Matthew Henry on 2 Kings 4:1-7
Elisha's miracles were for use, not for show; this recorded here was an act of real charity. Such also were the miracles of Christ, not only great wonders, but great favours to those for whom they were wrought. God magnifies his goodness with his power.
I. Elisha readily receives a poor widow's complaint. She was a prophet's widow; to whom therefore should she apply, but to him that was a father to the sons of the prophets, and concerned himself in the welfare of their families? It seems, the prophets had wives as well as the priests, though prophecy went not by entail, as the priesthood did. Marriage is honourable in all, and not inconsistent with the most sacred professions. Now, by the co…
Read the whole note in the consoleJamieson-Fausset-Brown on 2 Kings 4:2
a pot--or cruet of oil. This comprising her whole stock of domestic utensils, he directs her to borrow empty vessels not a few; then, secluding herself with her children, [the widow] was to pour oil from her cruse into the borrowed vessels, and, selling the oil, discharge the debt, and then maintain herself and family with the remainder.
Adam Clarke on 2 Kings 4:2
Save a pot of oil - Oil was used as aliment, for anointing the body after bathing, and to anoint the dead. Some think that this pot of oil was what this widow had kept for her burial: see Mat 26:12.
John Gill on 2 Kings 4:5
So she went from him,.... And did as he advised her, borrowed many empty vessels of her neighbours, having faith in what the prophet had said to her:
and shut the door upon her, and upon her sons; and then went to work as she was directed, with her sons:
who brought the vessels to her; the empty ones she had borrowed: and she poured out; the oil out of her pot into them.
Keil & Delitzsch on 2 Kings 4:1-7
From 2 Kings 4 through 2 Kings 8:6 there follows a series of miracles on the part of Elisha, which both proved this prophet to be the continuer of the work which Elijah had begun, of converting Israel from the service of Baal to the service of the living God, and also manifested the beneficent fruits of the zeal of Elijah for the honour of the Lord of Sabaoth in the midst of the idolatrous generation of his time, partly in the view which we obtain from several of these accounts of the continuance and prosperity of the schools of the prophets, and partly in the attitude of Elisha towards the godly in the land as well as towards Joram the king, the son of the idolatrous Ahab, and in the extens…
