There was a rich woman from Shunem who always invite and receive
prophet Elisha into her house. She said to her husband, “I am sure that this
man who comes here so often is a holy man. Let’s build a small room on the roof,
put a bed, a table, a chair, and a lamp in it and he can stay there whenever he
visits us”.
One day, Elisha returned to Shunem and went up to his room
to rest. He told to his servant Gehazi to call and ask her “What I can do for
her in return for all the trouble she has had in providing for our needs. Maybe
she would like me to go to the king or the army commander and put a good word
for her.”
She said “I have all I need here among my own people”.
Elisha asked Gehazi, “What can I do for her then?”
He answered “Well, she has no son and her husband is an old
man.”
“Tell her to come here” Elisha ordered. When she came,
Elisha said “By this time next year, you will be holding a son in your arms.”
She exclaimed “Oh! Please sir, don’t lie to me. You are a
man of God!”
But, as Elisha had said, at about that time, the following
year she gave birth to a son.
Some years later, at the harvest time, the boy who was with
his father and harvest workers in the field, suddenly cried out to his father, “My
head hurts! My head hurts!”
“Carry the boy to his mother”, the father said to a servant.
The boy died and the mother placed the boy to Elisha’s room and left and closed
the door. She then hurried to prophet Elisha
at Mount Carmel.
Elisha saw her at the distance and said to Gehazi “Look,
there comes the woman from Shunem. Hurry to her and find out if everything is alright
with her, her husband, and son.”
She told to Gehazi that everything is alright but when she
came to Elisha, she bowed down before him and took hold his feet. Gehazi was
about to push her away but Elisha said “Leave her alone. Can’t you see, she is
deeply distressed?”. The woman said to
him “Sir, did I ask you for a son? Didn’t I tell you not to get my hopes up? ”
Elisha turned to Gehazi and said “Hurry! Take my walking
stick and go. Go straight to the house and hold my stick over the boy.”
Gehazi did what Elisha asked but there was no sound or any
other sign of life. So he went back to Elisha and said “The boy didn’t wake up.”
When Elisha arrived, he went alone into
the room and saw the boy lying dead on the bed. He closed the door and prayed
to the Lord. As he lay stretched out over the boy, the boy’s body started to
get warm. Elisha got up , walked around the room, and then went back and again stretched himself over the boy. The boy
sneezed seven times then opened his eyes. Elisha called Gehazi and told him to
call the boy’s mother. When she came in, he said to her “Here’s your son”. She
fell at Elisha’s feet, with her face touching the ground; then she took her son
and left.
Another event happened. The Lord was sending a famine on the
land which would last seven years, so Elisha told the Woman from Shunem to
leave with her family and go and live somewhere else. She had followed his
instructions and went to Philistia with her family for seven years.
At the end of the seven years, she returned to Israel and
went to the King to ask that her house and her land be restored to her. The
King was talking to Gehazi, Elisha servant, when she came. They were talking
about Elisha’s miracles specifically, her case. Gehazi said “Your majesty, here
is the woman and here is her son whom Elisha brought back to life! ”. She
confirmed Gehazi’s story and so the King called an official and told him to
give her everything that was hers, including the value of all the crops that
her fields had produced during the seven years she had been away.
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