edition), Ketubot 13:7 and Ein Yaakov (Glick Edition), Ketubot 13:9 at the forty-second and forty-third verses, which is where the Haftarah of the second use begins. What each of them teaches is a saying of the rabbis, and is reported as theirs wherever this site quotes one. The quotations wait on a fetch that carries the text.
Sources: The site's reading table, src/lib/hebraic/readings.ts, the Vayera and Tazria entries and their haftarah and sephardi fields, printed in this lane through haftarahUsesForChapter and hasSynagogueReading; Rashi, Rashi on II Kings 4:1:1 to 4:26:1, sixteen notes, the Metsudah Tanach series, Lakewood, N.J, CC-BY; Metzudat David, Metzudat David on II Kings 4:3:1, 4:10:1, 4:15:1, 4:18:1, 4:25:1 and 4:27:1, the Sefaria Community Translation, CC0; and reported inside the Metsudah footnote at 4:16:1; Radak, Radak on II Kings 4:23:1, cited by ref because the corpus carries no English text; and reported inside the Metsudah footnotes at 4:2:1, 4:5:1, 4:8:1, 4:19:1 and 4:24; Malbim, Malbim on II Kings 4:20:1, cited by ref because the corpus carries no English text; and reported inside the Metsudah footnote at 4:7:1; The Sefaria corpus, scripts/data/sources/sefaria/2-kings/4.json, the 40 rabbinic locators of this chapter, 28 Midrash and 12 Talmud.
The heads below are this chapter's scenes. The numbered points under each are its verses.
Borrow vessels not a few: oil until the last jar
2 Kings 4:1-3
The widow cries that “his creditor is coming to take my two children as his slaves”, the bondage for debt that Leviticus 25:39 regulates. Elisha begins as Elijah did at Zarephath in 1 Kings 17:12, by asking what she has. The borrowing is her own labour.
2 Kings 4:1
“Prophets - Who, though they were wholly devoted to sacred employment, were not excluded from marriage, any more than the priests and Levites. Fear the Lord - His poverty therefore was not procured by his idleness, or prodigality; but by his piety, because he would not comply with the king's way of worship, and therefore lost all worldly advantages.”
John Wesley · Explanatory Notes upon the Old Testament (1765)evangelical
2 more voices on this verseWhat preachers and commentators have said about this verse, in their own words.
2 Kings 4:1
“The creditor is come ... - The Law of Moses, like the Athenian and the Roman law, recognized servitude for debt, and allowed that pledging of the debtor’s person, which, in a rude state of society, is regarded as the safest and the most natural security (see the marginal reference). In the present case it would seem that, so long as the debtor lived, the creditor had not enforced his right over his sons, but now on his death he claimed their services, to which he was by law entitled.”
2 Kings 4:1
“She was a prophet's widow; to whom therefore should she apply, but to him that was a father to the sons of the prophets, and concerned himself in the welfare of their families? It seems, the prophets had wives as well as the priests, though prophecy went not by entail, as the priesthood did. Marriage is honourable in all, and not inconsistent with the most sacred professions.”
Matthew Henry · Commentary on the Whole Bible (1707-1721)puritan
Adam Clarke listed the uses of such oil in a house: food, anointing the body after bathing, and anointing the dead. Some held that this widow had kept her jar for her own burial, a use Matthew 26:12 also names. It was all she had.
2 Kings 4:2
“Save a pot of oil - Oil was used as aliment, for anointing the body after bathing, and to anoint the dead. Some think that this pot of oil was what this widow had kept for her burial: see Mat 26:12.”
Adam Clarke · Commentary on the Bible (1810-1826)evangelical
John Gill noted that neighbours would lend empty jars readily, and he read the order for many as foresight of how much oil would come. Matthew Henry set the oil beside the flour of the widow of Zarephath. Both grew as they were used.
2 Kings 4:3
“Then he said, go, borrow thee vessels abroad of all thy neighbours,.... For he perceived that she had none: even empty vessels; which they might more readily lend her: borrow not a few; but as many as she could get; the prophet, under a divine impulse, was directed to say this to her, foreseeing, by a spirit of prophecy, that a large quantity of oil would be given her.”
1 more voice on this verse
2 Kings 4:3
“She must shut the door, to prevent interruptions from the creditors, and others while it was in the doing, that they might not seem proudly to boast of this miraculous supply, and that they might have opportunity for prayer and praise to God upon this extraordinary occasion. Observe, (1.) The oil was to be multiplied in the pouring, as the other widow's meal in the spending.”
Matthew Henry · Commentary on the Whole Bible (1707-1721)puritan
2 Kings 4:4-6
pour oil into all these jars: Elisha tells her to “shut the door behind you and your sons”. The oil flows while there are jars to fill, and when her son says, “There are no more jars”, then “the oil stopped flowing”. The supply ends with the vessels, and the source never fails.
shut the door behind her: Matthew Henry gave three reasons for the shut door. It kept out the creditors while the work went on, it kept the family from boasting, and it left them room for prayer and praise. Her sons brought the jars, and she poured.
2 Kings 4:5
“So she went from him,.... And did as he advised her, borrowed many empty vessels of her neighbours, having faith in what the prophet had said to her: and shut the door upon her, and upon her sons; and then went to work as she was directed, with her sons: who brought the vessels to her; the empty ones she had borrowed: and she poured out; the oil out of her pot into them.”
Then the oil stopped flowing: Adam Clarke took the flowing oil as a picture of the grace of God. It runs as long as an empty, longing heart stands ready to receive it. Clarke named them those who hunger and thirst for righteousness.
