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1–7. The miraculous increase of oil in one prophetic widow. 8–37. The birth of a son to the pious Shunammite woman according to the word of the prophet and his resurrection by the latter. 38–41. The Prophet neutralizes poisonous food. 42–44. Miraculously feeds a large number of people with a small amount of bread. 2 Kings 4:1. One of the wives 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; Now the lender has come to take both my children as slaves for himself. 2 Kings 4:2. And Elisha said to her, “What shall I do to you?” tell me what you have in your house? She said, “Your servant has nothing in her house except a vessel of oil.” 2 Kings 4:3. And he said: go, ask yourself some vessels on the side, from all your neighbors, for empty vessels; collect a lot 2 Kings 4:4. and go, lock the door behind you and behind your sons, and pour into all these vessels; leave the full ones aside. 2 Kings 4:5. And she left him and locked the door behind herself and her sons. They served it to her, and she poured it. 2 Kings 4:6. When the vessels were filled, she said to her son: Give me another vessel. He said to her: There are no more vessels. And the oil stopped. 2 Kings 4:7. And she came and told the man of God. He said: Go, sell the oil and pay your debts; and what remains, you will live with your sons. From this story it is clear that the “sons of the prophets” included not only young single people, but also married people, fathers of families, therefore this institution did not resemble monastic orders. Without living together with other members of the societies of the “sons of the prophets,” such family people united with other personalities of the prophet leader. In the deceased “son of the prophets,” “a God-fearing man,” tradition (rabbis, I. Flavius, cf. Blessed Theodoret, question 14) indicated the “God-fearing” Prophet Elijah, famous from history, Obadiah (1 Kings 18:3 ff.), the steward of Ahab, who took great care of the food of the prophets and then fell into debt. The creditor's intention to sell the widow's children into slavery was justified by the letter of the law (Lev.25:39; Exod.21:2) and the cruel practice of life (Matt.18:25). The miracle of Elisha's multiplication of oil, of course, has similarities with the prophet Elijah's miraculous feeding of the widow of Sarepta (1 Kings 17:8-16), but it does not force us to see in the story of Elisha's miracle an unsuccessful duplicate of the story of Elijah, especially since each story, in addition to common features, also has independent, distinct features. 2 Kings 4:8. One day Elisha came to Shunam. There, one rich woman begged him to eat bread with her; and whenever he passed, he always went there to eat bread. 2 Kings 4:9. And she said to her husband: Behold, I know that the man of God who passes by us constantly is holy; 2 Kings 4:10. Let's make a small upper room over the wall and put him there a bed, and a table, and a seat, and a lamp; and when he comes to us, let him come there. 2 Kings 4:11. One day he came there, and went into the upper room, and lay down there, 2 Kings 4:12. and he said to Gehazi his servant, Call this Shunammite woman. And he called her, and she stood before him. 2 Kings 4:13. And he said to him: tell her: “Behold, you take such care of us; what should you do? Shouldn’t we talk about you with the king or the military commander?” She said: no, I live among my people. 2 Kings 4:14. And he said: What should she do? And Gehazi said, Behold, she has no son, and her husband is old. 2 Kings 4:15. And he said: Call her. He called her, and she stood at the door. 2 Kings 4:16. And he said: in a year, at this very time you will be holding your son in your arms. And she said: No, my lord, man of God, do not deceive your servant. 2 Kings 4:17. And the woman became pregnant and gave birth to a son the next year, at the very time that Elisha told her. 2 Kings 4:18. And the child grew up and one day went to his father, to the reapers. 2 Kings 4:19. And he said to his father: my head! my head hurts! And he said to his servant: Take him to his mother. 2 Kings 4:20. And he carried him and brought him to his mother. And he sat on her lap until noon, and died. 2 Kings 4:21. And she went and laid him on the bed of the man of God, and locked him, and went out, 2 Kings 4:22. and she called her husband and said, Send me one of the servants and one of the donkeys, I will go to the man of God and return. 2 Kings 4:23. He said: why do you need to go to him? Today is not the new moon and not Saturday. But she said: okay. 2 Kings 4:24. And she saddled the donkey and said to her servant: Lead and go; don't stop until I tell you. 2 Kings 4:25. And she went and arrived to the man of God, to Mount Carmel. And when the man of God saw her from afar, he said to his servant Gehazi, “This is that Shunammite woman.” 2 Kings 4:26. Run to meet her and tell her: “Are you healthy? is your husband healthy? Is the child healthy? - She said: healthy. 2 Kings 4:27. When she came to the man of God on the mountain, she grabbed his feet. And Gehazi came up to take her away; but the man of God said: leave her, her soul is sad, but the Lord hid it from me and did not tell me. 2 Kings 4:28. And she said, Have I asked my lord for a son? Didn’t I say, “don’t deceive me”? 