>> Jen: Howdy and good morning faithful listeners. My name is Jen. I am the host of the Bible Explained podcast. I am so excited that you're here with me this morning because we're gonna be reading through 2 Kings chapter 4 and talking about a fascinating story in scripture where God actually raises a little boy from the dead. So stay tuned for all of that. So I'm not feeling any better today than I was yesterday. I feel maybe slightly worse, but pretty
much the same. I think my voice might sound a little bit better though, I'm not sure. So any prayers that you guys could throw my way would be very appreciated. But let's go ahead and read 2 Kings 4, 18 through 37. Today I will be reading this, as I usually do, from the web version or the web version of scripture. And the reason I choose the web, just to let you guys know, is because that version of scripture is in the
public domain. And honestly, out of all of the public domain versions that we have, I consider it to be one of the best. So that is why I read from the web version. But you guys of course can feel free to read out of whatever version you prefer to read out of. Anyway, let's get into this fascinating story today where we're going to talk about how God gives
life to a little boy. And speaking of life, you should grab your cup of seven weeks coffee because that is the coffee brand that supports life in the womb and they also make a fantastic cup of coffee as well. I've had their coffee many times and it is a very delicious cup of coffee, I can tell you that. And it's mold free. And they also have organic pesticide free coffee as well, which you guys should definitely check out.
All of that is linked in the description. When you purchase coffee from my link, 10% of your purchase goes to pregnancy centers across the US and another 10% benefits P40 ministries. So definitely grab your cup of 7 weeks coffee today as we talk about God giving life to a little boy. When the child was grown, one day he went out to his father, to the reapers. He said to his father, my head, my head. He said to his servant, carry him to his
mother. When he had taken him and brought him to his mother, he sat on her knees until noon and then died. She went up and laid him on the man of God's bed and shut the door on him and went out. She called to her husband and said, please send me one of the servants and one of the donkeys that I may run to the man of God and come again. He Said, why would you want to go to him today? It's not a new moon or a
Sabbath. She said, it's all right. Then she saddled a donkey and said to her servant, drive and go forward. Don't slow down for me unless I ask you to. So she went and came to the man of God to Mount Carmel. When the man of God saw her afar off, he said to Gehazi, his servant, behold, there is the Shunammite. Please run thou to meet her and ask her, is it well with you? Is it well with your husband? Is it well with your child? She answered, it is well.
When she came to the man of God to the hill, she caught hold of his feet. Gehazi came near to thrust her away. But the man of God said, leave her alone, for her soul is troubled within her, and Yahweh has hidden it from me and has not told me. Then she said, did I ask you for a son, my Lord? Didn't I say, do not deceive me? Then he said to uh Gehazi, tuck your cloak into your belt, take my staff in your hand and go your way. If you meet any man, don't greet him. And if anyone greets you,
don't answer him again. Then lay my staff on the child's face. The child's mother said, as Yahweh lives and as your soul lives, I will not leave you. So he arose and followed her. Gehazi went ahead of them and laid his staff on the child's face. But there was no voice and no hearing. Therefore he returned to meet him and said, the child has not awakened. When Elisha came into the house, behold, the child was dead and lying on his bed. He went in, therefore, and
shut the door on them both and prayed to Yahweh. He went up and lay on the child and put his mouth on his mouth and his eyes on his eyes and his hands on his hands. He stretched himself on him, and the child's flesh grew warm. Then he returned and walked in the house once back and forth, then went up and stretched himself out on him. Then the child sneezed seven times, and the child opened his eyes. He called Gehazi and said, call the Shunammite. So he called her. When she had come in to him, he
said, take up your son. Then she went in, fell at his feet and bowed herself to the ground. And she picked up her son and went out. So this story is a continuation of what we talked about on Monday with the Shunammite woman. Obviously, she was a woman that we don't have her real name. She's just called the Shunammite for some reason. But she lived in the city of Shunam, which was a little city in the tribe of Issachar in northern
Israel. And it seems that Elisha and his servant Gehazi would have to travel through Shunam quite a bit because Shunam was kind of centralized. If you look at a map of where Shunam was located, it was kind of like in the center. And so it seems that Elisha had to go through the city of Shunam in order to get to his various locations. And it turns out this woman of Shunam who was a prominent woman, meaning that her husband
was probably pretty wealthy. And also her husband had a famous name in the city, so she was also notable in the city. She ended up really liking Elisha and wanting to support his ministry. So what she did was she asked her husband, hey, can we build a little room at the top of our house that just belongs to this prophet, and he can come and go whenever he pleases, he can use it whenever he needs it. And the husband agreed. So the woman had the little room built for Elisha and his servant
Gehazi whenever they came into town. And Elisha was so touched by this that he wanted to know what he could do to help this Shunammite woman. And she's like, no, I don't need anything. You don't have to help me. But Gehazi, Elisha's servant, was like, you know, she doesn't have a son. And that's kind of problematic because her husband is getting old. And in these days, when a husband died, the widow had no rights really
whatsoever. She was pretty much destitute. Somebody would have to come in and take care of her. But if a woman had a son and her husband died, that was a lot more. More beneficial to the widow, because then her son got everything. He got the inheritance, and so he would obviously take care of his mother in her old age. So the Shunammite woman unfortunately had an older husband who was unable to give her a son. And this was not a good situation for the Shunammite woman.