2 Kings 4:6
“And the oil stayed - While there was a vessel to fill, there was oil sufficient; and it only ceased to flow when there was no vessel to receive it. This is a good emblem of the grace of God. While there is an empty, longing heart, there is a continual overflowing fountain of salvation. If we find in any place or at any time that the oil ceases to flow, it is because there are no empty vessels there, no souls hungering and thirsting for righteousness.”
Adam Clarke · Commentary on the Bible (1810-1826)evangelical
She reports to “the man of God”, the title chapter 1 gave Elijah, given here to Elisha for the first time in the book. His word keeps the work in her hands, “Go, sell the oil, and pay your debt”, and she and her sons live on the remainder.
2 Kings 4:7
“Go, sell the oil, and pay thy debt - He does not inveigh against the cruelty of this creditor, because the law and custom of the country gave him the authority on which he acted; and rather than permit a poor honest widow to have her children sold, or that even a Philistine should suffer loss who had given credit to a genuine Israelite, he would work a miracle to pay a debt which, in the course of providence, it was out of her power to discharge.”
Adam Clarke · Commentary on the Bible (1810-1826)evangelical
1 more voice on this verse
2 Kings 4:7
“We are never straiten'd in God, and in his power and bounty, and the riches of his grace. All our straitness is in ourselves. It is our faith that fails, not his promise.”
John Wesley · Explanatory Notes upon the Old Testament (1765)evangelical
A little chamber on the wall, and the promise of a son
2 Kings 4:8-10
One day Elisha went to Shunem: The Hebrew behind “a prominent woman” is literally a great woman, marking wealth and standing. She proposes the room herself, with “a bed, a table, a chair, and a lamp”. The widow of Zarephath housed Elijah at 1 Kings 17:9-19, and here a woman houses his successor.
2 Kings 4:8
“And it fell on a day,.... Or so it was at a certain time: that Elisha passed to Shunem; a city in the tribe of Issachar; of which see Jos 19:18, where was a great woman; of great wealth and riches, of great benevolence and hospitality, and of great grace and piety; that feared sin, as the Targum paraphrases it; a woman of great credit and reputation on all accounts.”
1 more voice on this verse
2 Kings 4:8
“Elisha passed to Shunem - This city was in the tribe of Issachar, to the south of the brook Kishon, and at the foot of Mount Tabor. Where was a great woman - In Pirkey Rab. Eliezer, this woman is said to have been the sister of Abishag, the Shunammite, well known in the history of David. Instead of great woman, the Chaldee has, a woman fearing sin; the Arabic, a woman eminent for piety before God. This made her truly great.”
Adam Clarke · Commentary on the Bible (1810-1826)evangelical
a holy man of God: The Chaldee paraphrase renders a holy man of God simply as a prophet, Adam Clarke notes. Clarke thought Elisha's frequent road past Shunem led to some school of the prophets he often visited. The woman had watched him long enough to know him.
2 Kings 4:9
“This is a holy man of God - That is, a prophet, as the Chaldee interprets it. Which passeth by us continually - It probably lay in his way to some school of the prophets that he usually attended.”
Adam Clarke · Commentary on the Bible (1810-1826)evangelical
1 more voice on this verse
2 Kings 4:9
“That the stranger she would invite was a holy man of God, who therefore would do good to their family, and God would recompense the kindness done to him; perhaps she had heard how well paid the widow of Sarepta was for entertaining Elijah.”
Matthew Henry · Commentary on the Whole Bible (1707-1721)puritan
a small room upstairs: John Gill reports that Jewish writers took the room as a small building with walls of stone or brick. Adam Clarke saw in it the privacy a prophet needed, as much as in his own house. Clarke compared Eglon's upper room at Judges 3:20.
2 Kings 4:10
“Let us make a little chamber, I pray thee, on the wall,.... Either of the city, to which their house might join, or of their garden, a little distance from the house; though the Jewish writers commonly understand it of a little edifice built up of walls of stone or bricks, and not one with reeds, or stud and mud: let us set for him there a bed; that he may stay all night when he pleases: and a table; not only to eat his food, but to write on, and lay his books on he reads.”
1 more voice on this verse
2 Kings 4:10
“Let us make a little chamber - See the note upon Jdg 3:20 (note). As the woman was convinced that Elisha was a prophet, she knew that he must have need of more privacy than the general state of her house could afford; and therefore she proposes what she knew would be a great acquisition to him, as he could live in this little chamber in as much privacy as if he were in his own house. The bed, the table, the stool, and the candlestick, were really every thing he could need, by way of accommodation, in such circumstances.”
Adam Clarke · Commentary on the Bible (1810-1826)evangelical
2 Kings 4:11-13
went to his upper room to lie down: Elisha speaks to the woman and offers to speak “to the king or the commander of the army”, which shows his standing at court. She answers, “I have a home among my own people”, and asks nothing that such access could buy.
2 Kings 4:11
“And it fell on a day that he came thither,.... As he had been wont to do: and he turned into the chamber; built for him, and to which he was directed: and lay there; all night, and which no doubt was frequently repeated by him, he accepting of the kindness of his host.”
said to Gehazi his servant: Gehazi is named here for the first time, the servant who carries Elisha's words through this chapter. Albert Barnes noted that the Shunammite's care covered the servant too, lodged in her house along with his master. She comes when called and stands before Elisha.
2 Kings 4:12
“Gehazi his servant - This is the first time we hear of this very indifferent character.”
Adam Clarke · Commentary on the Bible (1810-1826)evangelical
Albert Barnes read her answer as the word of a woman with no quarrel that needed a friend at court. Her own people were her family and dependents, and she lived at peace among them. The king's ear held nothing she wanted.
2 Kings 4:13
“Thou hast been careful for us - For the prophet and his servant, who must have been lodged as well as his master. I dwell among mine own people - The woman declines Elisha’s offer. She has no wrong to complain of, no quarrel with any neighbor, in respect of which she might need the help of one in power. She “dwells among her own people” - her friends, and dependents, with whom she lives peaceably.”
