2 Kings 4: What the Passage Says

The Chapter in a Sentence

Elisha helps a widow whose creditor is about to take her two sons as slaves, multiplying her one jar of oil until she can pay the debt and live on what is left. A wealthy woman in Shunem makes a room for him, is promised a son, and when the boy later dies of a sudden head pain, she rides to Elisha, who comes and brings the boy back to life. The chapter closes with two shorter accounts from a time of famine: Elisha makes a poisonous pot of stew safe to eat, and feeds a hundred men with twenty barley loaves, with food left over.

Claim by Claim

1. 4:1
   • A woman from among the wives of the sons of the prophets cried out to Elisha.
   • She said that her husband, Elisha's servant, was dead.
   • She said that Elisha knew her husband feared the LORD.
   • She said the creditor had come to take her two children as slaves for himself.
2. 4:2
   • Elisha asked her what he should do for her.
   • Elisha told her to tell him what she had in the house.
   • She said his handmaid had nothing in the house.
   • She said she had only a flask of oil.
3. 4:3
   • Elisha told her to go and ask for vessels from outside, from all her neighbors.
   • He specified that the vessels were to be empty ones.
   • He told her not to gather few.
4. 4:4
   • Elisha told her to go in and shut the door behind herself and her sons.
   • He told her to pour oil into all those vessels.
   • He told her to set aside each vessel that was full.
5. 4:5
   • She went away from him.
   • She shut the door behind herself and her sons.
   • Her sons kept bringing vessels to her.
   • She kept pouring.
6. 4:6
   • When the vessels were full, she told her son to bring her another vessel.
   • He told her there was no vessel left.
   • The oil stopped.
7. 4:7
   • She came and told the man of God.
   • He told her to go and sell the oil.
   • He told her to pay her debt.
   • He told her that she and her children were to live on what remained.
8. 4:8
   • One day Elisha passed over to Shunem.
   • A prominent woman was there.
   • She urged him to eat a meal.
   • From then on, whenever he passed by, he turned in there to eat a meal.
9. 4:9
   • The woman said to her husband that she knew the man who passed by them continually was a holy man of God.
10. 4:10
    • She proposed making a small walled upper chamber.
    • She proposed placing there for him a bed, a table, a chair, and a lamp.
    • She said that when he came to them he could turn in there.
11. 4:11
    • One day Elisha came there.
    • He turned into the upper chamber.
    • He lay down there.
12. 4:12
    • Elisha told Gehazi his servant to call the Shunammite woman.
    • Gehazi called her.
    • She stood before Elisha.
13. 4:13
    • Elisha told Gehazi to say to her that she had shown them all this care and trouble.
    • Elisha asked through Gehazi what could be done for her.
    • Elisha asked whether she wished to be spoken for to the king or to the commander of the army.
    • She answered that she dwelt among her own people.
14. 4:14
    • Elisha asked what then could be done for her.
    • Gehazi answered that she had no son.
    • Gehazi said her husband was old.
15. 4:15
    • Elisha said to call her.
    • Gehazi called her.
    • She stood in the doorway.
16. 4:16
    • Elisha said that at this appointed time, at the time of life, she would embrace a son.
    • She said, No, my lord, man of God.
    • She asked him not to lie to his handmaid.
17. 4:17
    • The woman conceived.
    • She bore a son.
    • She bore him at that appointed time, at the time of life, which Elisha had spoken to her.
18. 4:18
    • The child grew.
    • One day he went out to his father, to the reapers.
19. 4:19
    • The child said to his father, My head, my head.
    • The father told a servant to carry the child to his mother.
20. 4:20
    • The servant carried the child.
    • The servant brought him to his mother.
    • The child sat on her knees until noon.
    • The child died.
21. 4:21
    • She went up and laid him on the bed of the man of God.
    • She shut the door on him.
    • She went out.
22. 4:22
    • She called to her husband.
    • She asked him to send her one of the young men and one of the donkeys.
    • She said she would run to the man of God and return.
23. 4:23
    • Her husband asked why she was going to him that day.
    • He said it was neither new moon nor sabbath.
    • She said, It is well.
24. 4:24
    • She saddled the donkey.
    • She told her servant to drive and go.
    • She told him not to slow the riding for her unless she told him.
25. 4:25
    • She went and came to the man of God at Mount Carmel.
    • When the man of God saw her at a distance, he said to Gehazi his servant that there was the Shunammite woman.
26. 4:26
    • Elisha told Gehazi to run to meet her.
    • Elisha told him to ask her whether it was well with her, well with her husband, and well with the child.
    • She answered, It is well.
27. 4:27
    • She came to the man of God at the mountain.
    • She took hold of his feet.
    • Gehazi came near to push her away.
    • The man of God said to let her alone.
    • He said her soul was bitter within her.
    • He said the LORD had hidden it from him and had not told him.
28. 4:28
    • She asked whether she had asked her lord for a son.
    • She asked whether she had not said, Do not deceive me.
29. 4:29
    • Elisha told Gehazi to gird up his loins.
    • He told him to take his staff in his hand and go.
    • He told him that if he met anyone he was not to greet him.
    • He told him that if anyone greeted him he was not to answer.
    • He told him to lay the staff on the boy's face.
30. 4:30
    • The mother of the boy swore by the life of the LORD and by Elisha's own life that she would not leave him.
    • Elisha arose and followed her.
31. 4:31
    • Gehazi went on ahead of them.
    • He laid the staff on the boy's face.
    • There was no voice and no response.
    • He went back to meet Elisha.
    • He told Elisha that the boy had not awakened.
32. 4:32
    • Elisha came into the house.
    • The boy was dead, laid on Elisha's bed.
33. 4:33
    • Elisha went in.
    • He shut the door on the two of them.
    • He prayed to the LORD.
34. 4:34
    • He went up and lay on the child.
    • He put his mouth on the child's mouth.
    • He put his eyes on the child's eyes.
    • He put his palms on the child's palms.
    • He stretched himself out over the child.
    • The flesh of the child grew warm.
35. 4:35
    • Elisha turned back and walked in the house, once this way and once that way.
    • He went up and stretched himself out over the child.
    • The boy sneezed seven times.
    • The boy opened his eyes.
36. 4:36
    • Elisha called to Gehazi.
    • He told him to call the Shunammite woman.
    • Gehazi called her.
    • She came to Elisha.
    • Elisha told her to take up her son.
37. 4:37
    • She came in and fell at his feet.
    • She bowed to the ground.
    • She took up her son.
    • She went out.
38. 4:38
    • Elisha returned to Gilgal.
    • There was a famine in the land.
    • The sons of the prophets were sitting before him.
    • He told his servant to set on the large pot.
    • He told him to boil stew for the sons of the prophets.
39. 4:39
    • One of them went out into the field to gather herbs.
    • He found a wild vine.
    • He gathered wild gourds from it, his garment full.
    • He came and cut them up into the pot of stew.
    • They did not know what they were.
40. 4:40
    • They poured it out for the men to eat.
    • As they were eating the stew, they cried out.
    • They said, Man of God, there is death in the pot.
    • They could not eat it.
41. 4:41
    • Elisha said to bring flour.
    • He threw it into the pot.
    • He said to pour it out for the people to eat.
    • There was nothing harmful in the pot.
42. 4:42
    • A man came from Baal-shalishah.
    • He brought the man of God bread of the firstfruits, twenty loaves of barley.
    • He brought fresh grain in his sack.
    • Elisha said to give it to the people to eat.
43. 4:43
    • His attendant asked how he should set this before a hundred men.
    • Elisha said again to give it to the people to eat.
    • Elisha said that thus said the LORD: they shall eat and have some left over.
44. 4:44
    • He set it before them.
    • They ate.
    • They had some left over.
    • This happened according to the word of the LORD.

