2 Kings 4:11-17
What then is to be done for her
Asked what the woman needs, he answers accurately: she has no child and her husband is old. The promise made to her comes out of his observation.
People of the Bible
Gehazi
Ran after the man his master had refused payment from, and came back with two talents of silver and a disease.
Gehazi is Elisha’s servant and he is useful. It is he who works out what the Shunammite woman lacks, a son and an old husband, and says so. He is also the one who pushes her away at Carmel and who runs ahead with the staff that does not work. After Naaman goes home cured and unbilled, Gehazi says to himself that his master has spared this Syrian, and runs after the chariots with a story about two young men from the sons of the prophets who have just arrived and need a talent of silver and two changes of clothes.
Scroll down to the storyThe movements, in the order the text gives them.
The story of Gehazi
- 01
- 02
2 Kings 4:27-31
The staff that did nothing
He pushes her away when she grabs the prophet’s feet, and is sent ahead with the staff to lay on the child’s face. He comes back and reports that the child is not awakened.
- 03
2 Kings 5:20-24
As the LORD lives, I will run after him
He invents two guests and a need. Naaman presses two talents on him instead of one and sends two servants to carry it, and Gehazi takes it off them at the tower and hides it in the house.
- 04
2 Kings 5:25-27
Went not my heart with you
Asked where he has been, he says nowhere. The answer names the money, the clothes, the olive groves, the vineyards and the livestock, and the leprosy of Naaman is transferred.
Why it matters
Gehazi is placed immediately after the chapter that refuses payment, and the contrast is the whole argument. Elisha would not take a gift for a healing because the healing was not his to sell; Gehazi sells it behind his back for clothes he hides before he goes in. The question he is asked is not about money but about timing, whether this is a time to receive garments and oliveyards. He leaves the presence a leper as white as snow.
4 songs
The music
Every song in the catalogue whose passage falls inside these chapters.