2 Kings 4:14-15
What follows repeats the annunciation given to Abraham and Sarah at Gen 18:10-14, a barren household promised a son at an appointed season. The prophetic word functions as it did there, not a guess at what the couple wants but a sovereign announcement of what will be given.
2 Kings 4:14
“What then is to be done for her? - It seems that the woman retired as soon as she had delivered the answer mentioned in the preceding verse.”
Adam Clarke · Commentary on the Bible (1810-1826)evangelical
she stood in the doorway: Gehazi calls her a second time, and she stops at the doorway of the upper room. Adam Clarke found the circumstances close to those of Isaac's birth. Sarah too listened at the entrance of the tent when the son was promised, at Genesis 18:10.
2 Kings 4:15
“And he said, call her,.... Perhaps finding an impulse on his own mind, from the Spirit of God, that this was the thing to be done for her: and when he had called her, she stood in the door; of his chamber: See Gill on 2Ki 4:12.”
2 Kings 4:16-17
Elisha promises, “At this time next year, you will hold a son in your arms”. She answers, “Do not lie to your maidservant, O man of God”, guarding against a hope raised and dashed. Sarah laughed at a like promise at Genesis 18:12-15.
2 Kings 4:16
“Thou shalt embrace a son - This promise, and the circumstances of the parties, are not very dissimilar to that relative to the birth of Isaac, and those of Abraham and Sarah. Do not lie - That is, Let thy words become true; or, as the rabbins understand it, Do not mock me by giving me a son that shall soon be removed by death; but let me have one that shall survive me.”
Adam Clarke · Commentary on the Bible (1810-1826)evangelical
the woman did conceive: Adam Clarke read her plea do not lie as a prayer that the words would come true. The next year they did. The rabbis, Clarke notes, heard a further fear, a son given and soon taken by death, and verse 20 brings that fear to pass.
2 Kings 4:17
“And the woman conceived, and bare a son at the season that Elisha said unto her,.... Quickly after this she conceived, and became pregnant, and by that time the year came round, she was brought to bed of a son: according to the time of life: when she had gone her full time to have a son born alive, and live.”
1 more voice on this verse
2 Kings 4:17
“25 So she went and came unto the man of God to mount Carmel. And it came to pass, when the man of God saw her afar off, that he said to Gehazi his servant, Behold, yonder is that Shunammite: 26 Run now, I pray thee, to meet her, and say unto her, Is it well with thee? is it well with thy husband? is it well with the child?”
Matthew Henry · Commentary on the Whole Bible (1707-1721)puritan
My head, my head: the Shunammite rides to Carmel
2 Kings 4:18-20
he went out to his father, who was with the harvesters: The boy is old enough to walk out to the harvesters, and there he cries. A servant carries him to his mother, and he sits on her lap “until noon, and then he died”. The text names no cause, and the harvest season has led readers to think of sunstroke.
2 Kings 4:18
“And when the child was grown,.... Perhaps was six or seven years of age, or more: it fell on a day that he went out to his father to the reapers; it was harvest time, and the men were reaping the corn in the fields; and his father, though a wealthy man, was with them to direct them, and see they did their business well, as Boaz formerly; and the child went out from the house to the field, to see his father and the reapers, for his recreation and diversion.”
Jamieson, Fausset and Brown judged from the cry and the harvest season that the boy had taken a stroke of the sun. Pain, stupor and burning fever mark the illness, which often kills.
2 Kings 4:19
“My head, my head!--The cries of the boy, the part affected, and the season of the year, make it probable that he had been overtaken by a stroke of the sun. Pain, stupor, and inflammatory fever are the symptoms of the disease, which is often fatal.”
Jamieson, Fausset & Brown · Commentary Critical and Explanatory on the Whole Bible (1871)reformed
sat on her lap until noon: John Gill put the boy's age at six or seven years or more, still small enough to sit on his mother's lap. The illness ran from the harvest field to noon of the same day. He died at noon.
2 Kings 4:21-23
laid him on the bed: She lays the boy “on the bed of the man of God”, the bed made for Elisha at verse 10, and shuts the door. She tells her husband neither the death nor her errand, only “Everything is all right”, which renders a single Hebrew word, shalom.
2 Kings 4:21
“Laid him on the bed of the man of God - She had no doubt heard that Elijah had raised the widow’s son of Zarephath to life; and she believed that he who had obtained this gift from God for her, could obtain his restoration to life.”
Adam Clarke · Commentary on the Bible (1810-1826)evangelical
1 more voice on this verse
2 Kings 4:21
“Bed of the man of God - Being apt to believe, he that so soon took away what he had given, would restore what he had taken away. By this faith women received their dead raised to life. In this faith she makes no preparation for the burial of her child, but for his resurrection.”
John Wesley · Explanatory Notes upon the Old Testament (1765)evangelical
one of the donkeys: Albert Barnes placed every servant and every donkey in the harvest field that day. The young men cut and bound the sheaves, and the donkeys drew the loaded carts to the threshing floor. She asks her husband to spare one of each.
2 Kings 4:22
“And she called unto her husband,.... In the field, who might be within call, or by a messenger she sent to him: and said, send me, I pray thee, one of the young men, and one of the asses, that I may run to the man of God, and come again; intimating that she should not be long gone, but should return again presently; saying not a word of the death of the child, or of the occasion of her going.”
1 more voice on this verse
2 Kings 4:22
“Send me, I pray thee, one of the young men and one of the asses - All the “young men” and all the “asses” were in the harvest field, the young men cutting and binding the sheaves, and placing them upon carts or wains, the donkeys drawing these vehicles fully laden, to the threshing-floor. Compare Amo 2:13.”
