Atlas Biblica

    2 Kings · 44 verses

    2 Kings 4

    Every verse links to the people and places named in it, and to the passages readers connect it with.

    The chapter

    What happens here

    Atlas's own reading, written from this chapter and nothing else, and published only once a person has approved it. Each scene names the verses it covers; the names inside it link to the people and places they name.

    A dead boy sneezes seven times and opens his eyes after Elisha has lain on him twice—mouth to mouth, eye to eye, and hand to hand. Before that, Gehazi’s staff has been laid on the boy’s face with no response at all. The chapter is not shy of a strange remedy, nor of counting the sneezes.

    Oil with nowhere to stopvv. 1–7

    A prophet’s widow has one jar of oil, a creditor at the door, and two children in danger of being taken as slaves. Elisha sends her borrowing empty jars from every neighbour, then tells her to pour. The oil keeps going until the jars run out, which is a remarkably tidy limitation for such an untidy emergency. She sells it, pays the debt, and lives on what remains.

    The room at Shunemvv. 8–37

    At Shunem, a prominent woman makes Elisha a regular meal and then a small upstairs room with a bed, table, chair, and lamp. Gehazi points out that she has no son; Elisha promises one, and she later gives birth exactly as he said. The child dies on his mother’s lap after crying that his head hurts. She lays him on the man of God’s bed and repeatedly says that everything is all right while hurrying to Mount Carmel. Gehazi’s staff achieves nothing. Elisha prays, lies on the child twice, paces, lies on him again, and the boy sneezes seven times. The mother picks up her son and goes out, leaving the chapter with one of its most gloriously peculiar recoveries.

    Death in the pot, bread on the tablevv. 38–44

    Back at Gilgal, famine has not improved the catering. A man gathers wild gourds from an unknown vine, cuts them into the stew, and leaves the sons of the prophets crying, “There is death in the pot.” Elisha throws flour into it, and the stew becomes harmless. Then twenty barley loaves are set before a hundred men, who eat and have some left over. The chapter ends with a poisonous pot cured by flour and a small sack of bread refusing to behave like a small sack of bread.

    The text

    Read it

    Berean Standard Bible, public domain. Names the Hebrew and Greek put in the verse link to the person, place or people they name; the address beside each verse is a link to that verse, which is what a reader copies and shares.

    1. 2 Kgs 4:1Now the wife of one of the sons of the prophets cried out to Elisha, “Your servant, my husband, is dead, and you know that your servant feared the LORD. And now his creditor is coming to take my two children as his slaves!”

    2. 2 Kgs 4:2“How can I help you?” asked Elisha. “Tell me, what do you have in the house?” She answered, “Your servant has nothing in the house but a jar of oil.”

    3. 2 Kgs 4:3“Go,” said Elisha, “borrow empty jars from all your neighbors. Do not gather just a few.

    4. 2 Kgs 4:4Then go inside, shut the door behind you and your sons, and pour oil into all these jars, setting the full ones aside.”

    5. 2 Kgs 4:5So she left him, and after she had shut the door behind her and her sons, they kept bringing jars to her, and she kept pouring.

    6. 2 Kgs 4:6When all the jars were full, she said to her son, “Bring me another.” But he replied, “There are no more jars.” Then the oil stopped flowing.

    7. 2 Kgs 4:7She went and told the man of God, and he said, “Go, sell the oil, and pay your debt. Then you and your sons can live on the remainder.”

    8. 2 Kgs 4:8One day Elisha went to Shunem, and a prominent woman who lived there persuaded him to have a meal. So whenever he would pass by, he would stop there to eat.

    9. 2 Kgs 4:9Then the woman said to her husband, “Behold, now I know that the one who often comes our way is a holy man of God.

    10. 2 Kgs 4:10Please let us make a small room upstairs and put in it a bed, a table, a chair, and a lamp for him. Then when he comes to us, he can stay there.”

    11. 2 Kgs 4:11One day Elisha came to visit and went to his upper room to lie down.

    12. 2 Kgs 4:12And he said to Gehazi his servant, “Call the Shunammite woman.” And when he had called her, she stood before him,

    13. 2 Kgs 4:13and Elisha said to Gehazi, “Now tell her, ‘Look, you have gone to all this trouble for us. What can we do for you? Can we speak on your behalf to the king or the commander of the army?’” “I have a home among my own people,” she replied.