But she never asked Elisha for anything. She never asked for a son at all. In fact, when Elisha was like, you know what? At this time next year, you're going to have a son, the Shunammite woman was like, don't lie to me, man of God. Don't lie to me. You're a man of God. You shouldn't be lying. And it turns out, yes, she ended up having this son. So now we get into verse 18, where the child begins to grow up. It says, when the child was grown, one day he went out
to his father, to the reapers. Now, we don't know how old the child would have been, but he was probably still a young child, he was probably not a teenager. And he went out to help in the fields with his father. And suddenly he cries out to his father. He says, my head, my head. So he got this random terrible headache all of a sudden. And so the father says to his servant, carry the boy to his mother. So the father's like, oh, okay, he's sick. He needs to,
to be home with his mother. He got taken home to his mother and he sat on her knees until noon and he died on her lap. So I looked up what this boy could have possibly died from, and I ended up researching thunderclap headaches. And this is from Mayo Clinic. It says thunderclap headaches are dramatic. Symptoms include pain that strikes suddenly and severely, peaks within 60 seconds, and can be accompanied by nausea,
vomiting. Thunderclap headaches might also be accompanied by other signs and symptoms, such as altered mental state, fever and seizures. It says that thunderclap headaches aren't always necessarily life, um, threatening, but they sometimes can be.
It says the potential life threatening causes of a thunderclap headache include bleeding between the brain and the membranes covering the brain, such as a hemorrhage, a rupture of blood vessels in the brain, a tear in the lining of the artery that supplies the blood to the brain, leaking of spinal fluid, usually due to a tear, death of tissue or bleeding in the pituitary gland, a blood clot in the brain, severe elevation in blood pressure, infection
such as meningitis or a stroke. So yes, thunderclap headaches are not good. And it seems that this boy suffered from one. And who knows what he could have had, what his underlying condition was. But he suddenly had a terrible headache. He goes home to his mother and dies only hours afterward. And actually I knew somebody who died in this way. One of my friends growing up had a brother who was actually my age. He was just a few days younger than me. And back in 2018, he was home from leave in the
military. He apparently got a really terrible headache, went up to bed to just like try to sleep it off, and unfortunately passed away. And he was only 24, I believe, at the time, because he was the same age as me. So unfortunately, things like this do end up happening, and it happened also to this little boy. But what's really fascinating about this story is the mother's response with all of this. She's holding her son, and he dies in her lap. But she doesn't
panic. Instead, she picks up her boy and she goes up to the upper room and lays him on, um, the man of God's bed. And she shut the door on him and went out. Now, this would have been a very private room because this was Elisha's room. And people typically wouldn't go in there unless they were cleaning it or something while he was gone. And Elisha was not there at this moment in time. So the woman lays her son on Elisha's bed. And what does this
tell you? It tells you that this woman had faith that Elisha could actually raise her son from the dead. Not to mention she doesn't even tell her husband that their son has died. Instead, she goes outside and she asks her husband, and she's like, please send for me one of the servants and one of the donkeys that I may run to the man of God and come again. And he says, why would you want to go to him today? It's not a new moon or a Sabbath. So the husband has
literally no clue about any of this. He just thinks his son has a headache and is resting. But he thinks it's kind of suspicious that his wife is going to visit the man of God, Elisha, during this time. And he's like, why are you gonna go see Elisha? Because it's not a festival of any sort. And she's like, no, no, it's fine. Everything is fine, is what she says. She does not let her husband know that the child has died. And that's amazing that she
does not tell her husband that. Not because she's trying to withhold information from him, but because she has faith that her son is going to be alive again, and it's not necessary to worry her husband and the other servants. When she knows that her son will live again, she saddles the donkey and she tells her servant, go as fast as this donkey will let you go, and don't slow down for even a second on behalf of me. Just go. So she went and came to the man of God at Mount Carmel.
