Berean Standard Bible
2 Kings 4:23-42
23“Why would you go to him today?” he replied. “It is not a New Moon or a Sabbath.”
“Everything is all right,” she said.
24Then she saddled the donkey and told her servant, “Drive onward; do not slow the pace for me unless I tell you.” 25So she set out and went to the man of God at Mount Carmel.
When the man of God saw her at a distance, he said to his servant Gehazi, “Look, there is the Shunammite woman. 26Please run out now to meet her and ask, ‘Are you all right? Is your husband all right? Is your child all right?’”
And she answered, “Everything is all right.”
27When she reached the man of God at the mountain, she clung to his feet. Gehazi came over to push her away, but the man of God said, “Leave her alone, for her soul is in deep distress, and the LORD has hidden it from me and has not told me.”
28Then she said, “Did I ask you for a son, my lord? Didn’t I say, ‘Do not deceive me?’”
29So Elisha said to Gehazi, “Tie up your garment,1 take my staff in your hand, and go! If you meet anyone, do not greet him, and if anyone greets you, do not answer him. Then lay my staff on the boy’s face.”
30And the mother of the boy said, “As surely as the LORD lives and as you yourself live, I will not leave you.” So he got up and followed her.
31Gehazi went on ahead of them and laid the staff on the boy’s face, but there was no sound or response. So he went back to meet Elisha and told him, “The boy has not awakened.”
32When Elisha reached the house, there was the boy lying dead on his bed. 33So he went in, closed the door behind the two of them, and prayed to the LORD.
34Then Elisha got on the bed and lay on the boy, mouth to mouth, eye to eye, and hand to hand. As he stretched himself out over him, the boy’s body became warm. 35Elisha turned away and paced back and forth across the room. Then he got on the bed and stretched himself out over the boy again, and the boy sneezed seven times and opened his eyes.
36Elisha summoned Gehazi and said, “Call the Shunammite woman.” So he called her and she came.
Then Elisha said, “Pick up your son.”
37She came in, fell at his feet, and bowed to the ground. Then she picked up her son and went out.
38When Elisha returned to Gilgal, there was a famine in the land. As the sons of the prophets were sitting at his feet, he said to his attendant, “Put on the large pot and boil some stew for the sons of the prophets.”
39One of them went out to the field to gather herbs, and he found a wild vine from which he gathered as many wild gourds as his garment could hold. Then he came back and cut them up into the pot of stew, though no one knew what they were.
40And they poured it out for the men to eat, but when they tasted the stew they cried out, “There is death in the pot, O man of God!” And they could not eat it.
41Then Elisha said, “Get some flour.” He threw it into the pot and said, “Pour it out for the people to eat.” And there was nothing harmful in the pot.
42Now a man from Baal-shalishah came to the man of God with a sack of twenty loaves of barley bread from the first ripe grain.
“Give it to the people to eat,” said Elisha.
Notes
- 1. 2 Kings 4:29 Literally Gird up your loins ↩
Commentaries on 2 Kings 4
- Adam Clarke Bible Commentary
- Barnes’ Notes on the Bible
- Matthew Henry Concise Commentary
- Tyndale Open Study Notes
- Jamieson–Fausset–Brown Commentary
- Rashi on Tanakh
- Keil & Delitzsch Commentary
- John Wesley’s Notes
- Darby Translation Notes
- Geneva Bible Translation Notes
- Kingcomments
- Matthew Henry’s Complete Commentary
- Matthew Henry’s Modern English Commentary
- Scofield Reference Notes, 1917 Edition
- Seventh-day Adventist Bible Commentary
- EGW Writings
Berean Standard Bible — © Berean Bible — CC0 / Public Domain
Commentaries