1. The wife of a man from the company of the prophets cried out to Elisha,
   "Your servant my husband is dead, and you know that he revered the LORD.
   But now his creditor is coming to take my two boys as his slaves."
2. Elisha replied to her, "How can I help you? Tell me, what do you have in your house?"
   "Your servant has nothing there at all," she said, "except a little oil."
3. Elisha said, "Go around and ask all your neighbors for empty jars. Don't ask for just a few.
4. Then go inside and shut the door behind you and your sons.
   Pour oil into all the jars, and as each is filled, put it to one side."
5. She left him and afterward shut the door behind her and her sons. They brought the jars to her and she kept pouring.
6. When all the jars were full, she said to her son, "Bring me another one."
   But he replied, "There is not a jar left." Then the oil stopped flowing.
7. She went and told the man of God, and he said,
   "Go, sell the oil and pay your debts. You and your sons can live on what is left."
8. One day Elisha went to Shunem. And a well-to-do woman was there, who urged him to stay for a meal.
   So whenever he came by, he stopped there to eat.
9. She said to her husband, "I know that this man who often comes our way is a holy man of God.
10. Let's make a small room on the roof and put in it a bed and a table, a chair and a lamp for him.
   Then he can stay there whenever he comes to us."
11. One day when Elisha came, he went up to his room and lay down there.
12. He said to his servant Gehazi, "Call the Shunammite." So he called her, and she stood before him.
13. Elisha said to him, "Tell her, 'You have gone to all this trouble for us.
   Now what can be done for you? Can we speak on your behalf to the king or the commander of the army?'"
   She replied, "I have a home among my own people."
14. "What can be done for her?" Elisha asked. Gehazi said, "Well, she has no son and her husband is old."
15. Then Elisha said, "Call her." So he called her, and she stood in the doorway.
16. "About this time next year," Elisha said, "you will hold a son in your arms."
   "No, my lord," she objected. "Don't mislead your servant, O man of God!"
17. But the woman became pregnant, and the next year about that same time she gave birth to a son,
   just as Elisha had told her.
18. The child grew, and one day he went out to his father, who was with the reapers.
19. "My head! My head!" he said to his father. His father told a servant, "Carry him to his mother."
20. After the servant had lifted him up and carried him to his mother, the boy sat on her lap until noon, and then he died.
21. She went up and laid him on the bed of the man of God, then shut the door and went out.
22. She called her husband and said,
   "Please send me one of the servants and a donkey so I can go to the man of God quickly and return."
23. "Why go to him today?" he asked.
   "It's not the New Moon or the Sabbath." "It's all right," she said.
24. She saddled the donkey and said to her servant, "Lead on; don't slow down for me unless I tell you."
25. So she set out and came to the man of God at Mount Carmel.
   When he saw her in the distance, the man of God said to his servant Gehazi, "Look! There's the Shunammite!
26. Run to meet her and ask her, 'Are you all right? Is your husband all right? Is your child all right?'"
   "Everything is all right," she said.
27. When she reached the man of God at the mountain, she took hold of his feet.
   Gehazi came over to push her away, but the man of God said,
   "Leave her alone! She is in bitter distress, but the LORD has hidden it from me and has not told me why."
28. "Did I ask you for a son, my lord?" she said. "Didn't I tell you, 'Don't raise my hopes'?"
29. Elisha said to Gehazi, "Tuck your cloak into your belt, take my staff in your hand and run.
   If you meet anyone, do not greet him, and if anyone greets you, do not answer. Lay my staff on the boy's face."
30. But the child's mother said,
   "As surely as the LORD lives and as you live, I will not leave you." So he got up and followed her.
31. Gehazi went on ahead and laid the staff on the boy's face, but there was no sound or response.
   So Gehazi went back to meet Elisha and told him, "The boy has not awakened."
32. When Elisha reached the house, there was the boy lying dead on his couch.
33. He went in, shut the door on the two of them and prayed to the LORD.
34. Then he got on the bed and lay upon the boy, mouth to mouth, eyes to eyes, hands to hands.
   As he stretched himself out upon him, the boy's body grew warm.
35. Elisha turned away and walked back and forth in the room and then got on the bed and stretched out upon him once more.
   The boy sneezed seven times and opened his eyes.
36. Elisha summoned Gehazi and said, "Call the Shunammite." And he did. When she came, he said, "Take your son."
37. She came in, fell at his feet and bowed to the ground. Then she took her son and went out.
38. Elisha returned to Gilgal and there was a famine in that region.
   While the company of the prophets was meeting with him, he said to his servant,
   "Put on the large pot and cook some stew for these men."
39. One of them went out into the fields to gather herbs and found a wild vine.
   He gathered some of its gourds and filled the fold of his cloak.
   When he returned, he cut them up into the pot of stew, though no one knew what they were.
40. The stew was poured out for the men, but as they began to eat it, they cried out,
   "O man of God, there is death in the pot!" And they could not eat it.
41. Elisha said, "Get some flour." He put it into the pot and said,
   "Serve it to the people to eat." And there was nothing harmful in the pot.
42. A man came from Baal Shalishah,
   bringing the man of God twenty loaves of barley bread baked from the first ripe grain,
   along with some heads of new grain.
   "Give it to the people to eat," Elisha said.
43. "How can I set this before a hundred men?" his servant asked.
   But Elisha answered, "Give it to the people to eat. For this is what the LORD says:
   'They will eat and have some left over.'"
44. Then he set it before them, and they ate and had some left over, according to the word of the LORD.