And it's very possible that she knew where to find him, because, you know, many years has passed at this point in time. And Elisha, it seems like, still came and went to the. To the Shunammite woman's house. So it's very possible that the Shunammite woman and Elisha struck up a Friendship. And she possibly knew where he was traveling to. So she found him at Mount Carmel. And the man of God, Elisha, sees her afar, uh, off. And so he says to Gehazi, his servant, hey, look, there's the
Shunammite woman. Go to her. Run to her and meet her and ask her, is, uh, everything okay? Are you okay? Is your husband okay? Is your son okay? And so Gehazi runs to the woman and meets her on the way. He's like, is everything okay with you? And she answers, yeah, everything's fine. So she totally bypasses Gehazi. She's like, I don't want to
talk to you. I'm going to talk to the man of God. And I don't know if it's because she didn't trust Gehazi or if because she was starting to feel so distressed that she just needed to talk to Elisha personally. So she comes to the man of God on the hill, and she catches hold of his feet, meaning she fully prostrated herself in front of Elisha and was touching his feet. And Gehazi gets super angry, and he tries to pull the woman off of Elisha. And Elisha says in verse 27, Leave her
alone. Her soul is troubled within her. But Yahweh has hidden it from me and has not told me why. For some reason, God hid it from Elisha completely. And Elisha's kind of actually shocked by that. He's like, I wonder why God didn't tell me what's going on with the Shunammite woman right now. But I really think that Gehazi here had a lot of nerve to try to pull the Shunammite woman off of Elisha at this time, because clearly she was in distress. She was probably
crying. People don't just cling to other people's feet, you know, just for no reason. She was distressed because her boy, her little boy, who was her pride and joy, had just died. And she's in distress, and Gehazi's trying to pull her off of Elisha. And, you know, every single time we see Gehazi, for the most part, there's some kind of negative connotation associated with something that Gehazi does, meaning that scripture does not really paint Gehazi
a good light. And we're going to talk more about that in the coming chapters as well, because Gehazi does something pretty bad in the next couple chapters. But even here, this shows more of Gehazi's personality. Now, I was reading through a, uh, Jewish Interpretation of Second Kings, Chapter 4. And I found something kind of interesting in the Talmud.
Apparently, the Talmud dislikes Gehazi a lot and said, uh, that Gehazi wasn't just pulling this woman off of Elisha because he thought it was inappropriate for her to be touching Elisha's feet. But according to the Talmud, Gehazi also wanted to grope the woman, which I really don't think that was. What's going on here. If you read it, here's what it says. Gehazi came near to thrust her away. I don't think that he would purposefully grope the woman
directly in front of Elisha. You'd have to be insane to do something like that. So, yeah, I don't think he was trying to grope her. But, uh, yeah, he. He definitely was trying to get her off of Elisha. And that could show maybe a little bit of misogyny coming out with Gehazi, possibly. Or maybe he was just overly protective of Elisha. I don't know what happened here. But anyway, Elisha tells Gehazi to stop. He says, no, leave her alone, for her soul is troubled within her. Yahweh has hidden
it from me and has not told me. So the woman answers elisha, did I ask you for a son, my Lord? Didn't I say, do not deceive me? And wow, I mean, what a sad statement from this woman. She says, elisha, I never asked you for a son. And when you told me that I would have a son, I said, don't deceive me. And now I have this son who I love so much, and now he has died. And if he remains dead, I'm worse off now than I was before I had him.