2 Kings 4:29. And he said to Gehazi, Gird up your loins, and take my rod in your hand, and go; if you meet someone, do not greet him, and if anyone greets you, do not answer him; and place my staff on the child’s face. 2 Kings 4:30. And the mother of the child said: As the Lord lives, and as your soul lives! I won't leave you. And he got up and followed her. 2 Kings 4:31. Gehazi went ahead of them and laid the rod on the child's face. But there was no voice, no answer. And he went out to meet him, and told him, and said: The child is not awakening. 2 Kings 4:32. And Elisha entered the house, and behold, the child lay dead on his bed. 2 Kings 4:33. And he went in, and locked the door behind him, and prayed to the Lord. 2 Kings 4:34. And he rose and lay over the child, and put his lips to his lips, and his eyes to his eyes, and his palms to his palms, and stretched out on him, and the child’s body became warm. 2 Kings 4:35. And he stood up and walked back and forth in the upper room; then he rose again and prostrated himself on him. And the child sneezed seven times, and the child opened his eyes. 2 Kings 4:36. And he called Gehazi and said, Call this Shunammite woman. And he called her. She came to him, and he said: Take your son. 2 Kings 4:37. And she came up and fell at his feet and bowed to the ground; and she took her son and went. And the story about the birth of a son to a Shunammite wife, his death and resurrection has an obvious similarity with the parallel story (1 Kings 17:17 ff.) about the resurrection by the prophet Elijah of the son of the widow of Sarepta, and again each story has its own unique features, and one cannot be considered a repetition of the other. The prophet Elisha from Gilgal went to Mount Carmel (2 Kings 2:25), the favorite residence of the prophet Elijah (cf. v. 25), and from there he came to nearby Sonam (v. 8; for the position of Sonam, see comments on 1 Kings 1:3). The story about the Shunammite woman, regardless of other things, is interesting because of the message of everyday, social, civil and religious features of Hebrew life from this era. In terms of everyday life, a description of the utensils or furniture of even a wealthy Hebrew house is typical: in the room built by the pious Shunammite woman for the prophet Elisha (v. 10) - “a small upper room over the wall” (a kind of mezzanine, often built on the flat roofs of the East (cf. 1 Samuel 9:25; 2 Samuel 16:22)), there were accessories that were obviously common in in the ancient Hebrew house: bed, (Hebrew mitta), table (Hebrew shulchan in the Bible often means, like the modern Bedouins, a simple linen or skin spread on the floor for dining), but equally a table in our sense (cf. 1 Kings 13:20; Num. 4:7. See Gesemi. Thesaurus linguae lebr, p. 1417), chair (Heb. kisev), lamp (menorah). In the civil sense, the answer given by the Shunammite woman to the proposal of the prophet Elisha to intercede for her with a king or military commander is typical (what power the prophet Elisha had with both Jewish kings is clear from (2 Kings 3:12), etc.), that she has no need for this, since she “lives among her people” (v. 13; Cf. Blessed Theodoret, Question 15), that is, he belongs to a fairly strong and noble family. This throws some light on the strength and significance of ancestral ties and relationships in ancient Israel. “If we knew more about these generations, then probably many events in the history of Israel would appear before us in a different and clearer light. So, for example, it is highly probable that the continuous revolutions and variable policies in the kingdom of Israel - friendly sometimes to Assyria, sometimes to the Egyptians - are in connection with these clans, which had their representatives in the cities" (Buhl. Die Sociale Verhaltnisse des Israel, 1899, p. 39). Finally, from a religious and liturgical point of view, this story is instructive in that it testifies (v. 25), that Saturdays and new moons were celebrated in the kingdom of Israel not only with sacrifices, as prescribed in the law (Num. 28:9,11), but also with special meetings (cf. Blessed Theodoret, question 16), and that the center of these religious and edifying meetings in the ten-tribe kingdom, in the absence of a legal church, served as the houses of the prophets. All the relations of the Shunammite woman to the prophet in the story are imbued with deep reverence (vv. 9, 15, 22, 27, 37); she directly calls (v. 9) the prophet “saint” (Heb. kadosh, Greek ἄγιος, Latin Sanctus: this is the first time in the Bible that a living person is called a saint, not only in theory, as in (Lev. 11:44) and many others, but also in reality). Nothing is known about why and when the prophet Elisha chose Gehazi as his servant (v. 12, etc.), who was not distinguished by moral qualities (2 Kings 5:20, etc.). The prophet's prediction about the birth of a son to the Shunammite woman (v. 16) is completely similar to the promise to Abraham about the birth of Isaac (Gen. 18:10,14; cf. Blessed Theodoret, question 16). The illness of the godly woman's son (verse 19) was apparently sunstroke (Judith.8:2-3; Ps.121:6). From the words of the prophet (v. 27): “The Lord hid it from me and did not