2 Kings 4:1-7

1 Now the wife of a member of the company of prophets cried to Elisha, "Your servant my husband is dead; and you know that your servant feared the Lord, but a creditor has come to take my two children as slaves."

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

3 He said, "Go outside, borrow vessels from all your neighbors, empty vessels and not just a few.

4 Then go in, and shut the door behind you and your children, and start pouring into all these vessels; when each is full, set it aside."

5 So she left him and shut the door behind her and her children; they kept bringing vessels to her, and she kept pouring.

6 When the vessels were full, she said to her son, "Bring me another vessel." But he said to her, "There are no more." Then the oil stopped flowing.

7 She came and told the man of God, and he said, "Go sell the oil and pay your debts, and you and your children can live on the rest."

2 Kings 4:1-7 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.

Footnotes

• [a] Heb [the sons of the prophets]