So now Elisha understands how grave this matter is and how quickly they have to respond. So he says to Gehazi, tuck your cloak into your belt. Take my staff in your hand and go your way. If you meet any man, don't greet him. If anyone greets you, don't answer him again. Then lay my staff on
the child's face. So he sends his servant Gehazi to gird up his loins, which, if you ever see that in scripture, that actually means to, like, tuck your robe into your belt so that it kind of becomes like pants so you can run really fast. That's what it means to gird up your loins. If you ever see that in Old English or in scripture. And Elisha tells Gehazi to do that here. He says, run fast. Take your robe in between your thighs and tuck it into your belt so that you can run.
And Gehazi obviously was younger than Elisha as well and could run much faster. And that's why Elisha sends Gehazi to do this task. And apparently Gehazi was supposed to lay Elisha's staff over the face of the child, and that would raise the child from the dead. But the woman, it seems like, is pretty skeptical because she says to Elisha, as Yahweh lives and as your soul lives, I will not leave you.
Now, this is just my own speculation, but it kind of seems like this woman does not really trust Gehazi all that well because she, uh, never really has any solid conversation with him. She's always conversing with Elisha and sort of bypassing Gehazi every time she has a conversation with Gehazi. So, uh,
maybe she doesn't trust Gehazi all that well. And honestly, if I was crying and in distress because my only child had just died and somebody tried to push me away, I wouldn't trust them either, quite honestly. Anyway, Gehazi runs ahead and gets to the house and puts the staff on the child's face, but there is no voice and no hearing. So he returns to meet Elisha and told him the child has not awakened.
Some people wonder why. What happened here that the child did not awaken from this miracle that was supposed to happen? Well, it could be that, firstly, the Shunammite woman did not trust Gehazi and her faith was not strong enough for Gehazi to actually perform this miracle. It could be that. It could be that Gehazi's faith was not strong enough to perform this miracle. It could be that God wanted Elisha to perform this miracle instead of Gehazi performing
it. We don't know exactly why Gehazi failed here. Most people say it was probably something Gehazi did because it seems that nobody really likes Gehazi all that well. But we don't actually know why this miracle did not work. But it didn't. And so Elisha finally gets to the room and he sees that the boy is indeed dead. That's what it says in verse 32, when Elisha had come into the house, behold, the child was dead
and lying on his bed. And it's possible also that the reason that miracle didn't work was because God wanted to humble Elisha a little bit, that Elisha is not the one performing these miracles. But in fact, God is the one who is. Maybe Elisha thought, oh, you know, the power from my staff will do the trick. But God wanted to show Elisha, no, it's not the power from any staff. It's not what you are
doing, Elisha. It is me. And notice here in verses 32 through 36, Elisha basically has to beg God to raise this child from the dead. It's not an easy peasy task for Elisha. He is lying on that child. He is pacing back and forth, praying and begging God to raise this child from the dead. It says in verse 34, he went up and laid on the child and put his mouth on his mouth and his eyes on his eyes, and his hands on his hands. He stretched himself on him, and the child's flesh grew warm. But the
child wasn't alive yet. It says only that we know of. It says only his flesh grew warm. And you might remember a story that's kind of similar to this one, where Elijah actually did something similar back in First Kings for the woman, uh, for the widow that he stayed with. So let's read First Kings 17, 17:24. It says, after these things, the son of the woman, the mistress of the house, became sick. And his sickness was so severe
that there was no breath left in him. She said to Elijah, what have I to do with you, you man of God? Have you come to me to bring my sin to memory and to kill my son? He said to her, give me your son. He took him out of her bosom and carried him up into the room where he stayed and laid him on his own bed. He cried to Yahweh and said, yahweh, my God, have you also brought evil on the widow with whom I am staying by killing her
son? He stretched himself on the child three times and cried to Yahweh and said, yahweh, my God, please let this child's soul come into him again. Yahweh listened to the voice of Elijah, and the soul of the child came into him again, and he revived. Elijah took the child and brought him down out of the room into the house and delivered him to his mother. And Elijah said, behold, your son lives. And the woman said to Elijah, now I know that you are a man of God and that Yahweh's word in
