2 Kings 8:1
Now Elisha had said to the woman whose son he had restored to life, "Arise, you and your household; go and live as a foreigner wherever you can. For the LORD has decreed a seven-year famine, and it has already come to the land."
Sermons
Beneficence of the Christian Life2 Kings 8:1-6
Permanent Effects of GodlinessHartley Aspen.2 Kings 8:1-6
The Potent Influence of a Good ManG. Barlow.2 Kings 8:1-6
The Shunammite and Her LandsJ. Orr 2 Kings 8:1-6
The Shunammite's Land RestoredC.H. Irwin 2 Kings 8:1-6
Topics for ReflectionD. Thomas 2 Kings 8:1-6














The Bible has a good deal to say about the land question. There is one memorable passage in Isaiah (Isaiah 5:8): "Woe unto them that join house to house, that lay field to field, till there be no place, that they may be placed alone in the midst of the earth l" There is another memorable passage in the Epistle of St, James: "Behold, the hire of the laborers who have reaped down your fields, which is of you kept back by fraud, crieth: and the cries of them which have reaped are entered into the ears of the Lord God of Sabaoth." If such denunciations of oppression and wrong had been remembered, we should have had less of socialistic combinations and less of agrarian crime. In this passage we have -

I. A COMMAND OBEYED. Elisha's command seemed a hard one. This woman of Shunem was to arise with her household, and leave her home and farm for seven years. He told her, indeed, that there was to be a famine in the land. But she might have wanted more proof. She might have said, "Well, I shall wait till I see some signs of the famine. It is a great hardship to have to get up in this way and leave my home, without any immediate reason. What if Elisha's fears should turn out to be untrue? May not the famine be as bad anywhere else?" So men often reason when God gives them some command or points out to them the way of salvation. Lot lingered, when urged to depart out of Sodom, though the very angels of God had come to warn him of his doom. So men linger still, when urged to flee from the wrath to come. They linger, though every day is bringing them nearer to eternity. They linger, though they know not the day nor the hour when the Son of man may come. Whether it be the path of salvation or the path of Christian service which God calls us to tread, let us not linger, let us not hesitate to obey, but, like this woman of Shunem, let us do at once what God commands.

II. LOSS INCURRED. This woman actually did suffer by her prompt obedience. She escaped the famine, indeed, but she lost her land. On this subject Dr. Thomson says, in 'The Land and the Book,' "It is still common for even petty sheikhs to confiscate the property of any person who is exiled for a time, or who moves away temporarily from his district. Especially is this true of widows and orphans, and the Shunammite was now a widow. And small is the chance to such of having their property restored, unless they can secure the mediation of some one more influential than themselves. The conversation between the king and Gehazi about his master is also in perfect keeping with the habits of Eastern princes; and the appearance of the widow and her son so opportunely would have precisely the same effect now that it had then. Not only the land, but all the fruits of it would be restored. There is an air of genuine verisimilitude in such simple narratives which it is quite impossible for persons not intimately familiar with Oriental manners to appreciate, but which stamps the incidents with undoubted certainty." We may incur loss from a worldly point of view by obeying a command of God. But which do we prefer - worldly gain or a conscience at peace with God? Which less is greater - the loss of a few pounds, or the loss of our heavenly Father's smile? Even if we do lose by it - it is best to do the will of God, to follow in the footsteps of Jesus.

III. QUESTIONS ASKED. We are not told what led to this remarkable conversation which Jehoram had with Gehazi. Perhaps the time of famine had humbled him. Perhaps he was becoming penitent for his threat of taking Elisha's life. Perhaps it was mere idle curiosity. But at any rate, here is the King of Israel inquiring of Gehazi, "Tell me, I pray thee, all the great things that Elisha hath done." Gehazi, at this time, loved to think and speak of Elisha. He had been a good master to him. His deeds were worth recording. And so Gehazi proceeds to tell the story of Elisha's mighty deeds.

1. We ought to be ready to answer questions about our Master. They may proceed from curiosity, from wrong motives, Never mind. Our answer, given in a Christian spirit, may be the means of disarming ridicule. It may be an opportunity for us to tell the old, old story of the cross.

