The war having terminated in the signal over throw of the revolters, Elisha, who had returned home, is again employed in ministering bless ings.
(3) The Widow's Oil. The widow of a pious prophet presents herself before him (2 Kings iv:), informs him that her husband having died in debt, his creditors were about to sell her two only sons, which, by an extension of the law (Exod. xxi:7, and Lev. xxv :39), and by virtue of another (Exod. xxii:3), they had the power to do; and against this hard-hearted act she implores the prophet's assistance. Elisha therefore inquired how far she herself had the power to avert the threatened calamity. She replies that the only thing of which she was possessed was one pot of oil. By multiplying this, as did his predecessor Elijah in the case of the widow of Zarephath, he enabled her at once to pay off her debts and there by to preserve the liberty of her children (2 Kings iv :I-7).
(7) Ellsha and the Shunammite. In his visitations to the schools of the prophets his jour ney lay through the city of Shunem, where lived a rich and godly woman. Wishing that he should take up, more than occasionally, his abode under her roof, she proposed to her husband to con struct for him a chamber. The husband at once consented, and, the apartment being completed and fitted up in a way that showed their proper con ception of his feeling, the prophet becomes its oc cupant. The woman was childless, and the grati tude of the prophet for her disinterested kindness was evinced by the gift of a son, which the Lord, in answer to his prayer, bestowed upon her. This new pledge of their affection grows up till he is able to visit his fond father in the harvest-field, when all the hopes they had built up in him were overthrown by his being suddenly laid prostrate in death.
The bereaved mother, with exquisite tenderness towards the feelings of the father, concealed the fact that the child was no more till she should see if it might please God, through Elisha, to restore him to life. She therefore hastens to Carmel, where she found the prophet, and informed him what had taken place. Conceiving probably that
it was a case of mere suspended animation, or a swoon. the prophet sent Gehazi, his servant, to place his staff on the face of the child, in the hope that it might act as a stimulus to excite the ani mal motions. But the mother, conscious that he was actually departed, continued to entreat that he himself would come to the chamber of the dead. l le did so, and found that the soul of the child had indeed fled from the earthly tenement. Natural means belong to man; those that are supernatural belong to God: we should do our part, and beg of God to do his. On this principle the prophet on this occasion acted. God blesses the means used, and answers the prayer presented by Elisha. The child is raised up and restored to the fond embrace of its grateful and rejoicing parents.
(8) Healing of Naaman. The next remark able event in the history of Elisha was the mirac ulous healing of the malignant and incurable lep rosy of the Syrian general. Naaman (2 Kings v 27 , whereby the neighboring nation had the op portunity of learning the beneficence of that G0,1 of Israel, whose judgments had "(ten brought them very low. The particulars are given under another head. (See NAAMAN.) (9) Elisha at Gilgal. Soon after this trans action we find this man of God in Gilgal miraculously neutralizing the poison which had, by mistake, been mixed with the food of the prophets, and also feeding one hundred of them with twenty small loaves which had been sent for his own consumption (2 Kings iv :38, etc.) (10) Ax Raised. Notwithstanding the gen eral profligacy of Israel, the schools of the proph ets increased (B. C. 894.) This was, doubtless, ow ing to the influence of Elisha. Accompanied by their master, a party of these young prophets, or theological students, came to the Jordan, and whilst one of them was 'felling a beam (for the purpose of constructing there a house) the ax head fell into the water.' This accident was the more distressing because the ax was borrowed property. Elisha, however, soon relieved him by causing it miraculously to rise to the surface of the river.