Albert Barnes gathered from the husband's question that Elisha held services on Carmel with some regularity for the faithful nearby. The Law set the first day of each month apart as holy, with its own offerings at Numbers 28:11-15. He had not connected the boy's illness with her errand.
2 Kings 4:24-26
Carmel lies some fifteen to twenty miles from Shunem by the commentators' reckoning, a hard ride the woman drives without slackening. Gehazi's threefold question receives one answer, it is well, the same word she gave her husband, now spoken over a dead child with settled confidence.
2 Kings 4:24
“Drive, and go forward - It is customary in the East for a servant to walk along side or drive the ass his master rides. Sometimes he walks behind, and goads on the beast; and when it is to turn, he directs its head with the long pole of the goad. It is probably to this custom that the wise man alludes when he says, “I have seen servants on horses, and princes walking as servants on the earth,” on the ground.”
Adam Clarke · Commentary on the Bible (1810-1826)evangelical
the man of God at Mount Carmel: John Gill recalls that Carmel was where Elijah used to stay, and he thought a school of the prophets met there. From the height of the mountain Elisha could see her coming a long way off. He knew her at once.
2 Kings 4:25
“So she went and came unto the man of God at Mount Carmel,.... Where Elijah used to be, and where, perhaps, was a school of the prophets; this, according to Bunting (x), was sixteen miles from Shunem: and it came to pass, when the man of God saw her afar off; as he might from the eminence of the mountain: that he said to Gehazi his servant, behold, yonder is that Shunammite; that has so often and so hospitably entertained us at her house. (x) Travels, &c. p. 207.”
1 more voice on this verse
2 Kings 4:25
“The answer was general It is well. Gehazi was not the man that she came to complain to, and therefore she put him off with this; she said little, and little said is soon amended ( Ps. xxxix. 1, 2 ), but what she did say was very patient: "It is well with me, with my husband, with the child"--all well, and yet the child dead in the house.”
Matthew Henry · Commentary on the Whole Bible (1707-1721)puritan
Matthew Henry noted that Gehazi was the wrong man to hear her grief, so she put him off with a general answer. Adam Clarke saw in the same words a strong faith that took even this loss as the work of a wise and kind Providence.
2 Kings 4:26
“It is well - How strong was her faith in God and submission to his authority! Though the heaviest family affliction that could befall her and her husband had now taken place; yet, believing that it was a dispensation of Providence which was in itself neither unwise nor unkind, she said, It is well with me, with my husband, and with my child. We may farther remark that, in her days, the doctrine of reprobate infants had not disgraced the pure religion of the God of endless compassion.”
Adam Clarke · Commentary on the Bible (1810-1826)evangelical
2 Kings 4:27-28
she clung to his feet: Elisha states his limit, “the LORD has hidden it from me and has not told me”, so a prophet knows what is revealed to him. She answers, “Did I ask you for a son, my lord?”, and reminds him that she had said, “Do not deceive me”.
2 Kings 4:27
“Withal, she intimated, what she durst not presume to express in words, that she desired him to go along with her. Let her alone - Disturb her not, for this gesture is a sign of some extraordinary grief. Hid it - Whereby he signifies, that what he knew or did, was not by any virtue inherent in himself, but from God, who revealed to him only what and when he pleased.”
John Wesley · Explanatory Notes upon the Old Testament (1765)evangelical
1 more voice on this verse
2 Kings 4:27
“She caught him by the feet - To lay hold of the knees or feet has always been thought in the East to add force to supplication, and is practiced even at the present day. Compare Mat 18:29; Joh 11:32.”
John Wesley heard her pleading that the child came as a free promise in God's name, and that she had never pressed for him. A son she had begged for might have been taken as a rebuke. Adam Clarke added that she had been content without one.
2 Kings 4:28
“Did I desire a son of my lord? - I expressed no such wish to thee; I was contented and happy; and when thou didst promise me a son, did I not say, Do not deceive me? Do not mock me with a child which shall grow up to be attractive and engaging, but of whom I shall soon be deprived by death.”
Adam Clarke · Commentary on the Bible (1810-1826)evangelical
1 more voice on this verse
2 Kings 4:28
“She said - This child was not given to me upon my immoderate desire, for which I might have justly been thus chastised, but was freely promised by thee in God's name, and from his special favour.”
John Wesley · Explanatory Notes upon the Old Testament (1765)evangelical
Elisha sends his staff with the order “Then lay my staff on the boy’s face”, which asks whether a prophet's power can travel without him. The staff does nothing at verse 31, and the boy lives only when Elisha himself comes.
2 Kings 4:29
“Salute him not - Compare the marginal reference. Salutation is the forerunner of conversation and one bent on speed would avoid every temptation to loiter. Lay my staff upon the face of the child - Perhaps to assuage the grief of the mother, by letting her feel that something was being done for her child.”
1 more voice on this verse
2 Kings 4:29
“The act of Gehazi was allowed to fail, in order to free the Shunammite, and the people of Israel at large, of the superstitious notion of supposing a miraculous virtue resided in any person, or in any rod, and to prove that it was only through earnest prayer and faith in the power of God and for His glory that this and every miracle was to be performed.”
Jamieson, Fausset & Brown · Commentary Critical and Explanatory on the Whole Bible (1871)reformed
2 Kings 4:30-31
The mother swears, “As surely as the LORD lives and as you yourself live, I will not leave you”. Elisha swore that oath to Elijah at 2:2, 2:4 and 2:6, and now he hears it. Gehazi lays the staff on the boy's face, “but there was no sound or response”.
2 Kings 4:30
“I will not leave thee - The prophet it seems had no design to accompany her; he intended to wait for Gehazi’s return; but as the woman was well assured the child was dead, she was determined not to return till she brought the prophet with her.”
