Chapter 4

The widow who lost her husband is given overflowing oil to sell and cover her debts so that the creditor cannot take her sons as slaves.  I have heard a good sermon on this.  She gathered vessels to fill with oil based on her faith.  Had she had more faith, she would have had more oil to sell.

A Shunammite woman befriends Elisha, and builds a little room so he will have a regular place to stay whenever he passes that way.  Because of her kindness, Elisha tells her she will have a son.  She didn't have one, so there would have been no one to care for her after her old husband died.  After the child is a little older, he gets a headache, and dies in his mother's arms.  She gets a donkey and goes looking for Elisha.  Elisha resurrects the child by stretching out on his body two times.  The first time, the child became warm.  The second time, he sneezed seven times and opened his eyes.

2021, The young woman Abishag, who kept David warm in his old age, was a Shunammite.  She is the one Adonijah put Bathsheba up to asking for as his wife.  Solomon saw through this power grab, and Adonijah is executed for it.  So two prominent women of Shunem in the Bible.

These "Shunammite's" have shown up before.  Would be a good study to follow that thread.

Elisha "fixes" a pot of poisoned stew during a famine.  The cook - or someone like that - had gone out and found some wild gourds, picked them, and put them in the stew.  Since there was a famine, perhaps he was thus trying to "stretch" the stew.  But the gourds were poison.  Elisha "fixes" this with some flour. 

Then a man brings them 20 loaves of barley and Elisha says to feed the men with it.  But there are 100 men.  Elisha says it will be enough with some left over.  So they serve the bread, and some was left over.  A preview of the feeding of the 5000?  I never had noticed that this had been performed before.  Jesus does it twice, Elisha does it only once. 

2021 - This whole chapter seems to be about miracles done by Elisha.  This sort of thing is done in the NT to establish the credibility of Jesus and then of the Apostles.  Perhaps it is the same here, though I don't see why it would be necessary.

2022 - Elisha's first "miracle" was stopping the Jordan so he could walk across.  I am not sure about the water in the desert.  It never says that Elisha made that happen.  Never says God made it happen.  Then he does the unending oil miracle with a widow.  Then the miracle of this Shunammite with the very  old husband having a son.  The son dies, and Elisha raises him from the dead.  Then Elisha makes the poison stew not poison, so they can eat it.  Then last in this chapter Elisha feeds 100 men with 20 barley loaves and some grain. The point is that several of these first miracles remind us of Elijah's miracles.  I'm thinking it is because Elisha has a double portion of Elijah's spirit.  So the miracles at first are to show us that this spirit was passed on.  I would further point out that Elisha does MORE miracles than Elijah did.  The question is why?  Why all these miracles at this specific time?  It is kind of out in the middle of the history of the Kings of Israel and Judah.  I am not, so far, seeing any significant change or re-direction or reversal here.  No revival in Israel or Judah, no significantly worsening apostasy.  So why were Elijah and Elisha so openly and unarguably confirmed here by miracles as men of God?  Jesus did miracles.  The apostles did miracles.  I expect there will be miracles before tgt...Why these miracles of Elijah and Elisha?

First notes, 8/28/18

The mantle passes from Elijah to Elisha.  

Elijah  and Elisha perform many miracles.  Both raise a widows son from the  dead.  Both part the Jordan.  Elisha feeds 100 men with only a few  barley loaves.

I see nothing special about this time, but it is one of only three times in the Bible where miracles like this occurred. 

The  King of Moab burns his heir on the wall.  Make no mistake.  Those who serve false gods can be as committed as those who serve the living God.