2. We ought not to be ashamed of our Master. He is "the chiefest among ten thousand... and altogether lovely." His Name is above every name. The Name, the life, the works, the words, of Jesus ought to be a favorite theme with us.

IV. RESTITUTION MADE. When God's time comes, how very easily he can fulfill his purposes! Gehazi had just reached that part of his story where Elisha restored the Shunammite's son to life, when, to his astonishment and delight, the Shunammite herself appeared on the scene. She came with her petition to the king that he would cause her house and land to be restored. Gehazi, not, perhaps, very regardful of courtesy or etiquette, calls out in the fullness of his joy, "My lord, O king, this is the woman, and this is her son, whom Elisha restored to life." The king, whose feelings had already been touched by the pathetic narrative of the little lad carried home from the harvest-field to die, touched also by the entreaty of the woman for the restoration of her lost property, and perhaps recognizing the hand of Providence in the remarkable events of that day, gives orders that not only her land, but the fruits of it from the day she left, should be restored to her. That was wholesale restoration and restitution. Who shall say it was unjust? What a disgorging there would be, if all who have taken money or land from others by unlawful means, all who have extorted unjust rents, were compelled to restore their ill-gotten gains! The Shunammite had not suffered, after all, by her obedience. "No one hath forsaken houses, or lands, or father, or mother, or friends... but he shall receive an hundredfold more in this life, and in the world to come life everlasting." - C.H.I.

Then spake Elisha unto the woman.
I. HIS COUNSEL IS VALUABLE, AND GRATEFULLY ACTED UPON. Here we see how the kindness shown by the Shunammite receives still further reward. There is nothing so fruitful in blessing as kindness. In the great dilemmas of life we seek counsel, not from the frivolous and wicked, but from the wise and good. A good man has the destiny of many lives in his hands; a word from him has great weight.

II. HIS BENEFICENT ACTS ARE THE THEME OF POPULAR CONVERSATION (ver. 4). A good action cannot be hid. Sooner or later it will emerge from the obscurity in which it was first done, and become the talk of a nation, until it reaches even royal ears. All good actions do not attain such distinguished popularity. There were many good things that Elisha said and did of which history takes no notice. A good act may be remembered and applauded for generations, while the name of the actor is unknown.

III. HIS HOLY AND UNSELFISH LIFE IS A TESTIMONY FOR JEHOVAH IN THE MIDST OF NATIONAL APOSTASY. In the darkest night of national apostasy, Israel was favoured with an Elisha, whose divinely-illumined life threw a bright stream of light across the gloom. How deplorable the condition of that nation from which all moral worth is excluded!

IV. HIS REPUTATION IS THE MEANS OF PROMOTING THE ENDS OF JUSTICE (vers. 5, 6). There was surely a Divine providence at work that brought the suppliant Shunammite into the presence of the king at the very moment when Gehazi was rehearsing the great works of Elisha. Justice triumphed; her land and all its produce for the seven years were restored to her. It requires power to enforce the claims of justice, and the highest -kind of power is goodness. The arrangements of justice are more likely to be permanent when brought about by the influence of righteous principles, than when compelled by physical force. The presence of a holy character in society is a powerful check upon injustice and wrong.

(G. Barlow.)

The other summer, says Dr. Abbott, while sailing along the shores of the Sound, I landed at a little cove; there was a lighthouse tower and a fog-bell, and the keeper showed us the fog-bell, and how the mechanism made it strike every few minutes in the darkness and in the night when the fog hung over the coast; and I said, "That is the preacher; there he stands, ringing out the message of warning, ringing out the message of instruction, ringing out the message of cheer; it is a great thing to be a preacher." We went up into the lighthouse tower. Here was a tower that never said anything and never did anything — it just stood still and shone — and I said, "That is the Christian. He may not have any word to utter, he may not be a prophet, he may not be a worker, he may achieve nothing, but he stands still and shines, in the darkness and in the storm, always, and every night." The fog-bell strikes only on occasion, but all the time and every night the light flashes out from the lighthouse; all the time and every night this light is flashing out from you if you are God's children.

