The widow’s oil
1 The widow of one of the fel low prophets called Eli sha saying, “You know that my husband feared God. But now his creditor has come to collect payment. And as we could not pay, he wanted to take my two sons as slaves.”
2 Elisha said, “What can I do for you? Tell me what you have in your house?” She answered, “I have but a little oil for cleaning.”
3 Elisha said to her, “Go and ask your neighbors for empty jars.
4 Get as many as you can; then go into your house with your sons and close the door. Pour oil into the vessels. And when they are filled, set them aside.”
5 The woman went and locked herself in her house with her sons. They handed her the vessels and she filled them all.
6 She said to one of her sons, “Bring me another vessel,” and he an swered, “There are no more.” Then the oil stopped flowing.
7 As she went back to tell this to the man of God, he said to her, “Go and sell the oil to pay for your debts; you and your sons can live on the money that is left.”
The resurrection of the Shunamite’s son
8 One day Elisha went to Shu nem, and a rich woman invited him to eat. Afterwards, whenever he went to that town, he would go to her house to eat.
9 The woman said to her husband, “See, this man who constantly passes by our house is a holy man of God.
10 If you want, we can make a small upper room for him, and place a bed, a table, a chair and a lamp in it. So when he comes, he may stay and rest.”
11 One day when Elisha came, he went to the upper room and lay down.
12 Then he said to Gehazi, his manservant, “Call this woman.” She came when called and stood before Elisha.
13 Elisha said to her, “You have taken all this trouble for us. Tell me: what then can we do for you? Would you like me to say something to the king or the commander of the army for you?” But she answered, “I do not need anything in this land.”
14 So Elisha said to Gehazi, “What can we do for her?” The young man an swered, “She has no children and her husband is now old.”
15 And so Elisha said to him, “Call her.” The young man called her and as the woman stood by the door,
16 Elisha said, “By this time next year, you will hold a son in your arms.” She answered, “No, my lord, O man of God, you are deceiving your maidservant.”
17 But the woman gave birth to a son precisely at the time Elisha had told her.
18 The boy grew. One day, when he had gone out to his father among the harvesters, he had a severe headache.
19 So the father ordered his servant, “Car ry him to his mo ther.”
20 The servant brought him to his mother, and the boy sat on her lap till noon, when he died.
21 Then the mother went up and laid him on Elisha’s bed and she left, closing the door.
22 Then she called her husband, “Send me one of the servants with an ass. I am going to the man of God, and I will come back.”
23 He asked, “Why are you going to him? It is not the new moon yet nor the sabbath.” But she said, “Do not worry.”
24 She saddled the ass, and said to her servant, “Lead on, and don’t stop until I tell you.”
25 So she set off and arrived at Mount Carmel where the man of God was.
Elisha saw her from afar, so he said to his servant, “Here comes our Shu namite.
26 Run to meet her and ask: Are you well? How is your husband? And your son?” She an swered, “Everything is all right.”
27 She went to the man of God, and embraced his feet. Then Ge hazi came to draw her away, but the man of God said to him, “Leave her, for her soul is in bitter distress, and Yahweh has not made known to me nor has he revealed it to me.”
28 She said, “Did I ask, my lord, for a son? Why have you deceived me?”
29 Elisha said to Gehazi, “Get ready, take my staff and go. If you meet anyone, do not stop to greet him; and if someone greets you, do not greet him in return. And as soon as you arrive, place my staff on the boy’s face.”
30 But the boy’s mother said, “I swear by Yahweh and by your life that I will not leave you.” So Elisha arose and followed her.
31 Gehazi went on ahead and laid the staff on the boy’s face, but the boy did not move or give any sign of life, so Gehazi returned to meet them and said, “The boy has not revived.”
32 Elisha came into the house, and found the dead boy lying on his bed.
33 He entered, closed the door behind him, and prayed to Yahweh.
34 Then he lay upon the boy, put his mouth upon the boy’s mouth, his eyes upon his eyes, his hands upon the boy’s hands, and warmth returned to the boy’s body.
35 Elisha came down and began walking to and fro. Then he went upstairs to stretch himself upon the boy, and the boy sneezed seven times and opened his eyes.
36 Elisha then called Gehazi and said, “Call the woman.” And when she came, Elisha told her, “Take your son.”
37 She bowed at his feet, then she took her son and went out.
38 Elisha returned to Gilgal. There was great scarcity of food in the region, and when the fellow prophets came to sit with Elisha, he said to his servant, “Take the big pot and prepare some broth for the fellow prophets.”
39 One of them went out into the field to gather herbs; he found a wild plant, from which he gathered poisonous fruits, enough to fill his cloak. When he came back, he cut them into pieces and put them in the pot where the broth was being prepared, for he did not know what they were.
40 Then the broth was served to the men to eat. But as soon as they tasted the soup, they cried out, “Man of God, this is pure poison!” So they did not eat any more.
41 Then Eli sha said, “Bring me flour.” And he put it into the pot. Then he said, “Serve these men and let them eat.” And there was no longer anything harmful in the pot.
The multiplication of loaves
42 A man came from Baal-shalishad bringing bread and wheat to the man of God. These were from the first part of the harvest, twenty loaves of bar ley and wheat. Elisha told him, “Give the loaves to these men that they may eat.”
43 His servant said to him, “How am I to divide these loaves among one hundred men?” Elisha insisted, “Give them to the men that they may eat, for Yahweh says: They shall eat and have some left over.”
44 So the man set it before them; and they ate and had some left, as Yahweh had said.
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Comments 2 Kings, Chapter 4
• 4.1 Of all the prophets of Israel, Elisha is the one nearest to the poor and marginalized of his time. It is in their midst and in their favor that he works most of his miracles. Because of this, the accounts handed down to us still keep the flavor and the colorful way these first witnesses have related them. Even if they belong more to legend than to history, these texts nevertheless tell us how these simple people recognized the power given by God to his prophet in order to help and console them.
• 8. All the elements of human tragedy are joined here: hope, happy life, death, the anguished heart of a mother who does not resign herself to the death of the son of her womb, her call of despair to the man of God.
We must meditate on the very moving resur-rection at the hands of Elisha: mouth to mouth, eyes on eyes, hand in hand to communicate his warmth and restore life. It is an unusually concrete image of what Christ achieves in us when he “resurrects” us and fills us with life by his intimate touch. As St. Patrick, filled with enthusiasm in his missionary journeys, used to say: “Christ ahead of me, Christ behind me; Christ at my left; Christ at my right; Christ in me, Christ over me.”
• 42. We should compare this multiplication of loaves with the two multiplications at the hand of Je sus; they are related in very similar ways and, yet, each has a different meaning (see especially Jn 6).