2 Kings 4:39 Komentář

Great service Elisha had done, in he foregoing chapter, for the three kings: to his prayers and prophecies they owed their lives and triumphs. One would have expected that the next chapter would tell us what honours and what dignities were conferred on Elisha for this, that he should immediately be preferred at court, and made prime-minister of state, that Jehoshaphat should take him home with him, and advance him in his kingdom. No, the wise man delivered the army, but no man remembered the wise man, Ecc 9:15. Or, if he had preferment offered him, he declined it: he preferred the honour of doing good in the schools of the prophets before that of being great in the courts of princes. God magnified him, and that sufficed him - magnified him indeed, for we have him here employed in working no fewer than five miracles. I. He multiplied the poor widow's oil (Kg2 4:1-7). II. He obtained for the good Shunammite the blessing of a son in her old age (Kg2 4:8-17). III. He raised that child to life when it was dead (Kg2 4:18-27). IV. He healed the deadly pottage (Kg2 4:38-41). V. He fed 100 men with twenty small loaves (Kg2 4:42-44).

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, Kg2 4:1 of obtaining a son for a Shunamitish woman, who had been very hospitable to him, Kg2 4:8, of his raising up her son to life when dead, Kg2 4:18, of his curing the deadly pottage made of wild gourds, Kg2 4:38, and of his feeding one hundred men with twenty barley loaves, Kg2 4:42.

And one went out into the fields to gather herbs,.... To put into the pottage, the gardens affording none in this time of dearth; or, however, being scarce, were at too great a price for the sons of the prophets to purchase them; and therefore one of them went out into the field to gather what common herbs he could: and found a wild vine, and gathered thereof wild gourds his lap full; thought to be the same with coloquintida, the leaves of which are very like to a vine, of a very bitter taste, and a very violent purgative, which, if not remedied, will produce ulcerations in the bowels, and issue in death; some think the white brier or white vine is meant, the colour of whose berries is very inviting to look at, but very bitter and ungrateful, and it vehemently purges (b); the Arabs call a sort of mushroom that is white and soft by this name (c), but cannot be meant here, because it has no likeness to a wild vine: and came and shred them into the pot of pottage; cut or chopped them small, and put them into the pot: for they knew them not; what they were, the nature and virtue of them, being unskilful in botany. (b) Vid. Scheuchzer. Physic. Sacr. vol. 3. p. 605, 859. (c) Golius, col. 1817.

Here two miracles are proposed, which Elisha performed while he was among his disciples. He accomplished the first when he caused death to leave the pot, where, as they said, it had hidden. He performed the second when he nourished one hundred prophets with a little bit of bread. In both miracles he prefigures him who multiplies twice some barley loaves and nourishes with them “about five thousand men, besides women and children.”

This was the starving steward of the prophets who was forced by the lack of food to go through the fields in order to gather some herbs. And since he could not find the herbs he knew, he gathered those that he did not know and were not edible. And since it is written that he gathered wild colocynths, some say that he gathered colocynths, others those [herbs] that are called the source of bitterness: with their inside parts, physicians make an effective and purifying medicine. Others say that perhaps their name comes from the term used by farmers: squirting cucumbers, which have a very bitter taste and resemble a vine. In fact, the Scripture calls a vine that plant that the steward found and from which he gathered colocynths.

A widow of one of the prophets, oppressed by a merciless creditor, applies to Elisha, who multiplies her oil; by a part of which she pays her debt, abut subsists on the rest, Kg2 4:1-7. His entertainment at the house of a respectable woman in Shunem, Kg2 4:8-10. He foretells to his hostess the birth of a son, Kg2 4:11-17. After some years the child dies, and the mother goes to Elisha at Carmel; he comes to Shunem, and raises the child to life, vv. 18-37. He comes to Gilgal, and prevents the sons of the prophets from being poisoned by wild gourds, Kg2 4:38-41. He multiplies a scanty provision, so as to make it sufficient to feed one hundred men, Kg2 4:42-44.

Wild gourds - This is generally thought to be the coloquintida, the fruit of a plant of the same name, about the size of a large orange. It is brought hither from the Levant, and is often known by the name of the bitter apple; both the seeds and pulp are intensely bitter, and violently purgative. It ranks among vegetable poisons, as all intense bitters do; but, judiciously employed, it is of considerable use in medicine.

ELISHA AUGMENTS THE WIDOW'S OIL. (Kg2 4:1-7) there cried a certain woman of the wives of the sons of the prophets--They were allowed to marry as well as the priests and Levites. Her husband, not enjoying the lucrative profits of business, had nothing but a professional income, which, in that irreligious age, would be precarious and very scanty, so that he was not in a condition to provide for his family. the creditor is come to take unto him my two sons to be bondmen--By the enactment of the law, a creditor was entitled to claim the person and children of the insolvent debtor, and compel them to serve him as bondmen till the year of jubilee should set them free.

went out into the field to gather herbs--Wild herbs are very extensively used by the people in the East, even by those who possess their own vegetable gardens. The fields are daily searched for mallow, asparagus, and other wild plants. wild vine--literally, "the vine of the field," supposed to be the colocynth, a cucumber, which, in its leaves, tendrils, and fruit, bears a strong resemblance to the wild vine. The "gourds," or fruit, are of the color and size of an orange bitter to the taste, causing colic, and exciting the nerves, eaten freely they would occasion such a derangement of the stomach and bowels as to be followed by death. The meal which Elisha poured into the pot was a symbolic sign that the noxious quality of the herbs was removed. lap full--The hyke, or large cloak, is thrown loosely over the left shoulder and fastened under the right arm, so as to form a lap or apron.