엘리사는 엘리야의 후계자로
이스라엘의 선지자의 사역을 감당한다.
하나님은 당신을 떠난 이스라엘을 여전히 사랑하시고
긍휼을 베푸시며 그들에게 말씀하시고 사역하신다.

가장 위대한 선지자 두명의 기사를 보면서
하나님의 섬세하고 확실한 주권을 바라보게된다.
이들은 하나님의 사자이며
그들 스스로가 하나님의 말씀에 복종함으로
이스라엘의 삶에 대한 모범을 보여준다.

엘리사는 4장에서 4가지의 이적을 보여준다.
엘리사에게 한 선지생도의 부인 찾아온다.
아마도 그는 엘리야의 제자로 신실한 사람이었던 것 같다.
그러나 그는 자기의 집을 돌 볼수는 없었던것 같다.
선지생도가 죽고나자 그 집에는 빚만 남았다.
하나님 앞에서는 신실했으나
자기의 집에는 풍복히 할 수 없었던 하나님의 사람들
그 삶의 모습은 예나 지금이나
우리로 하여금 많은 생각을 갖게한다.

그러나 엘리사를 찾아온 여인은
자기의 형편을 선지자에게 말하고
자신의 처지를 돌아보아 줄 것을 부탁한다.
하나님은 그 여인의 부탁을 거절하지 않으신다.
엘리야가 그러했던 것 처럼
엘리사도 이 여인에게 이적을 베풀고 명령한다.

가서
그릇들을 빌어서
문을 닫고 들어가서
그 그릇이 다 찰때까지
기름을 그릇에 붓고
그 기름으로 빚을 갚고 나아가 삶을 유지하라

여인은 그 말씀대로 행한다.
하나님의 입을 빌지 않았음에도
여인은 선지자의 말에 그대로 순종하여

가서
아들들과 함께 그릇을 빌어오고
문을 닫고 그릇들에 기름을 부으며
다하기 가지 섬심 성의것 이 일을 행한다.

그들은 그 순종을 통하여
하나님의 금휼과 사랑을 체험한다.

뒤이어 나오는 수넴 여인은
조금더 특별하다.
그는 부유하고 좋은 여인이었다.
남편과 함께 선지자를 지극으로 섬기기를 마지 않는다.
자기의 재산과 열심을 다해
선지자를 접대하며 나아가 강권하여
그에게 공궤하기를 쉬지 않는다.
그리고 선물을 줄것이라 말하는 그에게
자신의 것이 족하다 대답하는 신실함도 보여준다.

하나님은 그녀에게
오히려 부족한 아들을 허락하시고
또 그 아들을 인해 기쁨을 누리게 하신다.

그러나 하나님은 그 아들이 죽음으로
그 여인의 슬픔을 허락하신다.
하지만 여인은 자신의 믿음으로
그 슬픔을 가지고
선지자를 강권할 만큼 또한 적극적이고 담대하다.

여인의 행위를 기도로 본다면
얼마나 우리게 보범이 되는지

그녀는 자기가 할 수 있는 봉사와 헌신을 하며
자기에게 그 봉사로 주어지는 이득을 바라지 않았다.
그리고 자신의 슬픔을 인해 간청할 대에
담대하고 확실한 마음을 보인다.
자기가 가진 온 정성과 슬픔을 가지고 선지자에게 나아가며
그로 인하여 아들을 살리시는 하나님의 이적을 체험한다.

여인은 아들을 얻었고 또 살릴 수 있었다.
이스라엘 여인인 수넴 여인은
자기의 모습을 통하여
이스라엘의 삶의 전형을 보여주고 있는 것이다.
하나님의 백성으로 살아가는 이스라엘은
하나님의 말씀에 순종하며 섬기기를
자기의 육신의 안위를 바라보고 하는 것이 아니라
순수하게 하나님의 사람을 섬기듯 하여야 하며
나아가 그 슬픔으로 간구할 때에는
담대하게 확신을 가지고 나아가야할 것을 보여주는 것이다.

하나님은 그런 이들에게 당신의 이적을 보여주시며
당신의 살아계심을 드러내시는 것이다.