They Shall Eat, and Shall Leave Thereof (2 Kings 4:38-44)

2023-04-21

During a great famine, the prophet Elisha was in Gilgal with the sons of the prophets. The LORD provided for the people through two notable miracles.

First, one of the things served was a pot of stew, in which one of the men put in some unknown gourd from a vine into the pot. It is very bad to take some unknown plant and put it in your food, but times were desperate enough for them to take a chance. It turned out they were poisonous, and they were to throw it all out. But Elisha told them, “Then bring meal. And he cast it into the pot; and he said, Pour out for the people, that they may eat. And there was no harm in the pot” (2 Kings 4:41).

In addition, a man came to Gilgal bringing 20 loaves of bread and ears of corn. These were his firstfruits, which meant these were like a tithe to the LORD, in which people in need could partake (cf. Deuteronomy 26:12). This likely fell out of practice with people in the northern kingdom except those few who followed the LORD.

Elisha told the servant to feed the people which numbered around 100 men. “So he set it before them, and they did eat, and left thereof, according to the word of the LORD” (2 Kings 4:44). The food miraculously went a lot further because of the miracle.

When Jesus came, He fed companies of 5,000 and 4,000 men: “And they that had eaten were about five thousand men, beside women and children” (Matthew 14:21). Our Lord took fewer loaves with a few fishes, and there remained more than what they began with.

When I brake the five loaves among five thousand, how many baskets full of fragments took ye up? They say unto him, Twelve. And when the seven among four thousand, how many baskets full of fragments took ye up? And they said, Seven. (Mark 8:19-20)

The Lord showed Himself superior to the prophet Elisha. He can make very much out of very little. He can take that which is ruined and make it whole again.