Words Worth Explaining

Every language note in this chapter, gathered. These explain what a word meant, never what it means for the reader.

4:1

"Sons of the prophets" is not about family descent: it is the ordinary Hebrew way of naming members of a group or guild, so it means something like "the prophets' company", bands of men who lived together around a senior prophet such as Elisha. Under Israelite law a creditor could seize the children of a debtor and put them to work until the debt was cleared; a widow with no husband to earn had no other way to pay. "Thy servant" here is her husband, described that way as a member of Elisha's company; the polite speech of the time referred to oneself and one's household as the servants of the person being addressed.

4:2

Olive oil was not only food: it was lamp fuel, medicine, cosmetic and a standard trade good, so a household's oil was also its cash. That she has only one small jar left is the measure of how poor she is; that oil can be sold is why the remedy works. "Thine handmaid" is again the deferential speech of the day, a woman speaking to a superior said "your maidservant" rather than "I."

4:3

Jars back then were made of baked clay. Almost every family had some for water, oil, and grain.

4:7

"Man of God" is a standard title for a prophet throughout these books. It is a description of what he is rather than a name people call him.

4:8

Shunem was a village in the Jezreel valley in the north of Israel, on the route between Mount Gilboa and the Carmel ridge. "A great woman" in the King James does not mean large or admirable but well-off and socially prominent: she has land, servants and the means to build and furnish a guest room. "To eat bread" is a Hebrew idiom for taking a meal of any kind, not specifically bread.

4:9

"Man of God" was a standard title for a prophet, roughly "a man who belongs to God", someone recognized as speaking and acting on God's behalf. It is used of Elisha throughout this chapter in place of his name.