announce it to me,” “it is clear that the prophets did not see everything, but only what the grace of God revealed to them” (Blessed Theodoret, question 17); the same thing is revealed in the embassy of the prophet Elisha Gehazi in his place (verse 29), which turned out to be fruitless (verse 31). Just as a grief-stricken woman hastily avoided long conversations (vv. 23, 26), so the prophet orders Gehazi to value time (suspecting, perhaps, only the imaginary death of the child) and to avoid greetings, usually long in the East, at meetings (verse 29, cf. Luke 10:4); moreover, “the prophet knew” that Gehazi was ambitious and vain and that he would tell those he met along the way the reason for his journey, and vanity prevented the working of miracles (Blessed Theodoret, question 17); according to the Talmudists (Pirke Elieser, 33), Gehazi did not fulfill the orders of the prophet, and therefore could not revive the son of the Shunammite (v. 31). The actions of the prophet himself at the resurrection of a dead child (v. 35–36) is closely similar in essence to the actions of the prophet Elijah during the resurrection of the son of the widow of Sarepta (1 Kings 17:19–23), with a particular difference: a) in this case, a more prominent depiction of the gestures of the prophet Elisha (vv. 34–35): “the prophet attached his own instruments of feelings to the instruments of the senses of the deceased; eyes to eyes, lips to lips, hands to hands, so that the deceased becomes involved in the life of the living, obviously, through the action of spiritual grace that gives life” (Blessed Theodoret, question 18); b) the words of calling on God are not mentioned, as in the prophet Elijah (1 Kings 17:21); but, without a doubt, the prophet Elisha also prayed in the same way when performing a miracle along with another, which foreshadowed the resurrection of the Lord Jesus Christ ((2 Kings 4:8-37) read as proverb 12 at the Holy Saturday service). 2 Kings 4:38. Elisha returned to Gilgal. And there was a famine in the land, and the sons of the prophets sat before it. And he said to his servant: Set up a large pot and cook some stew for the sons of the prophets. 2 Kings 4:39. And one of them went out into the field to gather vegetables, and found a wild climbing plant, and from it gathered wild fruits for his full robe; and he came and crumbled them into a pot of stew, since they did not know them. 2 Kings 4:40. And they poured something for them to eat. But as soon as they began to eat the stew, they raised a cry and said: death in the cauldron, man of God! And they couldn't eat. 2 Kings 4:41. And he said: Give me some flour. And he poured it into the pot and said to [Gehazi], “Pour some for the people, let them eat.” And there was nothing harmful in the boiler. Gilgal, the seat of the “sons of the prophets” (cf. 2 Kings 2:1 ff.), was one of the usual residences of the prophet Elisha, the leader of the society of the sons of the prophets; the latter (v. 38) “sat before him” - as disciples, at his feet (cf. Acts 22:3): they came to the prophet Elisha to listen to him (cf. Ezek.8:1; Zech.3:3), but did not necessarily live in the same house (cf. 2 Kings 6:1). The famine spoken of here is probably identical to the seven-year famine under the prophet Elisha (2 Kings 8:1). Taking care of the food of the disciples, the prophet orders the servant to prepare them a dish of vegetables (Heb. orot, LXX: ἀριωθ, Vulg.: herbas agrestes, slav.: “potions of divia”). “Those who collected them ignorantly mixed in poisonous fruits. But the prophet, by ordering flour to be poured into the konob, thereby destroyed the effect of the poison. This was not accomplished by the quality of flour, but by the grace of the prophet” (Blessed Theodoret, question 19). Poisonous fruits in Heb. the text calls pakkuot - “wild cucumbers” (cf. ornaments of 1 Kings 6:18, 7:24), cucumeres agresti, asiuini, in appearance mixed with cucumbers beloved by the Jews (Num. 11:5). 2 Kings 4:42. Someone from Baal-Shalisha came and brought the man of God the firstfruits of grain - twenty barley loaves and raw grains in the husk. And Elisha said, Give it to the people, let them eat. 2 Kings 4:43. And his servant said, “What will I give to a hundred men?” And he said: Give it to the people, let them eat, for this is what the Lord says: “They will be satisfied, and there will be some left.” 2 Kings 4:44. He gave it to them, and they were satisfied, and there was some left over, according to the word of the Lord. Baal-Shalisha (cf. 1 Samuel 9:4) - a city, according to assumption, in the tribe of Ephraim, for Eusebius - Βαιθσαρισάθ, for Jerome - Betsarisa - 15 miles from Diospolis (Onomast. 206), now close to Kafr Sils. According to the Law of Moses, the Jews had to deliver all the firstfruits to the sanctuary, from where the priests and Levites received them (Num. 18:13; Deut. 18:4). Due to the absence of legal priests and Levites in the kingdom of Israel (1 Kings 12:31), a certain pious man brought the firstfruits of bread to the prophet of God. The latter, invoking the name of God (verse 43), miraculously multiplies food for 100 people (cf. Blessed Theodoret, question 19): this miracle was probably caused by the famine mentioned above in Israel. You might be interested in: