2 Kings 4:44

So he set it before them, and they did eat, and left thereof, according to the word of the LORD.

EXPOSITORY (ENGLISH BIBLE)

Ellicott's Commentary for English Readers

(44) And they did eat, and left thereof.—Comp. our Lord’s miracles, already referred to. Bähr denies any miraculous increase of the food. He makes the miracle consist in the fact that the one hundred men were satisfied with the little they received, and even had some to spare. Similarly, Thenius thinks that the provisions were not inconsiderable for a hundred men (?), and that the emphasis of the narrative lies rather on Elisha’s absolute confidence in God than on His wonder-working powers; but this is certainly opposed to the sacred writer’s intention. Keil rightly calls attention to the fact that Elisha does not perform, but only predicts, this miracle.

Matthew Henry's Concise Commentary

4:38-44 There was a famine of bread, but not of hearing the word of God, for Elisha had the sons of the prophets sitting before him, to hear his wisdom. Elisha made hurtful food to become safe and wholesome. If a mess of pottage be all our dinner, remember that this great prophet had no better for himself and his guests. The table often becomes a snare, and that which should be for our welfare, proves a trap: this is a good reason why we should not feed ourselves without fear. When we are receiving the supports and comforts of life, we must keep up an expectation of death, and a fear of sin. We must acknowledge God's goodness in making our food wholesome and nourishing; I am the Lord that healeth thee. Elisha also made a little food go a great way. Having freely received, he freely gave. God has promised his church, that he will abundantly bless her provision, and satisfy her poor with bread, Ps 132:15; whom he feeds, he fills; and what he blesses, comes to much. Christ's feeding his hearers was a miracle far beyond this, but both teach us that those who wait upon God in the way of duty, may hope to be supplied by Divine Providence.

Barnes' Notes on the Bible

This miracle was a faint foreshadowing of our Lord's far more marvelous feeding of thousands with even scantier materials. The resemblance is not only in the broad fact, but in various minute particulars, such as the distribution through the hands of others; the material, bread; the surprised question of the servant; and the evidence of superfluity in the fragments that were left (see the marginal references). As Elijah was a type of the Baptist, so Elisha was in many respects a type of our Blessed Lord. In his peaceful, non-ascetic life, in his mild and gentle character, in his constant circuits, in his many miracles of mercy, in the healing virtue which abode in his bodily frame 2 Kings 13:21, he resembled, more than any other prophet, the Messiah, of whom all prophets were more or less shadows and figures.

Jamieson-Fausset-Brown Bible Commentary

43. They shall eat, and shall leave thereof—This was not a miracle of Elisha, but only a prediction of one by the word of the Lord. Thus it differed widely from those of Christ (Mt 15:37; Mr 8:8; Lu 9:17; Joh 6:12).

Matthew Poole's Commentary

No text from Poole on this verse.

Gill's Exposition of the Entire Bible

So he set it before them,.... The twenty barley loaves, and the full ears of corn:

and they did eat, and left thereof, according to the word of the Lord; as the disciples did at the miracle of the loaves and fishes; though that must be allowed to be a greater miracle than this, Matthew 14:17.

Geneva Study Bible

So he set it before them, and they did eat, and left thereof, according to the word of the LORD.

EXEGETICAL (ORIGINAL LANGUAGES)

Cambridge Bible for Schools and Colleges

42–44. Elisha feeds one hundred men with twenty loaves (Not in Chronicles)

44. from Baal-shalisha] R.V. Baal-shalishah. The name is found only here, and the LXX. writes it Βαιθαρισὰ or Βαθσαρισά, as though in this instance Baal had been interchangeable with the more common Hebrew prefix, in geographical names, Beth. The place cannot have been remote from Gilgal. The ‘land of Shalishah’ was close to mount Ephraim, as we see in the account of Saul’s search for the asses (1 Samuel 9:4). Probably Baal-shalishah was one village or town of this district.

bread of the firstfruits] On the custom of bringing an offering to the prophets, cf. 1 Samuel 9:7. In that case the present was spoken of in connexion with some enquiry to be made from him. And it may have been so here, though as the offering was from the first fruits, it may have been brought as a religious duty (cf. Leviticus 23:14) and presented to Elisha, as the representative of God, in this time when there was no place to which such offerings could be brought. If this be so, it is another token, among many, that the law of Jehovah was not forgotten by some among the people in the northern kingdom.

full [R.V. fresh] ears of corn] This is the rendering of one word in the Hebrew, which from its use elsewhere seems to mean the first gathered and best of the corn. The interpreters explain it, some of the grain itself, some of the flour made from it. But the leading idea is its newness, hence the change to ‘fresh’ instead of ‘full’. The passages for comparison are Leviticus 2:14; Leviticus 23:14, in each of which the change has been made to ‘fresh’ in R.V.

in the husk thereof] R.V. in his sack. The word is only found here. It is agreed however that it signifies some sort of bag. The A.V. took it of the covering of the grain, but the Vulgate gives pera, i.e., a scrip or wallet. The Complutensian text of the LXX. supports this rendering, the Alexandrine version attempts a transliteration of the unusual word.

44. they did eat, and left thereof] Compare with this the miracles of our Lord (Matthew 14:15-21; Matthew 15:32-38; John 6:5-14). In this account of Elisha there is however not much dwelling on the increase of the bread by a miracle, and we are left to accept the result as either brought about in that way, or by the appetites of the men being satisfied with a small quantity.

The LXX. omits ‘so he set it before them’ at the commencement of this verse.

Pulpit Commentary

Verse 44. - So he set it before them, and they did eat, and left thereof, according to the word of the Lord. We are not expressly told how the miracle was wrought, whether by an augmentation of the quantity of the food supernaturally produced, or by a lessening of the appetites of the men, as Bahr supposes. But the analogy of our Lord's miracles of feeding the multitudes, whereof this is a manifest type, makes it probable that in this case also there was a miraculous increase of the food. The object of the writer in communicating the account is certainly not merely to show how the Lord cared for his servants, but to relate another miracle wrought by Elisha, of a different kind from those previously related. He is occupied with Elisha's miracles through this entire chanter and through the three next.



2 Kings 4:44

Keil and Delitzsch Biblical Commentary on the Old Testament

Feeding of a Hundred Pupils of the Prophets with Twenty Barley Loaves. - A man of Baal-Shalisha (a place in the land of Shalisha, the country to the west of Gilgal, Jiljilia; see at 1 Samuel 9:4) brought the prophet as first-fruits twenty barley loaves and כּרמל equals כּרמל גּרשׂ, i.e., roasted ears of corn (see the Comm. on Leviticus 2:14), in his sack (צקלון, ἁπ. λεγ., sack or pocket). Elisha ordered this present to be given to the people, i.e., to the pupils of the prophets who dwelt in one common home, for them to eat; and when his servant made this objection: "How shall I set this (this little) before a hundred men?" he repeated his command, "Give it to the people, that they may eat; for thus hath the Lord spoken: They will eat and leave" (והותר אכול, infin. absol.; see Ewald, 328, a.); which actually was the case. That twenty barley loaves and a portion of roasted grains of corn were not a sufficient quantity to satisfy a hundred men, is evident from the fact that one man was able to carry the whole of this gift in a sack, and still more so from the remark of the servant, which shows that there was no proportion between the whole of this quantity and the food required by a hundred persons. In this respect the food, which was so blessed by the word of the Lord that a hundred men were satisfied by so small a quantity and left some over, forms a type of the miraculous feeding of the people by Christ (Matthew 14:16., 2 Kings 15:36-37; John 6:11-12); though there was this distinction between them, that the prophet Elisha did not produce the miraculous increase of the food, but merely predicted it. The object, therefore, in communicating this account is not to relate another miracle of Elisha, but to show how the Lord cared for His servants, and assigned to them that which had been appropriated in the law to the Levitical priests, who were to receive, according to Deuteronomy 18:4-5, and Numbers 18:13, the first-fruits of corn, new wine, and oil. This account therefore furnishes fresh evidence that the godly men in Israel did not regard the worship introduced by Jeroboam (his state-church) as legitimate worship, but sought and found in the schools of the prophets a substitute for the lawful worship of God (vid., Hengstenberg, Beitrr. ii. S. 136f.).