Harry Foster
"And she answered, It is well." 2 Kings 4:26
IT has been my experience that some practical acquaintance with resurrection forms an abiding principle in our life and work for God. What has been given by Him so often has to go down into death and be raised up by a further divine miracle if it is to function fully for Him.
The Bible is full of this principle and from the many examples I have chosen the experience of this unnamed woman of Shunem whose simple faith made possible the greatest of Elisha's many miracles. As to her faith, what can be nobler and more inspiring than her reply to the question about her family circumstances that all was well. This is surely one of the most eloquent uses of the great Bible word Shalom -- peace. Our versions translate it by the words, 'It is well', but the N.I.V. makes it even more vivid and emphatic by its rendering, "Everything is all right!" Her story will repay closer examination.
Her name is not given, but she is described as a great woman. It could have been her size, though that is doubtful. It could have referred to her possessions and is sometimes rendered "wealthy", but there is little in the story to support that idea. It could even be a reference to her status, though even that seems unlikely for she was, after all, a farmer's wife. One thing we do know, however, and that is that when the crucial test was applied to her, she proved to be a woman great in faith. She was like another nameless woman of the New Testament who was commended by the Lord Jesus in the words, "O woman, great is thy faith" (Matthew 15:28). This is surely the most desirable greatness, and both cases encourage us, men as well as women, to know that it is something which can be true of anyone of us.
There are many stories related about Elisha's demonstrations of the Spirit's power and, as with the Gospel miracles, the chief value for us is the spiritual lessons which we can learn from them. This story of resurrection is not meant to suggest that our beloved dead can be brought back to life again (though it does remind us of the infinite capacity of our God to do this), but rather to illustrate for us a basic principle of our life and ministry, namely, that "we should not trust in ourselves but in God which raiseth the dead" (2 Corinthians 1:9). What are we to do in those situations when God-given responsibilities die on our hands? How shall we react when that which was truly brought into being by the power of God seems threatened by complete failure? Perhaps the great woman of Shunem can show us.
The story opens with an explanation of how she met God. Elisha, the man of the double portion of the Spirit, dropped in to have a meal at her home and was clearly invited to come again, and did so. He was a man of miraculous spiritual gifts but, so far as we know, she had not been informed of this and did not witness any of his wonders. Though called a prophet, he seems to have been a man of few words and we are not told that he gave any special spiritual instruction during those recurring meal times, yet, to use her own words, she came to "perceive" that this occasional visitor was "a holy man of God".
She had made a discovery. What did it mean? I suggest that it implies that on meeting Elisha, she found that she was meeting God. This is not fanciful. There are times when one goes into an assembly of God's people and experiences there a direct encounter with the Lord. Paul suggests [114/115] that this is how a church gathering should affect people (1 Corinthians 14:25). Moreover there are homes into which one goes and somehow, in the simplicity of that home life, the presence of God becomes much more real. I have heard this repeatedly stated concerning a certain home. 'It is different,' people have said, 'You sense the Lord's presence in the very atmosphere.' And sometimes -- though not often -- one encounters individuals who carry around with them something of the fragrance of God's holiness, not by any effort of theirs but simply by a spontaneous ministration of the divine presence. Such an awareness may bring comfort or it may bring a guilty unease, but there is no hiding the fact that the woman or man concerned has a habit of dwelling in the secret place of the Most High. Elisha was such a man. What was registered by his presence in the home at Shunem was not through any conscious effort on his part but because he gave an Old Testament foretaste of what Paul calls, "a sweet savour of Christ" (2 Corinthians 2:15).
Having been struck by this fact, the Shunammite woman consulted her husband as to how they could make provision for a more constant divine visitation in their home: "Let us make, I pray thee, a small roof chamber with walls; and let us set for him there a bed ...; and it shall be, when he cometh to us, that he shall turn in hither". The spiritual emphasis seems obvious, that is, that we should be careful to enjoy as much of the Lord's presence as possible, and make every effort to welcome Him into our homes and into our hearts. This simple couple did just that.