Adam Clarke · Commentary on the Bible (1810-1826)evangelical
Gehazi's report speaks of death as sleep, a way of speaking Albert Barnes found already familiar to the Jews. Barnes also set the silence beside the silence of Baal at 1 Kings 18:29, where no one answered. Bonaventure, after Gregory, read the staff as the Law.
2 Kings 4:31
“In the mystery of prophetical revelation, Christ is symbolized by sign, as with Eliseus and Giezi who laid the staff on the child, who did not rise, and then Eliseus himself lay upon him. According to Gregory, this points to the Law and to Christ.”
Bonaventure · written before 1257 · Collations on the Hexaemeron, Collation 14patristic
3 more voices on this verse
2 Kings 4:31
“Neither voice - Neither speech, nor sense, nor any sign of life, in the child. This disappointment might proceed from hence, that Elisha having changed his mind, and yielded to her importunity to go with her, did alter his course, and not join his fervent prayers with Gehazi's action.”
John Wesley · Explanatory Notes upon the Old Testament (1765)evangelical
2 Kings 4:31
“There was neither voice nor hearing - Compare 1Ki 18:29. The child is not awakened - See 2Ki 4:20. The euphemism by which death is spoken of as a sleep was already familiar to the Jews (see 1Ki 1:21 note).”
2 Kings 4:31
“In the raising of dead souls to spiritual life ministers can do no more by their own power than Gehazi here could; they lay the word, like the prophet's staff, before their faces, but there is neither voice nor hearing, till Christ, by his Spirit, comes himself. The letter alone kills; it is the Spirit that gives life.”
Matthew Henry · Commentary on the Whole Bible (1707-1721)puritan
2 Kings 4:32-35
there was the boy lying dead on his bed: Elisha lies on the boy “mouth to mouth, eye to eye, and hand to hand”, as Elijah stretched himself over the widow's son. The body grows warm first, and only after Elisha stretches over him again does the boy sneeze “seven times”, so life returns in two stages.
2 Kings 4:32
“And when Elisha was come into the house,.... Of the Shunamite, and into the chamber built for him: behold, the child was dead, and laid upon the bed; upon his bed, and where he found it really dead.”
1 more voice on this verse
2 Kings 4:32
“Behold, the child was dead - The prophet then saw that the body and spirit of the child were separated.”
Adam Clarke · Commentary on the Bible (1810-1826)evangelical
behind the two of them: Matthew Henry noticed that the dead child is counted as a person, one of the two behind the door. Henry held that Elisha shut out all company so as to take no glory for himself. Albert Barnes called prayer the one remedy for such a case.
2 Kings 4:33
“Prayed - Prayer was the only remedy in such a case as this (compare the marginal reference and Jas 5:16), though it did not exclude the use of other means 2Ki 4:34.”
1 more voice on this verse
2 Kings 4:33
“Even the dead child is spoken of as a person, one of the twain, for it was still in being and not lost. He shut out all company, that he might not seem to glory in the power God had given him, or to use it for ostentation and to be seen of men.”
Matthew Henry · Commentary on the Whole Bible (1707-1721)puritan
the boy’s body became warm: Matthew Henry read each touch: the mouth to breathe life, the eyes to open them to light, the hands to give strength. Adam Clarke saw Elisha using natural means, warmth and breath, while he prayed for a miracle. John Wesley traced the warmth to life already given from within.
2 Kings 4:34
“Lay upon the child - Endeavored to convey a portion of his own natural warmth to the body of the child; and probably endeavored, by blowing into the child’s mouth, to inflate the lungs, and restore respiration. He uses every natural means in his power to restore life, while praying to the Author of it to exert a miraculous influence. Natural means are in our power; those that are supernatural belong to God. We should always do our own work, and beg of God to do his.”
Adam Clarke · Commentary on the Bible (1810-1826)evangelical
2 more voices on this verse
2 Kings 4:34
“He first put his mouth to the child's mouth, as if, in God's name, he would breathe into him the breath of life; then his eyes to the child's eyes, to open them again to the light of life; then his hands to the child's hands, to put strength into them. He then returned, and walked in the house, as one full of care and concern, and wholly intent upon what he was about.”
Matthew Henry · Commentary on the Whole Bible (1707-1721)puritan
2 Kings 4:34
“Grew warm - Not by any external heat, which could not be transmitted to the child's body by such slight touches of the prophet's body; but from a principle of life, which was already infused into the child, and by degrees enlivened all the parts of his body.”
John Wesley · Explanatory Notes upon the Old Testament (1765)evangelical
paced back and forth: John Wesley took Elisha's pacing as a time of prayer, and the second stretching as a lesson to keep praying when an answer is slow. Adam Clarke read seven sneezes as sneezing in abundance, the breath clearing the head where the illness had struck. The eyes opened last.
2 Kings 4:35
“The child sneezed seven times - That is, it sneezed abundantly. When the nervous influence began to act on the muscular system, before the circulation could be in every part restored, particular muscles, if not the whole body, would be thrown into strong contractions and shiverings, and sternutation or sneezing would be a natural consequence; particularly as obstructions must have taken place in the head and its vessels, because of the disorder of which the child died. Most people, as well as philosophers and physicians, have remarked how beneficial sneezings are to the removal of obstructions in the head.”
Adam Clarke · Commentary on the Bible (1810-1826)evangelical
1 more voice on this verse
2 Kings 4:35
“He walked - He changeth his postures for his own necessary refreshment, and walked to and fro, exercising his mind in prayer to God. And went - Repeating his former actions, to teach us not to be discouraged in our prayers, if we be not speedily answered. Opened his eyes - So the work begun in the former verse is here perfected.”
