Elisha’s miracles
4
📚Now a certain woman of the wives of the sons of the prophets 📖 cried out to Elisha, saying, ‘Your servant my husband is dead. And you know that your servant feared the LORD 📖. And the creditor has come to take my two sons to be slaves for himself”.2 📚And Elisha said to her, “What shall I do for you 📖? Tell me, what do you have in the house?” And she said, “Your maidservant does not have anything in the house, except a pot of oil”.
3 📚Then he said, “Go outside, borrow utensils from all your neighbours, empty utensils. Do not borrow a few. 4 📚And when you have come in, you must shut the door behind you and behind your sons, and pour out the oil into all those utensils, and put aside what is full”.
5 📚So she went from him and shut the door behind her and behind her sons, who had brought the utensils to her, and she poured out the oil. 6 📚And it came about, when the utensils were full, that she said to her son, “Bring me another utensil”. And he said to her, “There is not another utensil”. And the oil stopped.
4:3-6 God was ready to perform a miracle for this poor widow. She experienced the miracle only by her obedience and faith. Unbelief or disobedience would have robbed her of God’s miraculous provision. Notice that she was to shut the door while pouring the oil. This was not a public miracle to prove to Israel that Jehovah was God. It was a private miracle demonstrating God’s compassion and faithfulness to His servant. Many are the miracles of provision God has shown in secret to His believers. God’s people have a shepherd who provides for them (Ps 23:1; 37:25; 2 Cor 9:8; Phil 4:19).⚜
7 📚Then she came and told the man of God. And he said, “Go, sell the oil and pay your debt, and you and your children live off the rest”.
Raising the dead son of the Shunammite
8 📚And one day it came about that Elisha passed over to Shunem, where there was a great woman 📖; and she urged him to eat bread. And so it was, that whenever he passed by, he turned in there to eat bread. 9 📚And she said to her husband, “Look now, I perceive 📖 that this is a holy man of God 📖, who is always passing by us. 10 📚Please let us make a little room on the wall, and let us place there a bed and a table and a stool and a lampstand for him. And it shall be that whenever he comes to us, he can turn in there”.
11 And one day it happened that he came there, and went into the room and lay there, 12 📚and said to Gehazi 📖, his servant, “Call this Shunammite”. And when he had called her, she stood before him. 13 📚And he said to him, “Now tell her, ‘Look, you have taken all this care to look after us, what 📖 is to be done for you? Would you be spoken for to the king, or to the commander of the army?’ ” And she answered, “I live among my own people”.
14 📚And he said, “What then is to be done for her?” And Gehazi answered, “She has no child at all, and her husband is old”.
15 And he said, “Call her”. And when he called her, she stood in the door. 16 📚And he said, “About this season next year you will embrace a son”. And she said, “No, my lord, you man of God, do not lie to your maid servant”.
17 📚And the woman conceived, and bore a son at that season the next year as Elisha had said to her.
18 📚And the child grew; and it happened one day that he went out to his father to the reapers. 19 📚And he said to his father, “My head! My head!” And he said to a lad, “Carry him to his mother”.
20 📚And when he had picked him up and brought him to his mother, he sat on her knees until noon and then died.
4:20 Here was a severe test of this great woman’s faith. The verses which follow show her faith was equal to the test.⚜
21 📚And she went up and laid him on the bed of the man of God, and shut the door behind him and went out.
22 📚And she called to her husband and said, “Please send one of the young men to me, and one of the donkeys, so that I may hurry to the man of God, and come back”.
4:21-22 She did not reason that when a person is dead he is dead, and nothing can be done about it. She believed God could work a miracle through Elisha. Compare Heb 11:35.⚜
23 📚And he said, “Why 📖 will you go to him today? It is neither new moon nor Sabbath 📖”. And she said 📖, “It is well”.
24 📚Then she saddled a donkey and said to her servant, “Drive, and go forward. Do not slow the pace for me, unless I tell you”. 25 📚So she went and came to the man of God at mount Carmel. And it came about, when the man of God saw her at a distance, that he said to Gehazi his servant, “Look, there is that Shunammite. 26 📚Please run now to meet her, and say to her, ‘Is it well with you? Is it well with your husband? Is it well with the child?’ ” And she answered, “It is well”.
4:26 Being a woman of discernment, she would not share her thoughts with Gehazi either, and she had no confidence he could do anything (vs 29,30).⚜
27 📚And when she came to the man of God on the hill, she took hold of his feet, but Gehazi came near to thrust her away. And the man of God said, “Let her alone, for her soul is troubled 📖 in her, and the LORD has hidden 📖 it from me and has not told me”.
28 📚Then she said, “Did I ask a son from my lord? Did I not say, ‘Do not deceive me?’ ”
29 📚Then he said to Gehazi, “Tuck up your robe in your belt, and take my staff in your hand, and go your way. If you meet anyone do not greet him, and if anyone greets you, do not reply; and lay my staff on the face of the child”.
30 📚And the mother of the child said, “As the LORD lives, and as your soul lives, I will not leave you”. And he arose and followed her.
31 📚And Gehazi passed on before them and laid the staff on the face of the child, but there was neither sound nor response. Therefore he went back to meet him, and told him, saying, “The child did not wake up”.
32 📚And when he came into the house, Elisha saw that the child was dead, and had been laid on his bed. 33 📚Therefore he went in and shut the door behind the two of them, and prayed to the LORD. 34 📚And he went up and lay on the child, and put his mouth on his mouth, and his eyes on his eyes, and his hands on his hands, and he stretched himself on the child. And the flesh of the child became warm. 35 📚Then he got off and walked to and fro in the house, and went up and stretched himself on him. And the child sneezed seven times, and the child opened his eyes.
36 📚And he called Gehazi and said, “Call this Shunammite”. So he called her. And when she had come in to him, he said, “Take up your son”. 37 📚Then she went in and prostrated herself at his feet, bowing down to the ground, and took up her son and went out.
Pot of stew
38 📚And Elisha went back to Gilgal. And there was a famine 📖 in the land. And the sons of the prophets were sitting before him, and he said to his servant, “Put on the large pot, and cook stew for the sons of the prophets”.
39 📚And someone went out into the field to gather herbs, and found a wild vine, and gathered his lap full of wild gourds from it, and came and shredded them into the pot of stew, for they did not know what they were. 40 📚So they poured out the stew for the men to eat. And it came about, as they were eating the stew, that they cried out and said, “O man of God, there is death in the pot 📖!” And they could not eat it.
41 📚But he said, “Then bring flour”. And he threw it into the pot and said, “Pour it out for the people, so they may eat”. And there was no harm in the pot.
4:41 Compare 2 Kings 2:21. God will provide for His servants even if He has to perform a miracle to do so - Ps 33:18-19; 37:18-19.⚜
Feeding a hundred men
42 📚And a man came from Baal Shalisha, and brought the man of God bread from the firstfruits, twenty loaves of barley, and full heads of grain in its husk. And he said, “Give it to the people, so that they may eat”.
4:42 Another way which God uses to provide for His servants. God can provide their necessities in famine as easily as in years of plenty.⚜
43 📚And his servant said, “What, should I set this before a hundred men?” He said again, “Give it to the people, so that they may eat. For thus says the LORD: ‘They will eat, and leave some of it.’ ” 44 So he set it before them, and they ate, and left some of it, according to the word of the LORD.
4:43-44 A miracle of the same kind as that of Matt 14:13-21.⚜