which we have no record of Elisha's continued visits to the "great" house, now gladdened by the voice of a child.

Perhaps he no longer, or at least, not so often, passed by; more probably Scripture, after its wont, is silent on that which

is purely personal in the history. But the child had passed through five of the stages which Jewish affection, watching

with special fondness the opening life, has successively marked by no less than nine designations.175 They are so

interesting that we shall here put them down. The yeled ("born," "babe"176) had successively become a yonek, or

suckling, and an olel, who, no longer satisfied with only this nourishment, asks for bread,177 then a gamel, or weaned

one, and next a taph, one who clings to his mother.

And he had passed through this stage also, and was just entering on the stage designated by elem, becoming f irm and

strong. It was the time of harvest, and the child was going out to his father to the reapers, when the hot Eastern sun

struck his head. At his cry of pain the father bade one of the servants carry the child back to his mother. All that long

morning she pressed his aching head to her bosom, till when the mid -day sun shot down its arrows he lay still and dead

in her arms. Not a cry of lament escaped that brave mother to tell them in the house of the terrible desolation that had

swept over it. Her resolve was taken with the rapidity and unfailing certitude that comes of faith. To Elisha, or rather to

Elisha's God! He had given; He could restore the child. In any case she would go with her complaint, not to man, but to

the God of almighty help, and not rest satisfied with anything unless it came directly from Him.

It was quite in accordance with all this, and very significant, that in silence she carried her dead child to the prophet's

chamber, and there laid him on the bed. Here let him rest, as it were, in keeping of the prophet's God, whose promise

had first brought him, till, if ever, the prophet's God would again waken him. And so, like the prophet's widow when

she received the Divine help, she shut the door. For, what had man to do with it? her appeal lay directly to God. But she

must have been a strong as well as a good woman, strong also in faith, when she could so well keep her feelings under

control that her husband had not even suspicion of aught amiss when she preferred the unusual request that one of the

servants and one of the beasts of burden should be sent back from the field, that she might at once resort to the man of

God. For it was neither New Moon nor Sabbath, when, as we are led to infer, the prophet was wont to give religious

instruction, and people gathered around him, and perhaps came to Carmel from a considerable distance.178

With a deprecating "Peace" - as it were, Pray let it be so ­ she waved aside the inquiry of the busy man. And, once her

home behind her, she fully gave herself to what was before her. It was no longer a weak woman on whom the greatest

earthly sorrow had descended, but one strong, resolute, bent on a great purpose, and wholly self-forgetful. As she had

herself, no doubt for speed, seen to the saddling of the ass (v. 24), so she now bade the servant: "drive on,179 go; delay

me not in my riding [hinder me not, keep me not back], unless I bid thee."

The sun must have been declining towards the west, when, after that ride of fifteen or twenty miles, she was nearing

Carmel. From a bluff of the mountain the prophet had been watching the rider speeding in such haste across the plain,

and recognized the Shunammite. Although not Divinely informed, and therefore not Divinely assured of a happy issue,

he must have known that only some great trouble to herself, her husband, or her child, would have brought her on that

afternoon and in such manner. And so he sent Gehazi to meet her with an inquiry meant to reassure her, at least so far

as his own interest and sympathy were concerned. But all the more that she so understood it, would she be neither

detained by Gehazi, nor could she have opened her heart to him. Indeed, to have attempted telling her sorrow or her

need to any man would have been to unfit her, in every sense, for telling it to the prophet. At sight of Elisha the strong

woman for the first time gave way. She had reached the goal, and now in an agony of passion she threw herself at his

feet and laid hold on them, as if in her despair she could not let him go without helping her. It was, as in Jacob's

wrestling with the Angel, the mode of agonizing prayer suited to Old Testament times, when God and His help, and,

indeed, most spiritual realities were presented in a concrete manner. From a spurious zeal for his master's h onor, from

false notions of what became, or did not become - the consequences of his utter want of spiritual insight and sympathy -

Gehazi would have thrust her away. So would the multitude have silenced blind Bartimaeus, and even the disciples sent

away t he importunate Syrophenician woman (Matthew 15:23); and so do we in our mistaken notions of what is

becoming or unbecoming too often hinder souls from personal contact with our LORD. But Elisha would not suffer

Gehazi, for he knew that her soul was in anguish, although as God had not made him to know its cause, he was ignorant

of what its issue would be.

It is this, we feel persuaded, which explains much in the conduct of Elisha - such as his first mission of Gehazi, which

otherwise would seem strange, if not unintelligible. But surely never was Elisha more humbled than on the eve of the

greatest miracle wrought by his hands; never did the poverty of his humanity, as merely an instrument in the hand of