your mouth is the truth. So isn't that a very similar story, actually, to what is happening here in 2 Kings chapter 4? Elisha, similarly to Elijah, stretched himself out on the child, and his body warmth started making the boy, the dead boy, warm also. And when Elisha starts to feel that this boy's body is getting warm, it seems that he's not alive yet. Elisha gets up off the bed, and he's pacing the room, just crying out to God, begging God to bring life back into
this boy. And once again, it says he went out and stretched himself out on the boy. And then the child sneezed seven times and opened his eyes. Now, I do not know what the significance of the sneezes are. I don't know. But he sneezed seven times and then woke up, and he was alive and healthy and well again. He was no longer sick. So Elisha calls to Gehazi, and he says, call the Shunammite. And so Gehazi calls the Shunammite. And she came into the room,
and Elisha said, take your son. And she went in, fell at Elisha's feet, bowed herself to the ground and picked up her son and went out. So I can't even imagine the rollercoaster of emotions that the Shunammite mother was going through. Through all of this, she experienced the absolutely horrific feeling of losing somebody that she loved so much. But then at the end, uh, she was able
to see him once again. And I think the overall moral to this story is, is that the Shunammite woman had faith that she would see her son once again. And this reminds me of a verse from First Thessalonians, chapter 4, or actually a couple verses here. First Thessalonians 4, 13 and 14 says, we don't want you to be ignorant, brothers, concerning those who have fallen asleep or died so that you don't grieve like the rest who have no
hope. For if we believe that Jesus died and rose again, even so God will bring with him those who have fallen asleep in Jesus. In other words, those verses are telling us that we don't need to grieve over the death of our loved ones the same way that the world grieves. Because when the world grieves about a death, they are grieving so much more deeply because they don't have hope. They don't have hope in a resurrection or that they will see their family
members once again. But us Christians who have lost a family member who believed in Jesus, we do not have to grieve that same way. We can grieve similarly to this Shunammite woman, where even though our family member has died, we have hope that we're going to see our family member once
again. Because if we have hope that Jesus resurrected from the dead and that Jesus literally conquered death and lives in heaven currently, then we should also have hope that someday Jesus is going to resurrect our loved ones who have died in Christ. So we should be grieving a lot more like the Shunammite woman and a lot less like the woman from 1 Kings 17. Because if you look at these two women, the Shunammite woman
had faith, right? She took her son, who had died on her lap and brought him up to Elisha's bed, knowing that she would see her son once again. She had so much faith, she didn't even tell her husband that. That their son had died. She didn't tell anybody. She just immediately went out and found the prophet. She had the faith more similar to the type of faith a Christian should have when they lost
their family members. But if you look at the widow in 1 Kings 17, she had no hope when her son died, and he died in a very similar way. He died on her lap. She lashed out at Elijah. She said, how dare you, Elijah, bring my sin to memory and kill my son. How dare you? That widow had no hope that her son would ever live again. And yet God was merciful to that widow in spite of her unbelief and her lack
of faith. So my point is, it's one of encouragement, hopefully, that if you have lost a family member who believed in Jesus and you're also a follower of Jesus yourself, you will see that family member again. You will see them. And not only are you going to see that loved one again, but m when you do, you're going to be filled with so much joy, not just because you are seeing your loved ones again, but because you are in the presence of Jesus with your loved ones.
And that is the greatest joy you could ever possibly experience. Stories M like this. The reason I just love talking about the Old Testament. The Old Testament is absolutely fascinating, full of history, and so misunderstood by so many people who think of it as the Bible of the mean God. And then the New Testament is the Bible of the nice God. There's so many people who believe that. And if I'm being honest, I used to believe that back in the
day. But then you read stories like this in the Old Testament and you're just like, wow, you know, like, God is so kind to people. God has so much mercy on people and loves people so much. So I just love reading through the Old Testament. I'm actually curious, do you prefer to read through the Old Testament with the podcast or the New Testament or both? I'd love to hear what your opinion is on that. So contact me and let me know if you prefer the Old or the New
Testament. Faithful listener. Have a fantastic and wonderful rest of your Wednesday. I will see you guys bright and early tomorrow for an episode from 2nd Corinthians. Happy listening and God bless.