May I suggest that although no doubt every bit of furniture in that simple room was important, it was the bed which proved to be of special significance in the story. Can this be because in some way it became a symbol of the rest of faith? "Is it well with the child?" the anguished mother was asked and, because the dead body of her son now lay on Elisha's bed, she was able to reply, "It is well. Everything is all right."
From that same bed, the prophet gave the woman promise of a miraculous gift from God. Like many of us, she felt that though she had everything else needed for a full life, there was one great lack which she could never hope to have remedied. When the man of God gave her the promise that God would give her this most desired experience, she was so incredulous that she rebuked him for trying to raise her hopes to the impossible. She rebuked him for attempting to mislead her. This could never be! It was an impossibility! But our God is the God of the impossible and, so great was Elisha's confidence in that fact, he did not need to strive in prayer or go through any kind of religious performance, but could lie back on his bed and quietly tell the woman standing in his doorway that when the time came round, it would happen. And "at that season, when the time came round, as Elisha had said to her", the son was born.
Came the happy years of fulfilment, which we can all appreciate when they come to us, and then came the day of seeming calamity, which bewilders us when it happens in our case. Through the morning hours of that day she held in her arms the dying child whom God had given to her and who was her heart's delight. It must have seemed like the end of the world. Many of us in our own ministry have endured the same agony. Spiritual hopes and expectations which once seemed so high, have gone down into apparent death. We have felt overwhelmed by the tragedy of it all. The work which God Himself had given us and for which we felt He had added such help and encouragement looked as if it were crumbling to ruin before our very eyes. It was as though, instead of enjoying the living evidence of God at work, we were now embracing a corpse. In the case of the Shunammite, it went on all the morning. Those hours must have seemed like an eternity. She clasped him; she willed him to live; but at noon he died.
Her next action is of great significance. There were three beds on which she might have laid that precious little body. She could have put him on his own bed -- a death-bed -- and resigned herself to despair. Most of us are vulnerable to the suggestions that what had been happening was too good to be true, too good to last, and that after all we might have known that the promise of God was a deceit. If she had laid the precious burden on his own bed, she would have succumbed to that temptation. But she did not do so. Nor did she lay him upon her own bed. Had she acted in this way, seeking to grapple with the problem in her own energy, she would hardly have sent back the message of peace to her puzzled husband. No, she would have said that things were bad but that she was going to plead with Elisha and do her utmost to get his help in this intolerable burden which lay on her bed. [115/116]
Often we have done just that. We have wrestled with the matter, imagining perhaps that we needed to wrestle with God as Jacob thought he had to do. We have sent out the frantic message to others that we were determined yet to try to salvage something from the threatening disaster and often tried to implicate them in our struggle for survival. We could no longer carry the matter on our lap but we have retained it on our bed as we went hither and thither in our vain attempts to recover the situation for God.
She avoided this mistake also. In one symbolic act of faith's committal, she went up to that prophet's chamber, laid the child on the bed of the man of God and shut the door (v.21). This was not despair or resignation: it was active faith. She proved this by requesting an animal on which she could "run to the man of God, and come again".
The whole thing was a mystery. Even the discerning Elisha, who had a divine gift for seeing through any situation as he showed on other occasions, had to confess that this time it was something that the Lord had hid from him and not told him (v.27). If he could not understand it, the Shunammite certainly was unable to do so. Her mind was uninformed and her inner soul was bitterly distressed. And yet -- and this to me is the crux of everything -- she still insisted that everything was all right. She had no peace in her emotions; she had no peace in her mind; but she had peace in her spirit, for she had placed her charge on the bed of the man of God, and it was now up to Him, so her answer to the enquiry not only about herself and her husband, but also about the child was "Shalom" -- "Everything is all right".
