A Shunammite woman receives her son back
Divided Kingdom · Draft · BSB
Content revision: 5f94088e77fc2768 · No editorial review date recorded
Date: Elisha’s ministry · A promised birth and a later bereavement
A woman at Shunem and her husband provide a room for Elisha. He announces that she will have a son. Years later the child dies; she seeks Elisha at Carmel, and he comes, prays and restores the child to life.
The promised birth and the child’s death are separated by time. The woman voices the pain of receiving a promise and then losing her son. Elisha’s prayer and personal involvement matter; Gehazi’s earlier attempt with the staff does not revive the child.
Primary Scripture
4:8 One day Elisha went to Shunem, and a prominent woman who lived there persuaded him to have a meal. So whenever he would pass by, he would stop there to eat.
4:9 Then the woman said to her husband, “Behold, now I know that the one who often comes our way is a holy man of God.
4:10 Please let us make a small room upstairs and put in it a bed, a table, a chair, and a lamp for him. Then when he comes to us, he can stay there.”
4:11 One day Elisha came to visit and went to his upper room to lie down.
4:12 And he said to Gehazi his servant, “Call the Shunammite woman.” And when he had called her, she stood before him,
4:13 and Elisha said to Gehazi, “Now tell her, ‘Look, you have gone to all this trouble for us. What can we do for you? Can we speak on your behalf to the king or the commander of the army?’” “I have a home among my own people,” she replied.
4:14 So he asked, “Then what should be done for her?” “Well, she has no son,” Gehazi replied, “and her husband is old.”
4:15 “Call her,” said Elisha. So Gehazi called her, and she stood in the doorway.
4:16 And Elisha declared, “At this time next year, you will hold a son in your arms.” “No, my lord,” she said. “Do not lie to your maidservant, O man of God.”
4:17 But the woman did conceive, and at that time the next year she gave birth to a son, just as Elisha had told her.
4:18 And the child grew, and one day he went out to his father, who was with the harvesters.
4:19 “My head! My head!” he complained to his father. So his father told a servant, “Carry him to his mother.”
4:20 After the servant had picked him up and carried him to his mother, the boy sat on her lap until noon, and then he died.
4:21 And she went up and laid him on the bed of the man of God. Then she shut the door and went out.
4:22 And the woman called her husband and said, “Please send me one of the servants and one of the donkeys, that I may go quickly to the man of God and return.”
4:23 “Why would you go to him today?” he replied. “It is not a New Moon or a Sabbath.” “Everything is all right,” she said.
4:24 Then she saddled the donkey and told her servant, “Drive onward; do not slow the pace for me unless I tell you.”
4:25 So she set out and went to the man of God at Mount Carmel. When the man of God saw her at a distance, he said to his servant Gehazi, “Look, there is the Shunammite woman.
4:26 Please run out now to meet her and ask, ‘Are you all right? Is your husband all right? Is your child all right?’” And she answered, “Everything is all right.”
4:27 When she reached the man of God at the mountain, she clung to his feet. Gehazi came over to push her away, but the man of God said, “Leave her alone, for her soul is in deep distress, and the LORD has hidden it from me and has not told me.”
4:28 Then she said, “Did I ask you for a son, my lord? Didn’t I say, ‘Do not deceive me?’”
4:29 So Elisha said to Gehazi, “Tie up your garment, take my staff in your hand, and go! If you meet anyone, do not greet him, and if anyone greets you, do not answer him. Then lay my staff on the boy’s face.”
4:30 And the mother of the boy said, “As surely as the LORD lives and as you yourself live, I will not leave you.” So he got up and followed her.
4:31 Gehazi went on ahead of them and laid the staff on the boy’s face, but there was no sound or response. So he went back to meet Elisha and told him, “The boy has not awakened.”
4:32 When Elisha reached the house, there was the boy lying dead on his bed.
4:33 So he went in, closed the door behind the two of them, and prayed to the LORD.
4:34 Then Elisha got on the bed and lay on the boy, mouth to mouth, eye to eye, and hand to hand. As he stretched himself out over him, the boy’s body became warm.
4:35 Elisha turned away and paced back and forth across the room. Then he got on the bed and stretched himself out over the boy again, and the boy sneezed seven times and opened his eyes.
4:36 Elisha summoned Gehazi and said, “Call the Shunammite woman.” So he called her and she came. Then Elisha said, “Pick up your son.”
4:37 She came in, fell at his feet, and bowed to the ground. Then she picked up her son and went out.
Related Scripture
Elijah’s encounter with the widow’s dead son provides an earlier comparison.
Location evidence
Shunem is identified with Sulam. The house, field and meeting place on Carmel are unknown; the Carmel area is shown only as a region.
Event map marker: Identified site; [longitude, latitude] = [35.334306, 32.605633]. This is a teaching marker, not an exact event venue.
Shunem: Identified site. Coordinates [longitude, latitude]: [35.334306, 32.605633]. Classification source: editorial.
OpenBible.info: Shunem (CC BY 4.0)
Mount Carmel region: Approximate region. Coordinates [longitude, latitude]: [35.023333, 32.6725]. Classification source: editorial.
Illustrative regional extent: [[34.93,32.55],[35.13,32.83]]; not a measured confidence interval.
OpenBible.info: geographic context (CC BY 4.0); extent is editorial
OpenBible.info: Shunem (CC BY 4.0)
For the class
What does the woman’s persistence reveal about her grief and her relationship with Elisha?
Interpretation and reuse
Narrative order is a reading arrangement, not a proven chronology. Dates retain their stated uncertainty. An identified locality does not establish the exact venue or prove an event. Region extents and routes are illustrative, not surveyed boundaries or ancient roads. Draft material has not completed editorial review.
Record source: editorial (content/authored/divided-kingdom.json)
Place coordinates from OpenBible.info Bible Geocoding Data, CC BY 4.0.
Teaching stops, summaries and regional extents are original editorial content of this atlas.
Berean Standard Bible (BSB), public domain. https://berean.bible/licensing.htm