Sir Wilfred Laurier has recently given a very striking testimony to the powerful influence of the Puritan spirit. He was asked why he was absolutely, in the best sense of the word, an Imperialist. Sir Wilfred replied that when he was a boy he was brought up in the home of a God-fearing Scottish farmer, at whose family worship he was present every morning and night. He was struck by the catholicity of spirit of the farmer, but still more by the fact that the farmer took the affairs of his house, his neighbourhood, and all his country in the presence of the Almighty, and sought His blessing upon all. This experience implanted in Sir Wilfred's heart an abiding conviction that an empire based on such community of spirit was made by God to lead the world. Here is the influence of a humble family worship determining the destinies of an empire. The lowly farmer in Scotland little realised how far-reaching the ministry of his family altar would be. Little did he know that while he was praying and worshipping in apparent obscurity he was moulding the thoughts and feelings of a great statesman, and so shaping the policy of states. What a dignity this gives to the home altar, and what solemnity surrounds the lowly acts of family worship! It can be said of these humble ministries that "their lines are gone out through all the earth, and their words to the end of the world."

(Hartley Aspen.)

People
Ahab, Ahaziah, Aram, Athaliah, Ben, Benhadad, Ben-hadad, David, Edomites, Elisha, Gehazi, Hadad, Hazael, Israelites, Jehoram, Jehoshaphat, Jezreel, Joram, Omri, Syrians
Places
Damascus, Edom, Jerusalem, Jezreel, Libnah, Ramah, Ramoth-gilead, Samaria, Syria, Zair
Topics
Able, Arise, Canst, Decreed, Depart, Elisha, Eli'sha, Family, Famine, Household, Living-place, Restored, Revived, Rise, Saying, Seven, Sojourn, Spake, Spoke, Spoken, Stay, Wheresoever, Wherever, Yourselves
Outline
1. The Shunammite, having left her country seven years, to avoid the famine,
5. for Elisha's miracle's sake has her land restored by the king.
7. Hazael Murders Ben-Hadad and succeeds him
16. Jehoram's wicked reign in Judah
20. Edom and Libnah revolt
23. Ahaziah succeeds Jehoram
25. Ahaziah's wicked reign
28. He visits Joram, being wounded, at Jezreel

Dictionary of Bible Themes
2 Kings 8:1-2

     4823   famine, physical

2 Kings 8:1-6

     5492   restitution

Library
The Story of Hazael
'So Hazael went to meet him, and took a present with him, even of every good thing of Damascus, forty camels' burden, and came and stood before him, and said, Thy son Ben-hadad king of Syria hath sent me to thee, saying, Shall I recover of this disease? 10. And Elisha said unto him, Go, say unto him, Thou mayest certainly recover: howbeit the Lord hath shewed me that he shall surely die. 11. And he settled his countenance stedfastly, until he was ashamed: and the man of God wept. 12. And Hazael said,
Alexander Maclaren—Expositions of Holy Scripture

Hazael
BY REV. J. G. GREENHOUGH, M.A. "But what, is thy servant a dog, that he should do this great thing?"--2 KINGS viii. 13. Hazael was the chief minister and prime favourite of Benhadad, the Syrian king. He had been raised from a humble lot and promoted to that high post by the partiality of his sovereign, who had doubtless discerned his exceptional abilities, and certainly placed implicit trust in him. Just now the king was dangerously ill, and Hazael had been sent to inquire of the prophet of Israel
George Milligan—Men of the Bible; Some Lesser-Known

The Assyrian Revival and the Struggle for Syria
Assur-nazir-pal (885-860) and Shalmaneser III. (860-825)--The kingdom of Urartu and its conquering princes: Menuas and Argistis. Assyria was the first to reappear on the scene of action. Less hampered by an ancient past than Egypt and Chaldaea, she was the sooner able to recover her strength after any disastrous crisis, and to assume again the offensive along the whole of her frontier line. Image Drawn by Faucher-Gudin, from a bas-relief at Koyunjik of the time of Sennacherib. The initial cut,
G. Maspero—History Of Egypt, Chaldaea, Syria, Babylonia, and Assyria, V 7