John Wesley · Explanatory Notes upon the Old Testament (1765)evangelical
2 Kings 4:36-37
Elisha's word, “Pick up your son”, reverses verse 20. She falls at his feet, thanks where at verse 27 she had clung to his feet in grief. She went out at verse 21 leaving a body behind a shut door, and she goes out now carrying a living son.
2 Kings 4:36
“And he called Gehazi, and said, call this Shunammite,.... To come up to the chamber to him: so he called her: and when she was come in unto him, he said, take up thy son; from off the bed, alive, safe, and sound.”
2 more voices on this verse
2 Kings 4:36
“Take up thy son - Compare Elijah’s action (marginal reference “t”) and our Blessed Lord’s Luk 7:15.”
2 Kings 4:36
“A famine of bread there was, but not of hearing the word of God, for Elisha had the sons of the prophets sitting before him, to hear his wisdom, who were taught, that they might teach others. Two instances we have here of the care he took about their meat. Christ twice fed those to whom he preached.”
Matthew Henry · Commentary on the Whole Bible (1707-1721)puritan
fell at his feet: John Wesley counted the boy's opened eyes in verse 35 as the work made complete. The mother bows to the ground before she takes him up. She leaves the room without a word.
2 Kings 4:37
“Then she went in, and fell at his feet, and bowed herself to the ground,.... In reverence of him, and with the most profound gratitude and thankfulness for the mercy received: and took up her son, and went out; of the chamber into her house, with great joy and gladness.”
1 more voice on this verse
2 Kings 4:37
“She went in and fell at his feet - Few can enter into the feelings of this noble woman. What suspense must she have felt during the time that the prophet was employed in the slow process referred to above! for slow in its own nature it must have been, and exceedingly exhausting to the prophet himself.”
Adam Clarke · Commentary on the Bible (1810-1826)evangelical
Death in the pot, cured with a handful of meal
2 Kings 4:38-39
there was a famine in the land: Gilgal carries Israel's memory from Joshua's crossing at Joshua 4:19-20, and now a company of prophets there faces famine with one “large pot” of stew. The gatherer brings wild gourds and cuts them, “though no one knew what they were”, so the text marks the mistake as ignorance.
2 Kings 4:38
“Came again to Gilgal - He had been there before with his master, a short time prior to his translation. Set on the great pot and seethe pottage for the sons of the prophets - It was in a time of dearth, and all might now stand in need of refreshment; and it appears that the prophet was led to put forth the power he had from God to make a plentiful provision for those who were present.”
Adam Clarke · Commentary on the Bible (1810-1826)evangelical
1 more voice on this verse
2 Kings 4:38
“This refers to their being domiciled under the same roof (compare 2Ki 6:1). Set on the great pot--As it is most likely that the Jewish would resemble the Egyptian "great pot," it is seen by the monumental paintings to have been a large goblet, with two long legs, which stood over the fire on the floor.”
Jamieson, Fausset & Brown · Commentary Critical and Explanatory on the Whole Bible (1871)reformed
a wild vine: Albert Barnes identified the plant as a climbing vine, either the squirting cucumber or the colocynth, both very bitter. Jamieson, Fausset and Brown explain the garment as a cloak thrown over the left shoulder and fastened under the right arm to form an apron. He filled it with gourds.
2 Kings 4:39
“A wild vine - Not a real wild vine, the fruit of which, if not very palatable, is harmless; but some climbing plant with tendrils. The plant was probably either the Ecbalium elaterium, or “squirting cucumber,” the fruit of which, egg-shaped, and of a very bitter taste, bursts at the slightest touch, when it is ripe, and squirts out sap and seed grains; or the Colocynthis, which belongs to the family of cucumbers, has a vine-shaped leaf, and bears a fruit as large as an orange, very bitter, from which is prepared the drug sold as colocynth.”
1 more voice on this verse
2 Kings 4:39
“The meal which Elisha poured into the pot was a symbolic sign that the noxious quality of the herbs was removed. lap full--The hyke, or large cloak, is thrown loosely over the left shoulder and fastened under the right arm, so as to form a lap or apron.”
Jamieson, Fausset & Brown · Commentary Critical and Explanatory on the Whole Bible (1871)reformed
2 Kings 4:40-41
The men cry, “There is death in the pot, O man of God!”, and Elisha throws flour into it. Moses threw a tree into the bitter water at Marah in Exodus 15:25, and here too an ordinary thing becomes the means of the cure.
2 Kings 4:40
There is death in the pot - As if they had said, “We have here a deadly mixture; if we eat of it, we shall all die.”
Adam Clarke · Commentary on the Bible (1810-1826)evangelical
1 more voice on this verse
2 Kings 4:40
“The table often becomes a snare, and that which should be for our welfare proves a trap, which is a good reason why we should not feed ourselves without fear; when we are receiving the supports and comforts of life we must keep up an expectation of death and a fear of sin.”
Matthew Henry · Commentary on the Whole Bible (1707-1721)puritan
Matthew Henry judged that the pot held flour already, stirred in by a common hand to thicken the stew. The same flour cast in by Elisha's hand was the sign of the cure, and God's power was its cause. Albert Barnes added that flour could hardly soften colocynth's bitterness.
2 Kings 4:41
“It is probable that there was meal in it before, but that was put in by a common hand, only to thicken the pottage; this was the same thing, but cast in by Elisha's hand, and with intent to heal the pottage, by which it appears that the change was not owing to the meal (that was the sign only, not the means), but to the divine power.”
Matthew Henry · Commentary on the Whole Bible (1707-1721)puritan
1 more voice on this verse
2 Kings 4:41
“Then bring meal - The natural properties of meal would but slightly diminish either the bitterness or the unwholesomeness of a drink containing colocynth. It is evident, therefore, that the conversion of the food from a pernicious and unsavory mess into palatable and wholesome nourishment was by miracle.”