4:10

Houses of this period had flat roofs reached by an outside stair, and a small room built on the roof was the normal way to add space; it also gave a guest privacy and a separate entrance. The King James "candlestick" means a lampstand: candles did not exist here, and the light would have been a small clay dish of olive oil with a wick.

4:13

The offer is patronage: a prophet with access to the court could get a hearing for someone with a legal claim, a tax problem or a dispute over land. Her reply, "I dwell among mine own people," declines it, she lives secure among her own kin and clan, who protect her interests, and she needs no outside protector.

4:14

In this society a woman's long-term security ran through a son: he inherited and held the family land, supported his mother in widowhood, and kept her within the household. With no son and an elderly husband, this woman faces losing both her standing and her livelihood when he dies, which is why Gehazi names it as the thing she lacks.

4:16

The King James phrase "according to the time of life" means at the season when a pregnancy begun now would come to term: that is, this time next year. "Embrace a son" means hold a living child in her arms.

4:18

Grain harvest fell in the hot early-summer months, and the reapers worked in the open field through the heat of the day. The text gives no cause for the boy's collapse; readers have often taken it as sunstroke, but that is inference, not something the narrative states.

4:19

The text never says what struck the boy. It happens out in the open field at harvest under a hot sun, and readers have long taken it as heatstroke. He dies within a few hours.

4:23

The new moon, the first day of each lunar month, and the weekly Sabbath were the regular rest days, when people were free of work and would travel to a prophet or a shrine. The husband's question assumes a visit to Elisha only makes sense on such a day; her answer, literally "peace," is a polite deflection rather than a statement that nothing is wrong.

4:25

Mount Carmel is the wooded ridge running to the Mediterranean coast, roughly twenty miles from Shunem across the Jezreel valley, several hours' hard riding, which is why she orders the servant not to slow down.

4:26

The question and answer both use the Hebrew word shalom, "peace, wellbeing", the ordinary greeting, close to "is all well?" and "all is well." Her reply is the conventional polite form and does not commit her to saying the child is alive; she gives Gehazi nothing and keeps the news for Elisha.

4:27

Grasping a person's feet was the gesture of someone making an urgent plea, and it put the petitioner physically at the other's mercy. Gehazi moves to push her off because touching a holy man this way breached normal etiquette. "Her soul is vexed within her" means she is in bitter distress.

4:29

Men wore a long outer robe; pulling its skirts up and tucking them into the belt, "gird up thy loins", was what you did to run or work fast. Greetings in this culture were extended exchanges of enquiries and blessings, so the order not to greet anyone or answer a greeting is an order to let nothing delay him. A prophet's staff carried something of the prophet's own authority, which is why sending it ahead is meant to accomplish anything at all.

4:30

"As the LORD liveth, and as thy soul liveth" is a fixed oath formula, swearing by God's life and by the life of the person addressed, the strongest form of promise in ordinary speech, roughly "I swear I will not leave you."

4:31

A staff was a long walking stick. Sending a servant with your own staff was a way of saying the servant came in your place.

4:34

The Hebrew describes Elisha laying his whole body over the boy's, matching mouth to mouth, eyes to eyes, hands to hands. His predecessor Elijah does something similar in 1 Kings 17 when he revives a widow's son.

4:35

The Hebrew verb translated "sneezed" occurs only here and its exact sense is uncertain; it clearly describes a sudden sound or convulsion of breath from the child. Seven was the standard number for a complete or finished action.

4:37

Falling at someone's feet and bowing to the ground was the ordinary gesture of deep respect or gratitude toward a superior, used between people as well as toward God.

4:38

Gilgal was a settlement associated with the prophetic companies, distinct from the better-known Gilgal near Jericho. "Sitting before him" describes pupils seated in front of a teacher: this is a group under Elisha's instruction. The King James "dearth" means famine, and "seethe pottage" means boil a stew, usually of grain and whatever vegetables could be found.

4:39

In a famine men foraged for wild plants. The gourds are usually identified as colocynth, a melon-like fruit that grows on a trailing vine and looks edible but is intensely bitter and a violent purgative, dangerous in quantity. "His lap full" means he gathered them in the fold of his outer garment, the normal way of carrying a load.

4:41

Flour is grain ground up into powder. It is what bread is made from.

4:42

Baal-shalishah was a town in the hill country, probably in Ephraim. "Bread of the firstfruits" was the offering owed from the first grain of the harvest, which the law directed to the priesthood; bringing it to a prophet instead is worth noticing. Barley was the cheaper grain and the first to ripen, so this is early-season food in a time of famine. The King James "corn" means grain of any kind, not maize, which was unknown outside the Americas until long after 1611.

4:43

The King James "servitor" simply means attendant or servant. The hundred men are the assembled prophetic company, an indication of how large these groups could be, and of why twenty small barley loaves seem absurdly inadequate.