This is the moment for faith to triumph, the moment when the mind is perplexed and the heart deeply troubled. We are not 'know-alls' -- far from it. "Did I not say, Do not deceive me?" she asked the man of God. "It seemed a good dream then and it seems a very bad dream now. My mind is in a turmoil. I cannot understand God's ways." How true to life this is! How strange and inexplicable are God's ways with those whom He loves and who love Him! We who have opened ourselves to Him in glad devotion and done our best to carry the responsibilities committed to us, find ourselves completely baffled when things go wrong.
We are not 'know-alls', nor are we made of steel, or professionals, glad to succeed if that can be, but philosophical if we have to face defeat. No, the responsibilities which God has given to us become our very hearts. This woman was deeply distressed, broken-hearted we would say, as she lay clutching at the prophet's feet in her anguish. Yet this was the same woman who had just given the answer of "Peace". She had no peace in her mind, no comfort in her emotions, but she was resting all on God.
In Jesus' presence naught but calm is found.
Peace, perfect peace, our future all unknown?
Jesus we know, and He is on the throne.
THERE is, of course, much more to be said. How the woman would not accompany Gehazi, but persisted in staying with Elisha. How the child could not be raised by Gehazi, even though he used the authority of Elisha's staff in his efforts to recover life. How Elisha arrived at the home to find the child lying on his special bed, and shut himself in that prophet's chamber with the problem, getting on to the bed with it. My Bible tells me that he "stretched himself upon him" (v.34), but the margin gives me a better alternative, "he bowed himself". If ever a translation were unrealistic this is, for a grown man could never by any possible reasoning have to stretch himself to measure up to a small boy, who could sit on his mother's lap. The man did not have to stretch himself, what he had to do was rather to contract himself in order to be intimately identified with him. I notice that Ronald Knox gives the translation, "bending down close", a picture, surely, of the Saviour's complete identification with us in our mortal need. Elisha repeated this action seven times (v.35 margin) (forget all about the "sneezing"); and so the miracle happened. Elisha was proved indeed to be a man of God, and the woman's faith affirmation that "everything was all right" was fully vindicated.
Once more the woman was found bowed to the ground at the feet of Elisha, this time in wondering worship. Those who so bow as they cast their burdens on the Lord and look in faith to Him will always find such a gracious response that they will be overwhelmed by a similar sense of adoring wonder. It may take time. It will probably involve a real test of patience. The principle, [116/117] however, is absolutely certain, namely that what God has given to us as a solemn and privileged trust may (and probably will) have to go right down into death so that it may be established in the power of resurrection. Have we left our dead hopes on their own bed and given up in despair? Have we kept them on our own bed and given ourselves to fruitless efforts of recovery? Or have we obeyed the Lord's command to cast all our burdens upon Him? Paul told the Corinthians that he himself had to learn this lesson, so it is not surprising if we have not yet learned it. But it is there to be learned, and the Shunammite mother may help us to grasp the principle.
Whether or not she was a great woman, she certainly had a great God. And so have we! Her story is a challenge to our faith in the time of adversity. In a sense, this was the greatest miracle, not the raising of the dead but the divine gift of faith which could triumphantly remain unoffended and maintain in the face of every evidence to the contrary that "Everything is all right". "O woman, great is thy faith."
POSTSCRIPT
THE writer goes on to tell other stories of other people: "And Elisha came again to Gilgal" (v.38). Is he going to leave us with the idea that the mother and her son 'lived happily ever after'? If the Bible dealt with fairy stories, that is how it would be, but since it deals with real life we must not be surprised to find that there is a further incident in which the Shunammite and her son were once again involved in real distress. The story is told in 8:1-6. Gehazi comes into it again, but not now as an honoured if ineffective servant, but as a man in disgrace. He had been smitten with leprosy (5:27) but here we find him mixing with others and content to pick up odd favours by reminiscing about his years with Elisha (8:4). In essence this is another resurrection story.
It serves to remind us that the life of faith is not a once-for-all matter. We cannot rest for ever on just one experience of God's power but have to encounter new crises of death and resurrection. Perhaps it is not enough to entitle this story 'Postscript' for it is more than that; it is a re-emphasis of this great spiritual truth about the dealings of our God with His people in terms of resurrection.