Twenty loaves for a hundred men, and some left over
2 Kings 4:42-44
twenty loaves of barley bread from the first ripe grain: The bread is “from the first ripe grain”, the firstfruits the Law gave to the priests at Numbers 18:12-13, brought to the man of God. Scant bread, a doubting servant and food left over give the scene the shape of the Gospel feedings of the multitudes.
2 Kings 4:42
“Bread of the first-fruits - This was an offering to the prophet, as the first-fruits themselves were an offering to God. Corn in the husk - Probably parched corn or corn to be parched, a very frequent food in the East; full ears, before they are ripe, parched on the fire.”
Adam Clarke · Commentary on the Bible (1810-1826)evangelical
1 more voice on this verse
2 Kings 4:42
“It is said to be of the first-fruits, which was God's due out of their increase; and when the priests and Levites were all at Jerusalem, out of their reach, the religious people among them, with good reason, looked upon the prophets as God's receivers, and brought their first-fruits to them, which helped to maintain their schools.”
Matthew Henry · Commentary on the Whole Bible (1707-1721)puritan
The servant sets twenty loaves against a hundred men. Albert Barnes added a detail to the likeness with the Gospel feedings, for in both the bread passes through the hands of others. He called Elisha a type of Christ, a man whose life foreshadowed his.
2 Kings 4:43
“This miracle was a faint foreshadowing of our Lord’s far more marvelous feeding of thousands with even scantier materials. The resemblance is not only in the broad fact, but in various minute particulars, such as the distribution through the hands of others; the material, bread; the surprised question of the servant; and the evidence of superfluity in the fragments that were left (see the marginal references). As Elijah was a type of the Baptist, so Elisha was in many respects a type of our Blessed Lord.”
according to the word of the LORD: Jerome named this feeding in a homily on Psalm 98, granting that Elisha too made a few loaves feed many. He pressed the question of what Christ did that was new and worthy of a new song. John Gill ranked the feeding at Matthew 14:17 the greater miracle.
2 Kings 4:44
“So he set it before them,.... The twenty barley loaves, and the full ears of corn: and they did eat, and left thereof, according to the word of the Lord; as the disciples did at the miracle of the loaves and fishes; though that must be allowed to be a greater miracle than this, Mat 14:17.”
1 more voice on this verse
2 Kings 4:44
"Sing to the Lord." Why? What has he done? Why is there a new song due him? "For he has done wondrous deeds." He performed miracles among the Jews: he cured paralytics; he cleansed lepers; he raised the dead to life. But other prophets had done that too. He changed a few loaves into many and fed a countless multitude. But Elisha did that. What new thing, then, did he do to merit a new song? Would you know what he did that was new?
Jerome · written before 420 · Homilies on the Psalms 25 (Ps 97[98])patristic
How this psalm is built
The form: A miracle cycle of four self-contained accounts, each opening on a need stated in the sufferer's own words, as 4 classes it.
The patterns in this chapter
| Device | What it does | Where to see it |
|---|---|---|
| Shut the door | The command or the act returns four times: the widow shuts the door on her sons at 4:4 and 4:5, the mother shuts it on the dead child at 4:21, and Elisha shuts it on himself and the boy at 4:33. This site's published exposition note on 4:4 to 4:6 reads the repetition as the chapter's own guard, since each wonder happens unseen and is credited to no technique the reader can copy.John Wesley and Matthew Henry, Explanatory Notes upon the Old Testament, 1765, and Commentary on the Whole Bible, 1710, on 2 Kings 4:4 to 4:6, as this site's published exposition note on those verses reports them. | 2 Kings 4:4, 2 Kings 4:5, 2 Kings 4:21, 2 Kings 4:33 |
| It is well | The word shalom carries the middle of the chapter. The mother says it to her husband at 4:23 and to Gehazi at 4:26, and Gehazi's threefold question, is it well with you, with your husband, with the child, receives the one answer. This site's published exposition notes on 4:21 to 4:23 and 4:24 to 4:26 read it as a settled conviction rather than as denial or evasion, spoken over a dead child with the same confidence as over a living one.Keil and Delitzsch, with John Gill and Alfred Edersheim, The Books of the Kings, 1872, Exposition of the Old Testament, 1748 to 1763, and Bible History: Old Testament, 1876 to 1887, on 2 Kings 4:21 to 4:26, as this site's published exposition notes on those verses report them. | 2 Kings 4:23, 2 Kings 4:26 |
| As the LORD lives, I will not leave you | The mother's oath at 4:30 is the identical formula Elisha himself swore three times to Elijah at 2:2, 2:4 and 2:6. This site's published exposition note on 4:30 to 4:31 makes the turn explicit, that the man who spoke it as disciple now hears it spoken to him as master, and that the staff sent by proxy accomplishes nothing while the oath brings the prophet himself.Keil and Delitzsch, with John Gill, The Books of the Kings, 1872, and Exposition of the Old Testament, 1748 to 1763, on 2 Kings 4:30 to 4:31, as this site's published exposition note on those verses reports them. | 2 Kings 4:30, 2 Kings 2:2, 2 Kings 2:4, 2 Kings 2:6 |
| Mouth to mouth, eyes to eyes, hands to hands | The posture at 4:34 is listed part by part, and it is the same posture and the same verb Elijah used raising the widow's son at 1 Kings 17:21. This site's published exposition note on 4:32 to 4:35 records one shape repeated from master to disciple, and marks that the healing comes in two stages rather than one instant word, warmth first and then life after Elisha walks the house and stretches over the boy a second time.Matthew Henry and F. W. Farrar, Commentary on the Whole Bible, 1710, and The Second Book of Kings, The Expositor's Bible, 1894, on 2 Kings 4:32 to 4:35, as this site's published exposition note on those verses reports them. | 2 Kings 4:34, 1 Kings 17:21 |
| Carried in dead, carried out alive | The boy is carried to his mother at 4:20 and she is told to take up her son at 4:36, the same command in reverse. This site's published exposition note on 4:36 to 4:37 states the frame: she went out at 4:21 leaving a body behind a shut door and goes out here carrying a living son through an open one, and her bow to the ground answers her earlier grasp at Elisha's feet on the hill.Matthew Henry and Adam Clarke, Commentary on the Whole Bible, 1710, and Commentary on the Bible, 1832, on 2 Kings 4:36 to 4:37, as this site's published exposition note on those verses reports them. | 2 Kings 4:20, 2 Kings 4:21, 2 Kings 4:36, 2 Kings 4:37 |
The prophet's limit, stated in his own mouth
13 more paragraphs on the patterns
The chapter states plainly that a prophet's knowledge is bounded. At 4:27 Elisha says the LORD has hidden it from him and has not told him. This site's published exposition note on 4:27 to 4:28 reads that as a prophet's knowledge bounded by what is revealed rather than total, and sets it beside the court scene at 1 Kings 22. The woman's answer in the next verse throws Elisha's own promise back at him, holding the man of God to the word he gave rather than accepting comfort in its place.
