>> Jen: Hello and good morning, friends and faithful listeners, and welcome, uh, to the Bible Explained podcast on this lovely Monday morning. I had a very lovely weekend. It was my birthday over the weekend and so my husband and I took a little mini trip, like a two day, an overnight trip up to Amish country in central Ohio, which was very nice. And we had a good time. Very, very lovely time. So I hope you guys had a good weekend as well. So tell me what you did
over the weekend. I love hearing about you guys and getting to know all of you. So contact me and let me know what you did over the weekend. But today we're going to be finishing up second Kings chapter four and talking about a couple miracles that Elisha performs, one of them being very similar to a miracle that Jesus performs performs when He fed the 5,000. So let's read this. I'll be reading from the web as usual, and this will be 2 Kings 4, 38 - 44.
Elisha came again to Gilgal. There was a famine in the land, and the sons of the prophets were sitting before him, and he said to his servant, get the large pot and boil stew for the sons of the prophets. One went out into the field to gather herbs and found a wild vine and and gathered a lap full of wild gourds from it and came and cut them up into the pot of stew. For they didn't recognize them. So they
poured it out for the men to eat. As they were eating some of the stew, they cried out and said, man of God, there is death in the pot. And they could not eat it. But he said, then bring meal. He threw it into the pot and he said, serve it to the people that they may eat. And there was nothing harmful in the pot. A man from baal- Shalashah, came and brought the man of God some bread and the firstfruits, 20 loaves of barley and fresh ears of grain in his sack. Elisha said, give to
the people that they may eat. His servant said, what should I set this before a hundred men? But he said, give it to the people that they may eat. For Yahweh says they will eat and will have some left over. So he set it before them, and they ate and had some left over according to Yahweh's work. Okay, so there's a famine going on in 2nd Kings chapter 4, which is possibly the same famine alluded to in 2nd Kings
chapter 8. If you look at 2 Kings 8, there's a story actually again about the Shunammite woman that we talked about last week where Elisha tells her to leave the country because there is going to be a severe famine in the land, and he wants her and her husband and her son to be safe during that time. So the Shunamite woman does in fact leave for actually several years while this famine was taking place in Israel. So this, this famine was pretty
severe, it looks like. And so now it's very possible in 2 Kings 4 that this is the same famine that is being alluded to. So it says that Elisha came again to Gilgal and there was a famine in the land, and the sons of the prophets were sitting before him, and he said to his servant, get the large pot and boil stew for the sons of the prophets. So I don't know if this is the same servant, Gehazi. It does not specifically say which servant was serving
Elisha at this time. But because there was a big famine in the land, Elisha asks his servant to go out and to gather wild food to make a big pot of stew for all of the prophets who were visiting with Elisha. So it says that the servant got a large pot and he also went out to gather some wild herbs to
put into this pot of soup. It says one went out into the fields to gather herbs and found a wild vine and gathered a lap full of wild gourds from it and came and cut them up into the pot of stew, for they didn't recognize them. Now, you might be thinking this was a very stupid thing for this servant to do, because if you don't know what it is out in the wild, you probably shouldn't eat it. But don't forget that there was a severe famine happening at this point in
time. And they probably thought, oh, these gourds, they look edible, they smell edible, they're probably fine to eat. And so in order to get something actually into this stew, they use what they have. They find these gourds and they use them. And I don't think they were doing this maliciously. I think it was more out of ignorance, but I don't think it was a malicious
ignorance. They were probably honestly just trying to fill this pot of stew, and it happened to not be very good, because the prophets start eating the stew, and as they're eating it, they cried out and said, man of God, there is death in this pot, and they could not eat it. So that word death that is used here is the word maveth in Hebrew. And the word maveth isn't always necessarily translated as death. It could also be translated
as pestilence. So somebody possibly got sick after eating this stew that the servants made for all of these prophets. Or somebody was in the process of getting sick, we don't know. But in order to remedy this situation, it says that Elisha asks for some flour. He says, bring me some meal. And he threw it into the pot and then said, serve it to the people that they may eat. And then there was nothing harmful in the pot.
So you might be wondering, what was this gourd that these servants threw into this pot that made it inedible? And so I looked this up, and apparently there's something called the colocynth plant that grows around this region to this day. It is a plant. I'm literally looking at a picture of it right now. It looks like mini watermelons kind of. It's a vining plant. And these small, tiny little watermelon looking things about the size of a onion grow off of this plant. And
quite honestly, it really does look edible. Like, if I was looking at this, I'd be like, oh, mini watermelons, Those are probably fine to eat. Uh, they really do look like mini watermelons. Back in these days, people didn't have the Internet to look up whether or not something was inedible to eat. And so they probably thought, oh, wow, look at these little gourds that look edible lying on the ground here. We can definitely chop these up and put
them in the stew. And it turns out that they're actually like a diuretic, quite bad for you, I guess. They cause severe bloody diarrhea and extreme gastrointestinal disorders. So the colocynth plant is definitely a laxative, and you don't need much of it in order for it to be a laxative either. So I'm guessing that when these prophets sat down to eat this soup, you know, they started eating it, and possibly somebody started to get sick.
And maybe also it tasted very bitter because apparently the colocynth plant also does not taste good either. And so this bitter taste was possibly coming out into the stew, and it literally became inedible to eat. But then Elisha performs this miracle by throwing this flower into the pot, and there's not anything purifying about this flower at all. This is fully a miracle from God so that these prophets could eat and feed their family.
So it says the second that he threw that flower into the pot, it says there was nothing harmful in the pot. So Elisha says, serve this to the people that they may eat. And this was a big, giant thing of stew. Don't forget, like, this was made in a huge pot. This would have been enough to fill up all of those prophets and the prophets families as well. But you also have to take into account here that this was an act of faith for those prophets to go back to eating this pot of stew.
Because can you imagine if you had just eaten poison or like somebody next to you had just eaten poison and then somebody came up and threw flour into the poison and was like, it's safe to eat now. Go ahead and eat it. Like, would you eat that stew? Would you feel comfortable eating that? I know for me, I would. I don't know if I would have enough faith to actually put that spoon back up to my mouth after knowing only moments before that same stew was poison. I don't know if I would have
enough faith to actually do that. And yet the prophets had enough faith. It seems that they ate, uh, doesn't mention anybody not eating it after that, which is kind of a fascinating display of their faith. Not to mention, not only did they eat it, but they also gave it possibly to their own families. So this was truly a display of faith that these prophets all had, knowing that God was taking care of them in the middle of this famine, knowing that God could turn
poison into. Into something healthy for them to eat. So that's the first miracle that Elisha does during this famine. And here's the second miracle. It says in verse 42, A man from baal Shalasha came and brought the man of God some bread of the first fruits, 20 loaves of barley, and fresh ears of grain in his sack. So what's interesting about this is that this was a first fruits offering that someone was bringing to Elisha. And Elisha was not a Levitical priest. He was a prophet,
but he was not a Levitical priest. The firstfruits were specifically supposed to go to the Levitical priests. Let's read about that in numbers 18, 8 - 9, and also 12 through 13, which talks about the first fruit offerings going to the priests. It says, the LORD gave these further instructions to I myself have put you in charge of all the holy offerings that are brought to me by the people of Israel. I have given all these consecrated offerings to you and your sons as your permanent share.
You are allotted the portion of the most holy offerings that is not burned on the fire. The portion of all the most holy offerings, including the grain offerings, the sin offerings, and the guilt offerings, will be most holy, and it belongs to you and your sons. Then if you jump down to 12 and 13 it says, I also give you the harvest gifts brought by the people as offerings to the LORD. The best of the olive oil, the new wine and the
grain. All the first crops of their land that the people present to the LORD belong to you. Any member of your family who is ceremonially clean may eat of this food. So there you go. The, uh, firstfruits, offerings, if done correctly, according to the Old Testament, were supposed to go to the Levitical priests. But unfortunately, there were almost no Levitical priests in Israel at this
time. Because after Jeroboam went in and created his own religion for the people to worship, all the Levitical priests left and went down to Judah so that they could be priests down there. So there were hardly any Levitical priests left in Israel at this time. And the priests that were left, unfortunately, most of them started worshiping baal or worshiping asherah or just were not following Yahweh in any way, shape or
form. So this poor man who lived in Israel had nowhere to bring his first fruits offerings to because there were no Levitical priests. So he does the next best thing that he can. He brings it to Elisha. And Elisha did accept them, because what else was this man supposed to do? And also, Elisha was not accepting these gifts for himself, but he saw it as a way to give back to the community. So he says to his servant, take these 20 loaves of bread and these ears of grain
and give them to the people. And Elisha's servant, who is honestly probably Gehazi, says, what should we set this before a hundred men? So, uh, Gehazi is like, did I hear you right, Elisha? Because, uh, this is definitely not going to feed all these people. We have 20 loaves of bread here. We might be able to feed a hundred people, but not all these other people that you want to feed in this town. And Elisha's like, no, you heard me correctly. Give this
to the people. He said, give it to the people in verse 43, that they may eat, for Yahweh says they will eat and will have some leftover. Now, once again, we don't really know if this servant was Gehazi, but it's very, very probable that it was Gehazi. And like I said, every single time we see Gehazi in scripture, he's not really painted in the best light. He's kind of painted as, like a skeptic, as somebody who has to be told to do something twice, as somebody who just is in it for his own gain.
