2 Kings 4:41

_SO THEY POURED OUT FOR THE MEN TO EAT. AND IT CAME TO PASS, AS THEY WERE EATING OF THE POTTAGE, THAT THEY CRIED OUT, AND SAID, O THOU MAN OF GOD, THERE IS DEATH IN THE POT. AND THEY COULD NOT EAT THEREOF._ No JFB commentary on these verses....

38-44 There was a famine of bread, but not of hearing the word of God, for Elisha had the sons of the prophets sitting before him, to hear his wisdom. Elisha made hurtful food to become safe and wholesome. If a mess of pottage be all our dinner, remember that this great prophet had no better for himself and his guests. The table often becomes a snare, and that which should be for our welfare, proves a trap: this is a good reason why we should not feed ourselves without fear. When we are receiving the supports and comforts of life, we must keep up an expectation of death, and a fear of sin. We must acknowledge God's goodness in making our food wholesome and nourishing; I am the Lord that healeth thee. Elisha also made a little food go a great way. Having freely received, he freely gave. God has promised his church, that he will abundantly bless her provision, and satisfy her poor with br...

Verse 41. _BRING MEAL._] Though this might, in some measure, correct the strong acrid and purgative quality; yet it was only a miracle which could make a lapful of this fruit shred into pottage salutary....

THEN BRING MEAL - The natural properties of meal would but slightly diminish either the bitterness or the unwholesomeness of a drink containing colocynth. It is evident, therefore, that the conversion of the food from a pernicious and unsavory mess into palatable and wholesome nourishment was by miracle....

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

BUT HE SAID, THEN BRING MEAL: AND HE CAST IT INTO THE POT,.... And stirred it about in it: AND HE SAID, POUR OUT FOR THE PEOPLE, THAT THEY MAY EAT; as they now might freely, and without any danger, as he intimated: AND THERE WAS NO HARM IN THE POT; or anything that could do any harm or mischief to the health of men: this was not owing to the natural virtue of meal, but to a miraculous power attending it, whereby the pottage was cured of its malignity, as the bad waters of Jericho were by salt, in a preceding miracle....

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

TWO MINOR MIRACLES OF ELISHA. The death (poison) in the pot healed and the feeding of a hundred prophets. The bread of the firstfruits (2 Kings 4:42) was by the Law the property of the priests (Numbers 18:13; Deuteronomy 18:4). Here the loaves and ears of corn are offered to prophets. In the Christian _Teaching of the Twelve Apostles_ the prophets are to be given of the firstfruits, for they are your priests. There is no similar instance in the OT....

NO HARM. no evil thing. Elisha's eighth miracle Compare 2 Kings 2:15....

_bring meal_ He employs something which is wholesome and nourishing as a sign of the change that was to be wrought in the pottage. But we are not to attribute healing virtue to the meal that was used, any more than we should think that the salt (2 Kings 2:21) was the means of healing the waters at Jericho....