2 Kings 4:1

2 Kings 4:1-7. The miracles of Elisha. The increase of the widow's oil (Not in Chronicles)

1. a certain woman of the wives of the sons of the prophets It appears from this that the members of the colleges of prophets did not withdraw themselves from common domestic life altogether. It may be that from time to time, during seasons of devotion, they joined the companies at Bethel, Gilgal or elsewhere, and then returned to their home duties. The man here spoken of had engaged in some transaction for which money had been borrowed, and had died before it could be paid off.

unto Elisha This appeal shews us that Elisha was regarded as the head of the whole prophetic band. Josephus (Ant.IX. 4, 2) says this woman was the widow of Obadiah, Ahab's steward, and that the borrowed money mentioned in the text had been expended on the support of the hundred prophets whom he hid and supported. There is nothing to connect the two narratives together except that Obadiah said of himself, -I thy servant fear the Lord from my youth", and the widow, in this story, gives an almost identical character to her husband.

and the creditor is come It was allowed by the Mosaic law (Leviticus 25:39-41) that a debtor and his children (and so, if he were dead, as here, his children only) might be taken as bondservants by a creditor, and the debt cancelled by their labour. (Cf. Matthew 18:25.) It was however provided that they should go free in the year of jubilee.

sons R.V. children. That they were sons we see from the course of the narrative, but the Hebrew word is not the same here as in verse 4. So R.V. has marked the difference.