The Prophet Jonah.
It has been asserted without any sufficient reason, that Jonah is older than Hosea, Joel, Amos, and Obadiah,--that he is the oldest among the prophets whose written monuments have been preserved to us. The passage in 2 Kings xiv. 25, where it is said, that Jonah, the son of Amittai the prophet, prophesied to Jeroboam the happy success of his arms, and the restoration of the ancient boundaries of Israel, and that this prophecy was confirmed by the event, cannot decide in favour of this assertion,
Ernst Wilhelm Hengstenberg—Christology of the Old Testament

Redemption for Man Lost to be Sought in Christ.
1. The knowledge of God the Creator of no avail without faith in Christ the Redeemer. First reason. Second reason strengthened by the testimony of an Apostle. Conclusion. This doctrine entertained by the children of God in all ages from the beginning of the world. Error of throwing open heaven to the heathen, who know nothing of Christ. The pretexts for this refuted by passages of Scripture. 2. God never was propitious to the ancient Israelites without Christ the Mediator. First reason founded on
John Calvin—The Institutes of the Christian Religion

The Prophet Joel.
PRELIMINARY REMARKS. The position which has been assigned to Joel in the collection of the Minor Prophets, furnishes an external argument for the determination of the time at which Joel wrote. There cannot be any doubt that the Collectors were guided by a consideration of the chronology. The circumstance, that they placed the prophecies of Joel just between the two prophets who, according to the inscriptions and contents of their prophecies, belonged to the time of Jeroboam and Uzziah, is
Ernst Wilhelm Hengstenberg—Christology of the Old Testament

Christ's Prophetic Office
'The Lord thy God will raise up unto thee a Prophet,' &c. Deut 18:85. Having spoken of the person of Christ, we are next to speak of the offices of Christ. These are Prophetic, Priestly, and Regal. 'The Lord thy God will raise up unto thee a Prophet.' Enunciatur hic locus de Christo. It is spoken of Christ.' There are several names given to Christ as a Prophet. He is called the Counsellor' in Isa 9:9. In uno Christo Angelus foederis completur [The Messenger of the Covenant appears in Christ alone].
Thomas Watson—A Body of Divinity

Tit. 2:06 Thoughts for Young Men
WHEN St. Paul wrote his Epistle to Titus about his duty as a minister, he mentioned young men as a class requiring peculiar attention. After speaking of aged men and aged women, and young women, he adds this pithy advice, "Young men likewise exhort to be sober-minded" (Tit. 2:6). I am going to follow the Apostle's advice. I propose to offer a few words of friendly exhortation to young men. I am growing old myself, but there are few things I remember so well as the days of my youth. I have a most
John Charles Ryle—The Upper Room: Being a Few Truths for the Times

Commerce
The remarkable change which we have noticed in the views of Jewish authorities, from contempt to almost affectation of manual labour, could certainly not have been arbitrary. But as we fail to discover here any religious motive, we can only account for it on the score of altered political and social circumstances. So long as the people were, at least nominally, independent, and in possession of their own land, constant engagement in a trade would probably mark an inferior social stage, and imply
Alfred Edersheim—Sketches of Jewish Social Life

Original Sin
Q-16: DID ALL MANKIND FALL IN ADAM'S FIRST TRANSGRESSION? A: The covenant being made with Adam, not only for himself, but for his posterity, all mankind descending from him, by ordinary generation, sinned in him, and fell with him in his first transgression. 'By one man sin entered into the world, and death by sin,' &c. Rom 5:12. Adam being a representative person, while he stood, we stood; when he fell, we fell, We sinned in Adam; so it is in the text, In whom all have sinned.' Adam was the head
Thomas Watson—A Body of Divinity

Kings
The book[1] of Kings is strikingly unlike any modern historical narrative. Its comparative brevity, its curious perspective, and-with some brilliant exceptions--its relative monotony, are obvious to the most cursory perusal, and to understand these things is, in large measure, to understand the book. It covers a period of no less than four centuries. Beginning with the death of David and the accession of Solomon (1 Kings i., ii.) it traverses his reign with considerable fulness (1 Kings iii.-xi.),
John Edgar McFadyen—Introduction to the Old Testament

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