    14. 2 Kgs 4:14So he asked, “Then what should be done for her?” “Well, she has no son,” Gehazi replied, “and her husband is old.”

    15. 2 Kgs 4:15“Call her,” said Elisha. So Gehazi called her, and she stood in the doorway.

    16. 2 Kgs 4:16And Elisha declared, “At this time next year, you will hold a son in your arms.” “No, my lord,” she said. “Do not lie to your maidservant, O man of God.”

    17. 2 Kgs 4:17But the woman did conceive, and at that time the next year she gave birth to a son, just as Elisha had told her.

    18. 2 Kgs 4:18And the child grew, and one day he went out to his father, who was with the harvesters.

    19. 2 Kgs 4:19“My head! My head!” he complained to his father. So his father told a servant, “Carry him to his mother.”

    20. 2 Kgs 4:20After the servant had picked him up and carried him to his mother, the boy sat on her lap until noon, and then he died.

    21. 2 Kgs 4:21And she went up and laid him on the bed of the man of God. Then she shut the door and went out.

    22. 2 Kgs 4:22And the woman called her husband and said, “Please send me one of the servants and one of the donkeys, that I may go quickly to the man of God and return.”

    23. 2 Kgs 4:23“Why would you go to him today?” he replied. “It is not a New Moon or a Sabbath.” “Everything is all right,” she said.

    24. 2 Kgs 4:24Then she saddled the donkey and told her servant, “Drive onward; do not slow the pace for me unless I tell you.”

    25. 2 Kgs 4:25So she set out and went to the man of God at Mount Carmel. When the man of God saw her at a distance, he said to his servant Gehazi, “Look, there is the Shunammite woman.

    26. 2 Kgs 4:26Please run out now to meet her and ask, ‘Are you all right? Is your husband all right? Is your child all right?’” And she answered, “Everything is all right.”

    27. 2 Kgs 4:27When she reached the man of God at the mountain, she clung to his feet. Gehazi came over to push her away, but the man of God said, “Leave her alone, for her soul is in deep distress, and the LORD has hidden it from me and has not told me.”

    28. 2 Kgs 4:28Then she said, “Did I ask you for a son, my lord? Didn’t I say, ‘Do not deceive me?’”

    29. 2 Kgs 4:29So Elisha said to Gehazi, “Tie up your garment, take my staff in your hand, and go! If you meet anyone, do not greet him, and if anyone greets you, do not answer him. Then lay my staff on the boy’s face.”

    30. 2 Kgs 4:30And the mother of the boy said, “As surely as the LORD lives and as you yourself live, I will not leave you.” So he got up and followed her.

    31. 2 Kgs 4:31Gehazi went on ahead of them and laid the staff on the boy’s face, but there was no sound or response. So he went back to meet Elisha and told him, “The boy has not awakened.”

    32. 2 Kgs 4:32When Elisha reached the house, there was the boy lying dead on his bed.

    33. 2 Kgs 4:33So he went in, closed the door behind the two of them, and prayed to the LORD.

    34. 2 Kgs 4:34Then Elisha got on the bed and lay on the boy, mouth to mouth, eye to eye, and hand to hand. As he stretched himself out over him, the boy’s body became warm.

    35. 2 Kgs 4:35Elisha turned away and paced back and forth across the room. Then he got on the bed and stretched himself out over the boy again, and the boy sneezed seven times and opened his eyes.

    36. 2 Kgs 4:36Elisha summoned Gehazi and said, “Call the Shunammite woman.” So he called her and she came. Then Elisha said, “Pick up your son.”

    37. 2 Kgs 4:37She came in, fell at his feet, and bowed to the ground. Then she picked up her son and went out.

    38. 2 Kgs 4:38When Elisha returned to Gilgal, there was a famine in the land. As the sons of the prophets were sitting at his feet, he said to his attendant, “Put on the large pot and boil some stew for the sons of the prophets.”

    39. 2 Kgs 4:39One of them went out to the field to gather herbs, and he found a wild vine from which he gathered as many wild gourds as his garment could hold. Then he came back and cut them up into the pot of stew, though no one knew what they were.

    40. 2 Kgs 4:40And they poured it out for the men to eat, but when they tasted the stew they cried out, “There is death in the pot, O man of God!” And they could not eat it.

