2 Kings 4:42-44

B. MULTIPLICATION OF THE LOAVES 4:42-44

TRANSLATION

(42) And a man came from Baal-shalisha, and he brought to the man of God bread of the firstfruits, twenty loaves of barley and grain in his sack. And he said, Give it to the people, that they might eat. (43) And his minister said, How shall I place this before a hundred men? And he said, Give it to the people that they may eat, for thus says the LORD: They shall eat, and there shall be leftovers. (44) And he put it before them, and they ate, and there were leftovers according to the word of the LORD.

COMMENTS

Gilgal seems to be the setting for the final miracle recorded in chapter 4. A man came from near-by Baal-shalisha to bring Elisha the firstfruits of his harvest. It would seem from this that the more pious among the Israelites regarded the prophets as having inherited the position of the Levitical priests whom Jeroboam had driven from the land. According to the law, the firstfruits of grain, wine and oil were to be given to the priests (Numbers 18:13; Deuteronomy 18:4-5). The man brought twenty loaves of bread, each loaf being the equivalent of what one man would eat at one meal. Along with these cakes of bread the man brought a few ripe stalks of grain which were a token of his gratitude for God's harvest mercies (cf. Leviticus 23:10).

Upon receiving this small gift, Elisha ordered that the loaves be placed before the sons of the prophets who resided at Gilgal (2 Kings 4:42). Elisha's servantpresumably Gehaziwas incredulous. The amount of food was scarcely sufficient to suffice for a fifth of the hundred men living at Gilgal! But in the face of this objection the prophet repeated his instructions, and added an explanation in the form of a prophetic oracle. God had revealed to him that the quantity of food would prove ample for the hundred men, and that they would show that they had had enough by leaving some of it (2 Kings 4:43). The result was as the prophet predicted (2 Kings 4:44).

It is useless to speculate how this miracle was wrought, whether by an augmentation of the quantity of the food supernaturally produced, or by a lessening of the appetites of the men. A careful study of the feeding miracles attributed to the Lord Jesus would suggest that the former explanation is the correct one. In recording this episode the writer probably had two motives in mind: (1) to demonstrate how the Lord provides for His servants; and (2) to furnish another example of the miraculous powers of Elisha, of a different kind from those previously related.