Preserving the Miracle Part 3 of the“Inserted”Series

This story is also from the Old Testament.

In this story, the inserted person is only described as a wealthy woman. She is a wealthy woman who went out of her way to help a prophet. Her seemingly simple decision to assist a traveling prophet in need (food and shelter) was the catalyst for her son’s future. The story goes like this:

2 Kings 4:8“One day Elisha went to the town of Shunem. A wealthy woman lived there and she urged him to come to her home for a meal. After that, whenever he passed that way, he would stop there for something to eat.”

2 Kings 4:9.  She said to her husband, “I am sure this man who stops in from time to time is a holy man of God. 10, Let’s build a small room for him on the roof and furnish it with a bed, a table, a chair, and a lamp.  Then he will have a place to stay whenever he comes by.” 

What was the result of her acknowledging him as a prophet and  being hospitable?  

 2 King 4:14-Later Elisha asked Gehazi (the servant to the prophet), “What can we do for her?”  Gehazi replied, “She doesn’t have a son, and her husband is an old man.”  And Elisha, prophesied to her that in the next year she would have a son. And the prophesy was fulfilled.

The story later tells us the boy had a heat stroke and died while in the field with his dad. The wealthy woman traveled to see Elisha .  Again, Elisha, as in the first story with Namaan, was having a representative to complete the miracle process. However in this story, the inserted woman made a statement that she was not going to take a representative to minister to her need. (Elisha was just going to send his staff and servant Gehazi to take care of the problem).  Her boy had died and she wanted the person who prophesied life to come back and do it again.

V 28 Then she said, Did I ask you for a son, my lord and didn’t I say, Don't deceive me and get my hopes up?

V 29 Then Elisha said to Gehazi “Get ready to travel, take my staff and go. Don't talk to anyone along the way. Go quickly and lay the staff on the child’s face 

V 30 But the boy’s mother said, as surely as the Lord lives and you yourself live, I won’t go home unless you go with me.  So Elisha returned with her.

The result of Elisha coming back to her house was that the boy was brought back to life.

V 36 Then Elisha summoned Gehazi. “Call the child’s mother!” he said,  And when she came in, Elisha said, “Here take your son! She fell at his feet and bowed before him, overwhelmed with gratitude.  Then she took her son in her arms and carried him downstairs.  

The story doesn’t end here.
In 2 Kings 8:1, we read, “Now Elisha had said to the woman whose son he had restored to life, ‘Arise, and depart with your household, and sojourn wherever you can, for the LORD has called for a famine, and it will come upon the land for seven years.’” And so the woman left with her family for seven years and then returned. Upon her return, she discovered that she had lost her land due to her supposed desertion of the property. This no name wealthy woman was about to get yet another miracle in her life:

2 Kings 8:3-6

“And at the end of the seven years, when the woman returned from the land of the Philistines, she went to appeal to the king for her house and her land. Now the king was talking with Gehazi, the servant of the man of God, saying, ‘Tell me all the great things that Elisha has done.’ And while he was telling the king how Elisha had restored the dead to life, behold, the woman whose son he had restored to life appealed to the king for her house and her land. And Gehazi said, ‘My lord, O king, here is the woman, and here is her son whom Elisha restored to life.’ And when the king asked the woman, she told him. So the king appointed an official for her, saying, ‘Restore all that was hers, together with all the produce of the fields from the day that she left the land until now’” 

In these passages of scripture, she is known only as the wealthy woman from Shunem and then the boy’s mother.   Her acknowledgement of him as a Holy Man and providing for a need resulted in her receiving 4 miracles; 

1.the birth of her son, 

2.the restoration of her son to life,

3 place of provision during famine and

4 restoration of her property.

In both of these stories from the Old Testament, miracles were received when the inserted people obeyed God through the word of the prophet. In these two stories the names of the slave girl and the wealthy woman were not important. Their obedience to the voice of God provided miracles. In this story, the miracle was extended and made available to the next generation.