For over fifty years the man of God proclaimed by his name, Elisha, that God is Saviour and he confirmed that claim by the series of stories in the early chapters of 2 Kings. They make inspiring reading. In this story the prophet himself hardly appears and there is little to strike the reader as sensational but, since it is divinely recorded, we dare not overlook it. If it does not tell us any more about Elisha, what does it tell us about his God?
1. God's Strange Ways
All God's servants find at times that His ways seem very strange. "Now Elisha had spoken unto the woman whose son he had restored to life, saying, Arise and go thou and thy household, and sojourn where thou canst sojourn; for the Lord hath called for a famine ...". This seems almost like panic advice from God's servant. It is true that we are glad to find the man of God still caring for the woman. Having had such a remarkable experience, he did not close her story in his case-book and leave her to her own devices. The problem here, however, is that his advice sounded unspiritual.
Did not Abraham err by leaving the land because of famine? (Genesis 12:10) Did not Naomi and her husband deny their faith and turn joy into bitterness by leaving the land for fear of famine? (Ruth 1:1) How then could Elisha instruct the woman to find safety among the Philistines just because a famine was imminent? At the end of the seven years the result appeared to have been disastrous. For all her faults, when Naomi returned from her exile, the family property was still nominally hers, for she planned to provide for herself and Ruth by selling it to a kinsman. In this case, though, the Shunammite lost everything by her action -- even though she acted in obedience to the word of the Lord. It must have been baffling to her. Elisha's instructions had entailed letting go of all her family possessions and saying goodbye to that sacred prophet's chamber with its inspiring recollections of the bed of the man of God and its blessings. In a sense this proved a further 'death' experience for her and her son. When the seven long years ended, the great woman of Shunem came back there in seeming penury, being forced to appeal to the king concerning her property of which some greedy neighbour had taken possession. [117/118]
God's ways are strange. Yet the woman of faith had to accept them. It was no use her using Abraham's bad example as an excuse for personal disobedience, nor did she find, as Naomi did, that her inheritance had been preserved intact. No, she had to prove God for herself, as we all have to do. We learn spiritual principles from others but we are never allowed to model ourselves on them. We are told to imitate their faith (Hebrews 13:7) but we must never let our behaviour be governed by what they did or what happened to them. We have to make our own spiritual history.
Elisha had said, "Arise and go!" She had obeyed. And now she returned home to find that, in her case, obedience had seemingly meant the loss of all. In fact there is no proof that the famine had been as severe as might have been feared. In her absence someone had turned her property to good use and reaped the fruits of her fields (v.6). To her, however, Elisha's message had been a divine command. Happily, the story shows us that although God's ways may at times seem strange, they are always right.
A further surprising feature of this story is that what we might call the key man was the Gehazi who had been dismissed from Elisha's service in disgrace (5:27). We can imagine the woman's dismay when, on entering the king's presence, she found that this ne'er-do-well was already there. Presumably she had been unable to get help from Elisha. It may be that by now he was on his sick-bed (13:14). It could have been that he had already died, which would explain the king's interest and Gehazi's story telling. When she came into the king's presence, she may well have been flabbergasted to see this man there. Here was the servant who had tried to push her away from Elisha (4:27), who had proved such an ignominious failure when he laid the prophet's staff on her child and who had been discharged in disgrace from God's service. It was bad enough not to have Elisha, but infinitely worse to have to plead her case in the presence of such a character.
The amazing thing is that she did not have to plead that case. Doubtless Gehazi was glad to have a verification of his most unlikely story of resurrection. He it was, though, who helped to decide the issue by exclaiming delightedly, "My lord, O king, this is the woman and this is her son ...". So it was that the king was ready to talk to her and quite prepared not only to restore her land but to insist on the repayment of its income through the years. Gehazi, then, was the divine instrument for meeting this need. 'Could God use such a man,' we ask, 'one who had been so roundly and so justly condemned by the prophet?' The answer is, of course, that "all things are his servants" (Psalm 119:91). His ways are both strange and wonderful.
