2 Kings 4:8-17

The Shunammite Woman

8 Now there came a day when Elisha passed over to ¹Shunem, 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 ²man of God passing by us continually.

10 "Please, let us ³make 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 ⁴Gehazi 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."

15 He said, "Call her." When he had called her, she stood in the doorway.

16 Then he said, "⁵At this season next year you will embrace a son." And she said, "No, my lord, O man of God, ⁶do not lie to your maidservant."

17 The woman conceived and bore a son at that season the next year, as Elisha had said to her.

2 Kings 4:8-17 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.

Cross References

• 1. Joshua 19:18
• 2. 2 Kings 4:7
• 3. Matthew 10:41, 42; Matthew 25:40; Romans 12:13
• 4. 2 Kings 4:29-31; 2 Kings 5:20-27; 2 Kings 8:4, 5
• 5. Genesis 18:14
• 6. 2 Kings 4:28

Footnotes

• [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"
• [j]. Lit "when the time revives"
• [k]. Lit "when the time revived"