2 Kings 4:34

_AND HE WENT UP, AND LAY UPON THE CHILD, AND PUT HIS MOUTH UPON HIS MOUTH, AND HIS EYES UPON HIS EYES, AND HIS HANDS UPON HIS HANDS: AND HE STRETCHED HIMSELF UPON THE CHILD; AND THE FLESH OF THE CHILD WAXED WARM._ Lay upon the child ... - (see the notes at 1 Kings 17:21; Acts 20:10). Although this contact with a dead body would communicate ceremonial uncleanness, yet, in performing the great moral duties of piety and benevolence, positive laws were sometimes dispensed with, particularly by the prophets....

18-37 Here is the sudden death of the child. All the mother's tenderness cannot keep alive a child of promise, a child of prayer, one given in love. But how admirably does the prudent, pious mother, guard her lips under this sudden affliction! Not one peevish word escapes from her. Such confidence had she of God's goodness, that she was ready to believe that he would restore what he had now taken away. O woman, great is thy faith! He that wrought it, would not disappoint it. The sorrowful mother begged leave of her husband to go to the prophet at once. She had not thought it enough to have Elisha's help sometimes in her own family, but, though a woman of rank, attended on public worship. It well becomes the men of God, to inquire about the welfare of their friends and their families. The answer was, It is well. All well, and yet the child dead in the house! Yes! All is well that God doe...

Verse 34. _LAY UPON THE CHILD_] Endeavoured to convey a portion of his own natural warmth to the body of the child; and probably endeavoured, by blowing into the child's mouth, to inflate the lungs, and restore respiration. He uses every natural means in his power to restore life, while praying to the Author of it to exert a miraculous influence. Natural means are in our power; those that are supernatural belong to God. We should always do our own work, and beg of God to do his....

BE STRETCHED HIMSELF - Or, “prostrated himself.” The word is a different one from that used of Elijah, and expresses closer contact with the body. Warmth may have been actually communicated from the living body to the dead one; and Elisha’s persistence Hebrews 11:35, may have been a condition of the child’s return to life....

EXPOSITION 2 KINGS 4:1 TYPICAL MIRACLES WROUGHT BY ELISHA. General _introduction_._ _The miracles of this chapter are all of them miracles of mercy. The first and last consist in the multiplying of food, and thus belong to the same class as our Lord's feeding the four and the five thousands, and Elijah's increasing the meal and oil of the widow of Zarephath (1 Kings 17:10). It serves no useful purpose to ask how miracles of this class were wrought. The inspired writers have not told us; and our own thoughts upon the subject can at the best be mere unfounded conjectures. The rationalistic attempts which have been made to solve the mystery exhibit a weakness and feeblen

AND HE WENT UP,.... To the bed, which was on an ascent in the chamber, 2 Kings 1:4 and lay upon the child; as Elijah did on the widow's son of Zarephath, 1 Kings 17:21 AND PUT HIS MOUTH UPON HIS MOUTH, AND HIS EYES UPON HIS EYES, AND HIS HANDS UPON HIS HANDS, AND STRETCHED HIMSELF UPON THE CHILD; that is, he did each of these one after another, since the disproportion of their bodies would not admit of their being done together: AND THE FLESH OF THE CHILD WAXED WARM; not from any virtue imparted to it by these motions and actions of the prophet, but from life being infused into it by the Lord, which caused an heat in the several parts of the body....

3. THE MIRACLES CHAPTER 4 _ 1. The widow's oil multiplied (2 Kings 4:1)_ 2. The Shunammite and her reward (2 Kings 4:8) 3. The son of the Shunammite raised from the dead (2 Kings 4:18) 4. The deadly pottage healed (2 Kings 4:38) 5. The multitude fed (2 Kings 4:42) In the previous chapter Elisha appeared as the saviour of Israel, and now he acts in behalf of the widow of one of the sons of the prophets. His name is not given. Elisha had known him as one who feared the Lord. And now the widow deeply in

ELISHA AND THE SHUNAMMITE WOMAN. This gives one of the most delightful pictures of rural life in ancient Israel. It describes the kindly hospitality of the great lady of Shunem, the accommodation provided a chamber with walls (_mg._) and furniture no makeshift arrangement, but such as befitted an honoured guest; the description of the boy's death, her drive from Shunem to Carmel to the prophet, Elisha's behaviour, as revealing his naturally considerate demeanour, is vividly portrayed. More than one expression recalls the Elijah story (_cf._ 1 Kings 18:26 with 2 Kings 4:31, and 1 Kings 18:42 with 2 Kings 4:33). Shunem ...

_And he went up_ The verb is used in 2 Kings 1:4, of getting upon a bed. For some old beds it is very appropriate, for formerly they were much higher from the ground than is now the fashion. _and lay upon the child_ (Cf. 1 Kings 17:21.) Probably Elisha knew of the acts of Elijah at Zarephath, and followed that example. The answer to his prayer seems to have been less immediate than in Elijah's case. Throughout the history there is a degree less of fervency in Elisha's actions and hence the less quickly availing prayer. Comparing the two prophets, Bp Hall says: -How true an heir is Elisha of his master, not in his graces only but in his actions. Both of them divided the waters of Jordan, the one as his last act, the other as his first. Elijah's curse was the death of the captains and their troo

LAY UPON THE CHILD, &C.— See what we have said on 1 Kings 17:21. REFLECTIONS.—How precarious is every sublunary blessing! how little dependance to be placed upon the comforts of a perishing world! We see, 1. This darling boy, seized in the harvest-field with his father, complains, My head, my head; and is sent home to the fond mother's bosom, and there death closes his eyes. _Note;_ We had need stand prepared for sudden strokes; death often seizes at short warning. 2. With silent submission she took the dear corpse, and, going to the prophet's chamber, laid it on his bed, that the death might not be known, and where it would lie unmolested, till her return: then she hastes to her husband, and begs leave to go to the man of God. He wonders at her journey, as it was not one of the stated seasons when she used to join in worship with him. She said, Well