As these chapters unfold before our eyes, we are able to notice in them the contrast between the days of Elijah and those of Elisha. Elijah still acknowledges Israel and its king, though it be to pronounce judgment upon them. For Elisha the king no longer exists: “I would not look toward thee nor see thee” (2 Kings 3:1414And Elisha said, As the Lord of hosts liveth, before whom I stand, surely, were it not that I regard the presence of Jehoshaphat the king of Judah, I would not look toward thee, nor see thee. (2 Kings 3:14)); the people is rejected; and Judah alone still counts for something in the eyes of the prophet. But while in the days of Elijah the faithful remnant was hidden and Jehovah alone could distinguish the seven thousand men who had not bowed the knee to Baal, in the days of Elisha this remnant comes into the full light. It is to this remnant that the prophet addresses himself; the sons of the prophets are the special object of his ministry. This ministry no doubt reaches beyond them, as we shall see, but their role is quite the preponderant one, and this gives its own particular stamp to the typical character of this man of God.
What an environment this is in which he carries on his activities! The sons of prophets are without resources in Israel; they are hungry, they are thirsty, their destitution is absolute. The first seven verses of our chapter bring this condition into relief in a singular way. The prophet’s wife is without any outward support whatever; the head of the family has been taken away through death; a heartless creditor wants to seize her two sons to make them his slaves. The widow has nothing with which to ransom them from his hand, nothing except a little oil in the house, and the oil, the symbol of spiritual power, is very nearly gone. Can this feeble resource suffice? It will be the same in the last days before the deliverance of the remnant. An apostate people surrounds them; the Antichrist makes them feel his cruel yoke and intends to enslave them, but Jehovah has divine resources for them; they learn to cry out to him: “Thou knowest that thy servant feared Jehovah.” Does one not hear here the language of uprightness so often expressed in the Psalms? Christ is absent. Jehovah no longer dwells in the midst of His people, but His Spirit is present in a double measure with the prophet.
Elisha says to the widow, “What shall I do for thee?” This poor woman whose cry has reached the right place becomes the object of tender solicitude. But first of all she needs to confess to the prophet what resources she has at her disposal: “Thy handmaid has not anything at all in the house but a pot of oil.” The word means: just the quantity of oil necessary to anoint oneself. Nothing to pay off her debts, nothing to clear herself, nothing but a very little measure of spiritual power. “Go,” says the prophet, “borrow for thyself vessels abroad from all thy neighbors, empty vessels; let it not be few; and go in, and shut the door upon thee and upon thy sons, and pour out into all those vessels, and set aside what is full.” There is fullness of spiritual resources in Elisha; but empty vessels are needed; the poor widow cannot gather too many. She is to borrow them from all her neighbors, bring them into the house from outside, and then, having collected them together, shut the door upon herself. It is an intimate scene in which the apostate nation is in no wise called upon to take part. Three times in this chapter (2 Kings 4:4,21,334And when thou art come in, thou shalt shut the door upon thee and upon thy sons, and shalt pour out into all those vessels, and thou shalt set aside that which is full. (2 Kings 4:4)
21And she went up, and laid him on the bed of the man of God, and shut the door upon him, and went out. (2 Kings 4:21)
33He went in therefore, and shut the door upon them twain, and prayed unto the Lord. (2 Kings 4:33)) the door is shut, clearly indicating that these scenes have nothing to do with a public testimony such as that of Elisha’s great predecessor.
Empty vessels are needed; to be filled with anointing oil it is necessary to be emptied of self. The people of Jericho needed a new cruse and salt; they needed a new nature, sanctified for God, that the curse might be turned away from their city; the daughter of the prophets and her children, already in possession of a little oil, did not have to procure new vessels in order to obtain a full measure. God avails Himself of the spiritual resources that He finds among His own, however little they may be. It was the same with the disciples when the loaves were multiplied. They told the Lord: “We have not here save five loaves and two fishes.” Jesus told them: “Bring them here to me”; then, having blessed and broken the loaves, He gave them to the disciples who distributed them to the crowds, thus availing Himself of that which they had in order to bless five thousand men by their means.
Here the blessing does not stop until there are no more vessels to fill. A fixed number of vessels receive it, just as later, at the time of the end, 144,000 will be sealed in Israel, but for each one the measure is full. Just as the first disciples at Pentecost “were all filled with the Holy Spirit” (Acts 2:44And they were all filled with the Holy Ghost, and began to speak with other tongues, as the Spirit gave them utterance. (Acts 2:4)), so it will be for the remnant at the time of the latter rain according to Joel’s prophecy.
The vessels filled, the oil must be sold —the blessing imparted spreads. Such will be the testimony of the remnant in the last days. Many will share in the spiritual benefits and will themselves become possessors of these blessings. The wise among the people, the bearers of the Word, these sons of the prophets, shall teach righteousness to the many (Dan. 11:33; 12:333And they that understand among the people shall instruct many: yet they shall fall by the sword, and by flame, by captivity, and by spoil, many days. (Daniel 11:33)
3And they that be wise shall shine as the brightness of the firmament; and they that turn many to righteousness as the stars for ever and ever. (Daniel 12:3)). So the prophetic family lives and is sustained with the spiritual anointing which is multiplied for them and which fills their hearts with joy, and the supply is abundant for others.
This miracle reminds us of that of the widow of Zarephath; only in the latter case, it is the blessing brought to the nations by the Messiah; here it is the blessing brought to the remnant of Israel by the outpouring of the Spirit of Christ.
Let us not miss repeating here that all these miracles of Elisha call upon faith. The prophet’s widow must gather together the vessels, being persuaded of things she did not yet see, just as in the previous chapter it was necessary to prepare the ditches before refreshing water could come to fill them.