2. God's Simple Ways
The very smoothness of the transaction may perhaps mask its miraculous wonder. On the whole we tend to crave for the sensational. We can feel the thrill of God's wonders when they are accompanied by noise and excitement. This is such a homely story that it may hardly seem worthy of inclusion in the record of the more startling things which happened through Elisha's ministry. Was it anything more than just a happy coincidence? The fact is, though, that simple unostentation was a chief feature of Elisha's service for God.
When Elijah had arrived at Horeb for his appointed meeting with God, he waited in the cave for the interview and doubtless expected the kind of mighty manifestation which would appeal to his sense of the dramatic. What would it be? A mountain-breaking hurricane? But no, "the Lord was not in the wind". A shattering earthquake? That came, but "the Lord was not in the earthquake". "After the earthquake a fire." Elijah was a man of fire and must have longed for a repetition of the great moment when fire fell from heaven, but no, "The Lord was not in the fire". Where was He then?
Came the moment of truth: "after the fire a still small voice" (1 Kings 19:12). Yes, this was the authentic manifestation of God for which he was waiting. The prophet recognised it for "it was so, when Elijah heard it, that he wrapped his face in his mantle, and went out, and stood in the entrance of the cave". The voice of gentle stillness first asked him what he was doing there and went on to say, "Elisha, the son of Shaphat ... shalt thou anoint to be prophet in thy room" (v.16); God had chosen the instrument for the continuance and fulfilment of Elijah's great ministry.
The whole ministry of this new man, Elisha, was characterised by this "sound of gentle stillness". In himself he was a nobody. The sons of the prophets pitied him and virtually offered him [118/119] their sponsorship (2 Kings 3 ff). The louts of Bethel mocked him, calling him "bald-head" because he had not that hairy masculinity which characterised his master Elijah (2 Kings 2:23). His only distinguishing feature which his advocates could produce was that he had previously "poured water on the hands of Elijah" (2 Kings 3:11). Yet this was the man whom God used so mightily, the man of "the double portion of the Spirit". How simple are the ways of the Lord!
Look at the means which Elisha used in God's service: a phial of salt (2:20), a little pot of oil (4:2), a handful of flour (4:41), a dip in the despised Jordan (5:13), a rough stick (6:6) and four leprous beggars (7:3). Lovers of the sensational would despise this simple man. He had no charismatic presence. When he was visited by Naaman and his impressive retinue, we are told that Elisha did not even go to the door to meet the captain but sent his advice about dipping in the Jordan by the mouth of a messenger. The enraged Naaman protested, "Behold, I thought, he will surely come out to me, and stand and call on the name of the Lord his God, and wave his hand over the place ..." (5:11). But Elisha was not that kind of man. His ministry was marked by a supreme simplicity.
Years before and earlier in his ministry, Elisha had been summoned to help King Jehoshaphat in his acute dilemma in the wilderness of Edom. His message to the kings was "Thus saith the Lord, Ye shall not see wind, neither shall ye see rain, yet that valley shall be filled with water" (3:17). The prepared trenches were indeed filled with life-saving water, but we are simply told that "it came to pass in the morning, about the time of offering the oblation, that, behold, there came water by the way of Edom and the country was filled with water" (3:20). The miracle water brought deliverance to the two armies and utter defeat to the enemy, yet nobody knew how it came. God's ways are effective, but often they are so simple.
"Ye shall not see wind, neither shall ye see rain" -- this is all in harmony with Isaiah's comment: "Verily, thou art a God that hideth thyself, O God of Israel, the Saviour" (Isaiah 45:15). It was in this simple way, therefore, that the woman of Shunem, who had been plunged into a new tasting of death, came to enjoy a wonderful sequel of resurrection. Not only did she receive back her home and lands, but the accumulated income of the years was secured to her by a specially appointed official.