    41. 2 Kgs 4:41Then Elisha said, “Get some flour.” He threw it into the pot and said, “Pour it out for the people to eat.” And there was nothing harmful in the pot.

    42. 2 Kgs 4:42Now a man from Baal-shalishah came to the man of God with a sack of twenty loaves of barley bread from the first ripe grain. “Give it to the people to eat,” said Elisha.

    43. 2 Kgs 4:43But his servant asked, “How am I to set twenty loaves before a hundred men?” “Give it to the people to eat,” said Elisha, “for this is what the LORD says: ‘They will eat and have some left over.’”

    44. 2 Kgs 4:44So he set it before them, and they ate and had some left over, according to the word of the LORD.

    01 — Also here

    Who else the chapter reaches

    Names written in the English are linked in the text above. These are the ones that are not: an entity the Hebrew or Greek names under a spelling the translation does not use, or one reached only by an assertion about a verse of this chapter.

    Named in the Hebrew or Greek somewhere in this chapter, under a form the English renders differently — the registry's Ludim against the translation's Ludites — so there is no word in the sentence to hang the link on.

    Reached by an assertion Atlas extracted from a verse of this chapter rather than by a name written in it — a pronoun, a title, or a participant the sentence carries without naming. This layer is model-read and measured at 88.6–90.3% precision, and it is kept separate from the names above for that reason.

    02 — Read alongside

    Where this is echoed

    Readers' own connections, from OpenBible's crowd-voted cross-references — agreement about relevance, and not scholarly confidence. 363 passages were voted onto 41 verses of this chapter; the 16 shown lead on votes, and each is listed at the verse it was voted onto most strongly.

    • 16Genesis 18:10Then the LORD said, “I will surely return to you at this time next year, and your wife Sarah will have a son!” Now Sarah was behind him, listening at the entrance to the tent.
    • 16Luke 1:13But the angel said to him, “Do not be afraid, Zechariah, because your prayer has been heard. Your wife Elizabeth will bear you a son, and you are to give him the name John.
    • 162 Kings 4:28Then she said, “Did I ask you for a son, my lord? Didn’t I say, ‘Do not deceive me?’”
    • 1Matthew 18:25Since the man was unable to pay, the master ordered that he be sold to pay his debt, along with his wife and children and everything he owned.
    • 16Genesis 18:12–15So she laughed to herself, saying, “After I am worn out and my master is old, will I now have this pleasure?”
    • 16Genesis 17:21But I will establish My covenant with Isaac, whom Sarah will bear to you at this time next year.”
    • 12 Kings 2:3Then the sons of the prophets at Bethel came out to Elisha and said, “Do you know that the LORD will take your master away from you today?” “Yes, I know,” he replied. “Do not speak of it.”
    • 21 Kings 17:12But she replied, “As surely as the LORD your God lives, I have no bread—only a handful of flour in a jar and a little oil in a jug. Look, I am gathering a couple of sticks to take home and prepare a meal for myself and my son, so that we may eat it and die.”
    • 132 Timothy 1:16–18May the Lord grant mercy to the household of Onesiphorus, because he has often refreshed me and was unashamed of my chains.
    • 16Psalms 116:11In my alarm I said, “All men are liars!”
    • 162 Kings 2:19Then the men of the city said to Elisha, “Please note, our lord, that the city’s location is good, as you can see. But the water is bad and the land is unfruitful.”
    • 16Luke 1:30–31So the angel told her, “Do not be afraid, Mary, for you have found favor with God.
    • 43Luke 9:13But Jesus told them, “You give them something to eat.” “We have only five loaves of bread and two fish,” they answered, “unless we go and buy food for all these people.”
    • 10Romans 12:13Share with the saints who are in need. Practice hospitality.
    • 16Luke 1:18–20“How can I be sure of this?” Zechariah asked the angel. “I am an old man, and my wife is well along in years.”
    • 161 Kings 17:18“O man of God,” said the woman to Elijah, “what have you done to me? Have you come to remind me of my iniquity and cause the death of my son?”

    Onward

    Keep reading

    Next chapter2 Kings 527 verses.Named hereCarmel MountEverything the graph connects to this name.Book2 KingsAll 25 chapters.Every bookThe Bible66 books, 1,189 chapters.