2 Kings 4:39

Overview - 2 Kings 4
Elisha multiplies the widow's oil.
He obtains a son for the good Shunammite.
18 He restores her son when dead.
38 At Gilgal he heals the deadly pottage.
42 He satisfies an hundred men with twenty loaves.
Treasury of Scripture Knowledge

2 Kings 4:39  (King James Version)
And one went out into the field to gather herbs, and found a wild vine, and gathered thereof wild gourds his lap full, and came and shred them into the pot of pottage: for they knew them not.
 


a wild vine
Isaiah 5:4 ; Jeremiah 2:21 ; Matthew 15:13 ; Hebrews 12:15

wild gourds
The word {pakkth,} from {peka,} in Chaldee, to burst, and in Syriac, to crack, thunder, is generally supposed to be the fruits of the coloquintida, or colocynth; whose leaves are large, placed alternately, very much like those of the vine, whence it might be called a wild vine: the flowers are white, and the fruit of the gourd kind, of the size of a large apple, and when ripe, of a yellow colour, and a pleasant and inviting appearance. It ranks among vegetable poisons, as all intense bitters do; but, judiciously employed, it is of considerable use in medicine. It is said that the fruit, when ripe, is so full of wind that it bursts, and throws its liquor and seeds to a great distance: and if touched, before it breaks of itself, it flies open with an explosion, and discharges its foetid contents in the face of him who touched it.