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NAVARRE BIBLE COMMENTARY (RSV)

Ad Majorem Dei Gloriam (To the Greater Glory of God)

From: 2 Kings 4:8-11, 14-16a

The Son of the Shunammite Woman
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[8] One day Elisha went on to Shunem, where a wealthy woman lived, who urged him to eat some food. So whenever he passed that way, he would turn in there to eat food. [9] And she said to her husband, "Behold now, I perceive that this is a holy man of God, who is continually passing our way. [10] Let us make a small roof chamber with walls, and put there for him a bed, a table, a chair, and a lamp, so that whenever he comes to us, he can go in there."

[11] One day he came there, and he turned into the chamber and rested there. [14] And he said, "What then is to be done for her?" Gehazi answered, "Well, she has no son, and her husband is old." [15] He said, "Call her." And when he had called her, she stood in the doorway. [16a] And he said, "At this season, when the time comes round, you shall embrace a son."

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Commentary:

4:8-37. Elisha here is an itinerant prophet who has only one servant and whose base is Mount Carmel: in this he Is like Elijah. This passage shows, firstly, God blessing the childless woman with the gift of motherhood, thanks to the prophet's intervention (vv. 11-17); and, secondly, the prophet's extraordinary power to raise up her dead son (vv. 18-37).

From a literary point of view, it is a well-constructed account full of little details which help to build up the dramatic tension. The feelings of the woman, who first of all receives the of a son without having sought it, and then cannot resign herself to his death, provide the basic story-line. St John Chrysostom quotes this passage show that real love means being concerned even about the physical welfare of others: "Elisha not only gave spiritual help to the woman who had shown him hospitality; he also tried repay her in a material way" ("De Laudibus Sancti Pauli Apostolici", 3, 7).

The first part of the story shows the reward given someone who welcomes a prophet because he is a prophet; it is reminiscent of the reward that Jesus promises to those who acknowledge and welcome an apostle (cf. Mt 10: 13-14). The main thing to be learned from this passage (as also from 1 Kings 17:6) is the power of the prophet's prayer and indeed anyone else's prayer when done with faith. But we also learn that when God gives a gift, no matter how surprisingly and unexpectedly (such as the gift of a son to this woman), he also gives the grace to conserve it and make it bear fruit. The Lord does not leave us to our own devices when he gives us, for example, personal talents, or a vocation even if we may not have sought one.

Elisha's journey to the dead boy and the action he takes is compared by St Augustine and other Fathers to the incarnation of Christ and to his work of redemption. "Elisha arrived and went up to the chamber, just as Christ would come and go up to the scaffold of the cross. Elisha stretched himself upon the child, to raise him up; Christ humbled himself in order to raise up the world that was laid prone by sin. Elisha put his eyes on the child's eyes, his hands on his hands. Notice, my brothers, how that grown-up man shrank himself in order to fit the size of the dead child. What Elisha prefigured (in the way he cured the child), Christ fulfilled in regard to all mankind. Listen to what the Apostle says; 'He humbled himself, becoming obedient unto death.' Because we were children, he made himself a child; because we lay dead, the first thing the doctor did was to bend over, for no one can raise his stricken brother unless he bends down to him. The child's sneezing seven times stands for the seven forms of grace of the Holy Spirit that are given mankind, in order to raise it up, at Christ's coming (Sermons attributed to St Augustine, "Sermons", 42, 8).