3. God's Perfect Timing
God's ways may be strange and they may be simple, but they are always perfect and not least in the matter of timing. Perhaps the outstanding feature of this incident of the woman's appeal for her lands was the accuracy of divine planning which meant that she appeared before the king just as Gehazi was finishing his story. If Gehazi's gossip had ended without the king asking for more, or if the anecdote selected from so many had been other than this, then the Shunammite's visit might have been in vain. Had she come a little later, the ex-servant of the prophet might have wandered off with whatever reward the king chose to give him, and there would have been no obvious link between the story told and this later calamity. As it was, though, the timing was absolutely exact. God is never too late: neither is He ever too early.
Nor wanting, nor wasting, Thou rulest in might.
It is a striking fact that, although our God is timeless and eternal in Himself, He accommodates His ways with split-second accuracy for the blessing or deliverance of His children. Most Christians of experience will bear testimony to this gracious working of His.
The Bible gives us many examples of this exactness of God's timing, some of them being so important as to constitute matters of life and death. Take the Old Testament example found in Esther, the book which makes no mention whatever of the name of the Lord. It was only in the nick of time that Mordecai was saved from being hanged. Haman had the gallows all prepared for the hanging, and had reached the very eve of the planned execution when, so we are told, "That night could not the king sleep". The manner of how the insomnia was dealt with and how the name of Mordecai was brought to the king's notice just at this point is a romantic story, but for our purposes the significant point is that it was that night when it happened. God was in time, but only just!
We need not look beyond the stories of Elisha, though, to substantiate this teaching about God's perfect timing. In 2 Kings 7 we have the account [119/120] of a miraculous deliverance from siege and famine in Samaria which came only just in time. The end of chapter 6 tells of Elisha's personal peril because he was blamed for Samaria's plight, recording the question of the king of Israel: "Why should I wait for the Lord any longer?" (6:33). Without any real chapter division, we are told Elisha's reply: "Hear ye the word of the Lord; thus saith the Lord, Tomorrow about this time shall a measure of fine flour be sold for a shekel ... in the gate of Samaria" (7:1).
To a people in starving desperation this sounded incredible, so much so that a chief captain declared that it could hardly happen if heaven itself opened its windows. But it did happen. And it happened just in time and just when God said it would. Elisha had no doubt that it would, for he had implicit faith in God's Word, but even he could hardly have envisaged how such a timely miracle could be.
I have already mentioned the four leprous beggars (7:3) who were just outside that same city gate. They, too, had reached a condition of despair, but made just one last bid for life by offering to give themselves up to the enemy. Whether there was any spiritual connection between their shuffling footsteps and "the noise of a great host" which the hostile Syrians thought they heard, we do not know. All we do know is that when they arrived they found that the camp had just been evacuated in confusion and all was well. So the four unfortunates were able to feast to their hearts' content (7:8) and it was they who brought the good news that the siege had been lifted.
In itself it was a minor miracle that the four were thoughtful enough of others to hurry back to the city without waiting for the new day to dawn. Not surprisingly, their report was doubted. It was "Too good to be true" (What a faithless phrase that is!). Anyhow it was true and, after the delays, consultations, investigations and arrangements were concluded, it was just about that time on the morrow after Elisha's prophecy that flour was on sale in the city gate at one measure for a shekel. Once again God had left it very late. Yet He was not too late. He never is! What a comfort then for us to be able to claim, "My times are in thy hand" (Psalm 31:15).
THE great experience of resurrection for which the whole Church looks is yet to be. We know that the First Coming of Christ was accurately ordered, for we are assured that it was "when the fullness of time came" (Galatians 4:4). We may therefore be confident that the Second Coming will be right on time. Impatient saints have had to wait for God's hour, and we still have to do so. God alone knows when it will be and it ill behoves any of us to speculate about "times or seasons which the Father has set within his own authority". The Lord Jesus even warned us that it will surely occur "in an hour when you think not" (Luke 12:40). In John's visions relating to those last things, he uses a phrase about judgments being "... prepared for the hour and day and month and year ..." (Revelation 9:15). God's timings are perfect. [120/ibc]
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