2 Kings 4:4-14

4 "And you shall go in and shut the door behind you and your sons, and pour out into all these vessels, and you shall set aside what is full."

5 So she went from him and shut the door behind her and her sons; they were bringing the vessels to her and she poured.

6 When ¹the vessels were full, she said to her son, "Bring me another vessel." And he said to her, "There is not one vessel more." And the oil stopped.

7 Then she came and told ²the man of God. And he said, "Go, sell the oil and pay your debt, and you and your sons can live on the rest."

The Shunammite Woman

8 Now there came a day when Elisha passed over to ³Shunem, where there was a prominent woman, and she persuaded him to eat food. And so it was, as often as he passed by, he turned in there to eat food.

9 She said to her husband, "Behold now, I perceive that this is a holy ⁴man of God passing by us continually.

10 "Please, let us ⁵make a little walled upper chamber and let us set a bed for him there, and a table and a chair and a lampstand; and it shall be, when he comes to us, that he can turn in there."

11 One day he came there and turned in to the upper chamber and rested *.

12 Then he said to ⁶Gehazi his servant, "Call this Shunammite." And when he had called her, she stood before him.

13 He said to him, "Say now to her, 'Behold, you have been careful for us with all this care; what can I do for you? Would you be spoken for to the king or to the captain of the army?' " And she answered, "I live among my own people."

14 So he said, "What then is to be done for her?" And Gehazi answered, "Truly she has no son and her husband is old."

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2 Kings 4:4-14 Meaning and Commentary

INTRODUCTION TO 2 KINGS 4

This chapter treats of the miracles of Elisha, of his multiplying a poor widow's pot of oil for the payment of her husband's debts, 2Ki 4:1-7 of obtaining a son for a Shunamitish woman, who had been very hospitable to him, 2Ki 4:8-17, of his raising up her son to life when dead, 2Ki 4:18-37, of his curing the deadly pottage made of wild gourds, 2Ki 4:38-41, and of his feeding one hundred men with twenty barley loaves, 2Ki 4:42-44.

Taken from John Gill's Exposition of the Bible

Cross References 6

1. Matthew 14:20
2. 1 Kings 12:22
3. Joshua 19:18
4. 2 Kings 4:7
5. Matthew 10:41, 42; Matthew 25:40; Romans 12:13
6. 2 Kings 4:29-31; 2 Kings 5:20-27; 2 Kings 8:4, 5

Footnotes 9

[a]. Lit "great"
[b]. Lit "bread"
[c]. Lit "bread"
[d]. Lit "Now a day came that"
[e]. Lit "lay there"
[f]. Lit "fearful"
[g]. Lit "fear"
[h]. Lit "said"
[i]. Lit "said"