2 Kings 4:2

2 Elisha asked her, "What shall I do for you? Tell me, what do you have in the house?" Then she said, "Your servant has nothing in the house except a jar of olive oil."

2 Kings 4:2 Meaning and Commentary

2 Kings 4:2

And Elisha said unto her, what shall I do for thee?
&c.] Or can I do, being poor himself, and unable to relieve her out of his substance, and not knowing where to get anything for her; and so what could she expect from him? signifying, that he pitied her case, but all that he could do was to give her his best advice, and pray for her:

tell me what thou hast in thy house?
that she could part with and dispose of, in order to pay her debt; and satisfy her creditor:

and she said, thine handmaid hath not anything in the house, save a
pot of oil;
that is, nothing of any value; she might have some things, some sort of household goods, though perhaps she had parted with most of them in her poverty; this was the most valuable thing she had.

2 Kings 4:2 In-Context

1 A certain woman from the wives of the sons of the prophets cried out to Elisha, saying, "Your servant my husband is dead. Now you know that your servant was a fearer of Yahweh, but the creditor came to take two of my children for himself as slaves.

2 Elisha asked her, "What shall I do for you? Tell me, what do you have in the house?" Then she said, "Your servant has nothing in the house except a jar of olive oil."

3 Then he said to her, "Go, ask for yourself [some] containers from the streets, from all your neighbors. {You must collect as many empty containers as you can}!

4 You must also go and shut the door behind you and your children, and you must pour out [oil] into all of these containers and set the filled [ones] aside."

5 So she went from him, and she shut the door behind her and her children. They [were] bringing [containers] to her, and she [kept] pouring.