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(The view expressed in this blog are my own and should not be taken as inspired in any way.)
2 Kings 4:38–44, “And Elisha came again to Gilgal: and there was a dearth in the land; and the sons of the prophets were sitting before him: and he said unto his servant, Set on the great pot, and seethe pottage for the sons of the prophets. And one went out into the field to gather herbs, and found a wild vine, and gathered thereof wild gourds his lap full, and came and shred them into the pot of pottage: for they knew them not. So they poured out for the men to eat. And it came to pass, as they were eating of the pottage, that they cried out, and said, O thou man of God, there is death in the pot. And they could not eat thereof. But he said, 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. And there came a man from Baalshalisha, and brought the man of God bread of the firstfruits, twenty loaves of barley, and full ears of corn in the husk thereof. And he said, Give unto the people, that they may eat. And his servitor said, What, should I set this before an hundred men? He said again, Give the people, that they may eat: for thus saith the LORD, They shall eat, and shall leave thereof. So he set it before them, and they did eat, and left thereof, according to the word of the LORD.”
As Elisha was the leading prophet in Israel, he took time to travel around the country and establish contacts among the community of people who feared the Lord in that land. There was a famine in the land because the kings of Israel were still worshipping the golden calves that Jeroboam set up after he led the northern tribes away from David’s dynasty and established a new nation. Some of the god fearers in Israel established themselves into training schools so that they could understand the Law of the Lord and teach it to others as well. They lived in communities and, instead of paying large sums of money for their tuition and board they worked together to grow food and support each other. During the famine it was harder to grow their own food so they went out into the countryside and found food that could be pooled together and cooked up as a stew. They collected gourds, wild herbs and other bush foods then started to cook them to make the stew. Someone had collected some poisonous food while and put them in the pot and they quickly realised that the food would make them sick. Perhaps someone had found some poisonous mushrooms. Many of the people had put all the food that they had gathered in the pot but only a few poisonous items meant that everything would have to be thrown away, which was wasteful both in the food collected and the time spent collecting it during a drought. The cooks called out to Elisha and asked him to help them. He took some flour, perhaps ground from wild grain, and poured it into the pot so that the food was safe to eat. A farmer came from a nearby town and brought the firstfruit offerings from his crops and gave them to the prophets as well. There wasn’t enough to feed all the people in need but they set the food out and all those in need were fed that day. This was another miracle from the Lord similar to the time when the Lord Jesus Christ fed the five thousand and the four thousand during His lifetime.
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