What the New Testament does with this chapter
The site is careful here, and the care is worth keeping. This site's published exposition note on 4:42 to 4:44 records that the commentators, Farrar among them, have long set the feeding of a hundred men from twenty barley loaves beside Jesus feeding the five thousand and the four thousand as a likeness worth drawing, and it states in the same sentence that the Gospels themselves never make the comparison. The shape invites it, scant bread, a doubting servant, and food left over, and the reading is offered at that level rather than as a citation.
The published study guide states the general form of the same claim in its Christ table, that Elisha multiplies food for a crowd, raises a dead child and cleanses a leper, which are the specific kinds of miracle Jesus performs. The guide names the one place the New Testament does cite this cycle directly, and it is the next chapter rather than this one: Jesus cites Naaman in his Nazareth sermon at Luke 4:27.
One errand in this chapter does match a command in the Gospels word for word. This site's published exposition note on 4:29 sets the order to salute no man by the way and answer no salute beside the letter Jesus gives the seventy at Luke 10:4, a mission too pressing for the road's courtesies.
Where the shapes come from
This chapter repeats Elijah at three points, and the site records each. The remedy begins as his master's did at Zarephath, asking the poorest woman in the room what she still has rather than what she lacks, which the published note on 4:1 to 4:3 sets beside 1 Kings 17:12. A woman housing a wandering man of God has run once through this ministry already at Zarephath, which the note on 4:8 to 4:10 sets beside 1 Kings 17:9 to 17:19. The posture over the dead child is Elijah's own from 1 Kings 17:21, which the note on 4:32 to 4:35 records.
Two further shapes come from earlier books. The announcement to a barren household at an appointed season repeats Genesis 18:10 to 18:14, and the woman's guarded protest at 4:16 is set by the published note on 4:16 to 4:17 beside Sarah's laugh at Genesis 18:12 to 18:15, read as fear of a false hope raised and dashed. The meal cast into the poisoned pottage is set by the published note on 4:40 to 4:41 beside Moses at Marah casting a tree into bitter water at Exodus 15:25, an ordinary object made the instrument of a word rather than a natural antidote.
The law that is bent, and named
The bread at 4:42 is firstfruits, grain due by law to the priesthood. This site's published exposition note on 4:42 to 4:44 names the statutes, Leviticus 23:17 and Numbers 18:12 to 18:13, and records that the offering is rerouted here to feed a hungry company through the man of God. This site's published head context row for the chapter states what that redirection means in the north, where the official priesthood served calves.
What the text states and what the commentators supply
The boy's death is one place the two are worth separating. This site's published exposition note on 4:18 to 4:20 records that his cry, my head, my head, and his collapse by noon read to the commentators as sunstroke in the harvest heat, and states in the same sentence that the text itself names no cause. The site's own head context row for the chapter says the scene reads as heat stroke. The reading is the commentators' and the text's silence is the text's.
The gatherer's mistake at 4:39 is the opposite case, where the text supplies the reason itself. This site's published exposition note on 4:38 to 4:39 quotes the narrator's own clause, for they knew them not, and reads the mistake as honest ignorance rather than negligence.
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Sources for this chapter
The summary
Jamieson, Fausset & Brown, Commentary Critical and Explanatory; John Wesley, Notes on the Old Testament and Matthew Henry, Complete Commentary.
The form and classifications
The form-critical reading, as this site's published study guide states it, src/components/book/guides/2-kings/Book2KingsGuide.tsx, the CONTESTED table on the Elisha miracle cycle, which sets the form-critical caution against the historicity case and states that form does not determine historicity; This site's published exposition of 2 Kings 4, The published note on 4:4 to 4:6, which counts the shut door through the chapter and reads each wonder as happening unseen and This site's published timeline for 2 Kings, src/components/book/dossier-content/2-kings.ts, the timeline entry titled The Elisha cycle, anchored at 2 Kings 6:17.
The exposition
Adam Clarke, Commentary on the Bible; Albert Barnes; Alfred Edersheim, Bible History: Old Testament; Bonaventure, Collations on the Hexaemeron, Collation 14; F. W. Farrar, The Second Book of Kings (Expositor's Bible); Jamieson, Fausset & Brown, Commentary Critical and Explanatory on the Whole Bible; Jerome, Homilies on the Psalms 25; John Gill, Exposition of the Old Testament; John Wesley, Explanatory Notes upon the Old Testament; Keil, The Books of the Kings and Matthew Henry, Commentary on the Whole Bible.