2 Kings 4:23

23 So he said, "Why are you going to him today? It is neither the New Moon nor the Sabbath." And she said, "It is well."

2 Kings 4:23 Meaning and Commentary

2 Kings 4:23

And he said, wherefore wilt thou go to him today?
&c.] What reason is there for it? what is the meaning of it?

it is neither new moon nor sabbath;
neither the first day of the month, nor the seventh day of the week, times which were religiously observed; so with the Heathens the new moon and the seventh of the week, and so the fourth, were sacred ^F21; which notions they borrowed from the Jews, (See Gill on 1 Samuel 20:5) and when, it seems, it was usual to frequent the house of the prophet, to hear the word of God read and explained, and other religious exercises performed, as praying and singing praise, and receiving some good instructions and advice. Joseph Kimchi gives a different sense of these words:

``there is not a month past, no, not a week, since thou sawest him;''

why therefore shouldest thou be in such haste to go to him? so the words for new moon and sabbath may signify:

and she said, it shall be well;
it was right for her to go, and it would be well for him and her, and the family; or, "peace" ^F23, be easy and quiet, farewell: it is much he had no mistrust of the death of the child, or that it was worse, since it went from him ill.

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FOOTNOTES:

F21 Hesiod. Opera & Dies, l. 2.
F23 (Mwlv) "pax", Pagninus, Montanus

2 Kings 4:23 In-Context

21 And she went up and laid him on the bed of the man of God, shut the door upon him, and went out.

22 Then she called to her husband, and said, "Please send me one of the young men and one of the donkeys, that I may run to the man of God and come back."

23 So he said, "Why are you going to him today? It is neither the New Moon nor the Sabbath." And she said, "It is well."

24 Then she saddled a donkey, and said to her servant, "Drive, and go forward; do not slacken the pace for me unless I tell you."

25 And so she departed, and went to the man of God at Mount Carmel.So it was, when the man of God saw her afar off, that he said to his servant Gehazi, "Look, the Shunammite woman!.