That's how scripture paints Gehazi. And right here, again, if this is Gehazi, he's not painted in the best light here. But obviously you guys can see the similarity between this miracle and the one that Jesus performs when He feeds the 5,000. Let's read that story actually, from Matthew 14, verses 14 through 21. And this is out of the web again. It says, uh, Jesus went out and He saw a great multitude. He had compassion on them and
He healed their sick. When evening had come, His disciples came to Him saying, this place is deserted and the hour is already late. Send the multitudes away that they may go into the villages and buy themselves food. But Jesus said to them, they don't need to go away. You give them something to eat. He told them, we only have here five loaves and two fish. He said, bring them here to me. He commanded the multitudes to sit down on the grass. And He took
the five loaves and the two fish. And looking up to heaven, He blessed, broke, and gave the loaves to the disciples. And the disciples gave to the multitudes. They all ate and were filled. They took up 12 baskets full of that which remained left over from the broken pieces. Those who ate were about 5,000 men, in addition to the women and the children. So you can see the similarity here from 2 Kings, chapter 4, and Matthew 14.
Elisha performs a very similar miracle to the one that Jesus does, where Elisha feeds a whole town of people with just 20 loaves of bread. And I could argue Jesus did it better because he fed several towns of people with just five loaves and two little fish. But the point is, is that Elisha is kind of a picture of Jesus in the Old
Testament. So Elijah, you know, the guy that came before Elisha, I know their names are confusing because they're so similar, but Elijah is considered to be similar to John the Baptist, who came before Jesus in the New Testament. You know, John the Baptist was going out into the wilderness. He was telling people to repent of their sins. He was baptizing people. That's kind of what Elijah was doing as well in the Old Testament.
He was going to the king. He was saying, repent Israel, because you need to get close to God again. So Elijah is a picture of John the Baptist, and then Elisha is a picture of Jesus. Because Elisha, everything that we see of him, he performs just all of these fantastic miracles, like time and time again. That's the majority of the stories about Elisha, is just all these miracles that he is performing. And so Elisha is kind of a picture of Jesus who is to come.
But even so, Elisha could not do the same level of miracles that Jesus could do. Because just look at what we talked about last week. We talked about the, uh, Shunammite woman who lost her son, and Elisha had to beg God to actually bring life back into that child. Elisha had to beg over and over and over again. Whereas when Jesus raised somebody from the dead, he commanded them to be raised from the dead. He said, get up out of
that grave, you're alive. And the person would walk out of the grave. So there is a difference between Elisha and Jesus, but Elisha is a picture of Jesus who was to come. Faithful listeners, I hope you enjoyed today's episode, and if you did, let me know by writing a nice review on Apple Podcasts or on Spotify or Audible or wherever you listen to your podcast. And by the way, you guys on Spotify, I do see your comments. When you comment on the podcast, I do see those.
I never respond to them because there's not an option for me to respond to them. But. But I do see your comments. So yes, please keep commenting on Spotify if that is where you listen from. Anyway, faithful listeners, have a fantastic and wonderful rest of your Monday. I'll see you guys 6am or whenever you choose to wake up and listen tomorrow morning for an episode from second Corinthians. Happy listening and God bless.