For the true story, see 2 Kings 4:8-37.
Sometimes it’s a little creepy being the servant of one of God’s prophets. Sometimes he knows what I am thinking, or can tell what I’m doing without needing to see it, but despite that, I
wouldn’t leave him for anything. I’m sure he needs my help, and I have to admit it – I need his help too.
Years ago, I had a chance to leave him and ‘better myself’. Yes, I, Gehazi, the servant, could have set myself up as a wealthy, independent, landowner. I could have had servants of my own: menservants and maidservants, and later maybe, servants born in my house. It would have been Gehazi building a household of his own – but I’ll get to that
later.
You’ve probably never been a servant, so you wouldn’t know what it’s like. You’ve probably never seen my master, Elisha, either – though he is very famous, so maybe you have met him sometime: he’s almost as famous as Elijah! In fact, he is known for doing almost twice as many miracles as that mighty hero ever did. But he doesn’t look for fame – or money.
I started working for Elisha when I was very young. I must have been one of the
luckiest teenagers in all of Israel, but my mother didn’t think so at the time, and I suppose I didn’t either for quite a while. You see, I came from a very poor family, and my mother never got over having to sell me as a servant. However, the sale earned my family enough money for them to be able to survive the drought, and it was a pretty bad drought – not as bad as the three-and-a-half year drought in Elijah’s time,[1] nor the devastating seven year drought that came just a few
years after I began to work for Elisha,[2] but bad enough that many died. My family didn’t, thanks to the generous price Elisha paid for me.
So I swapped from working on our farm to working for Elisha. It took a while to get used to the idea of working indoors most of the time, though! It’s not that we don’t travel a lot too, but it was nothing like the work of ploughing and reaping and other jobs I was used to doing on the farm.
When I started
working for Elisha, I had no idea what a prophet would be like. People are often rather superstitious about prophets, but I suppose I just expected that he would be much the same as any other man – only with a different sort of job from what I was used to.
However, it didn’t take long for me to realise that he really was genuinely different from other people in a few ways. Now I suppose the fact that he was almost completely bald was one difference from most other men,
but that’s not the sort of difference I mean. The important differences were all to do with his attitudes.
The biggest difference was that it was never possible to talk to him for very long without talking about Yahweh, our God. I guess it’s a bit like me with Elisha: I am his servant, so he is never far from either my mind or my words. Well, Elisha is like that about God. If I meet people at the market, or on the road, and they want me to do something, I
always have to take my master’s wishes into account first – I can’t just do what I want, or even what they want. And Elisha is genuinely like that with God.
Elisha works hard for God and he expects me to do the same. He also likes to help his fellow man and just occasionally he meets a person who can almost outdo him in that! There’s a rich woman who lives in Shunem, and our involvement with her and her husband started because she was trying to help my
master. At the time, we were passing through Shunem fairly often because Elisha travels around Israel in a circuit, visiting several towns and villages, just like Samuel the prophet used to do, so many years ago.[3] Now when I describe it as a circuit, it all sounds very simple – regular and organised – but a lot of the time, it wasn’t quite so easy. Wherever we were, we would get messages from all sorts of places: those we were visiting next would ask if we could come sooner
because there were problems that needed Elisha’s wisdom to solve; the places we had just left would ask for us to come back so that Elisha could spell out one more detail of some judgement he had given; and still others would beg us to come to every possible place in Israel because Elisha was needed urgently.
One way or another, all of those requests meant that we were passing through Shunem quite often, and after a while this rich woman noticed and started to serve
Elisha meals whenever he passed by. She even told him that if he was ever going past, at any time of day or night, we were to stop and enjoy her hospitality. Her husband is a generous man too, but it was clearly his wife who wanted to help in this way. It made the incessant travelling a little easier to bear, and may also have made Elisha a little more willing to travel in that area.
Then she upped the ante and suggested to her husband that they could build a
small room on the roof for Elisha to stay in whenever we passed by. Now what is it that makes some people choose to be so generous? Certainly, she had the money to be able to afford her generosity, but there were many other rich people in the area, and none of them made the offer. Why was generosity so important to her, but not to others? There were only ever a few people in all the places where we travelled who welcomed us into their homes repeatedly, and of them all she
was the most determined to welcome us – and all because Elisha was a man of God.
Our God has told us that he likes generosity, so it was very satisfying when he rewarded her with a wonderful blessing.
After quite a few visits where Elisha had stayed in the special room, he called her into the room during one visit and asked her how she would like to be repaid for her generosity. She replied, very simply and touchingly, that she was content with what she
had. Who ever heard of anyone – let alone a rich person! – who was content with what they have? That was when I had a brainwave – I could tell just what she would like to have. So when she had left the room and we were discussing what we could do to help her, I pointed out to Elisha that she had no child. He connected the dots and immediately sent me to call her back into the room. As soon as he told her that she would have a child in about a year, it became very
clear that this was the strongest desire she had in life; that her barrenness was her heaviest burden.
It was truly delightful to have been the instrument whereby God’s special blessing could be given to a woman who had given so much to us. Her son was born the next year, just as Elisha had said, and the woman positively blossomed. She had always been a generous host, but after that, she was almost overwhelming in her gratitude.
I can’t say it was a lesson
I didn’t already know, but it reinforced what I had seen before: God blesses people who are generous to others. They don’t always become very rich or specially healthy or anything like that, but they are always blessed in one way or another.
So this woman seemed to float through life on a sea of happiness for a few years, but one day her happiness was torn apart, and her faith severely tested too. It was also a complete shock to my master and me.
We were
staying on Mount Carmel at the time, and the first thing I knew about it was when Elisha suddenly said, “Look, there is the Shunammite.” He thought for a few moments and then turned and said to me, “Run at once to meet her and say to her, ‘Is all well with you? Is all well with your husband? Is all well with the child?’ ”
I had been washing my master’s clothes, but I quickly dropped them and ran out to meet her. My master has amazing eyesight, and she was still right down in the
Valley of Jezreel as I ran down the hill to meet her. She was riding on a donkey that was being led by a fit-looking young servant who was urging it to hurry. Clearly there was something important on her mind.
When I asked how things were going for her family and herself, she answered quietly, “All is well.”
All I can say is that she didn’t look as if all was well! However, it obviously wasn’t me she wanted to talk to, so I led her up the
mountain to where Elisha was waiting. Both the fit young man and the donkey were looking rather tired by the time we reached Elisha – it’s not a short distance from Shunem to Mount Carmel.[4] All the way, she was obviously struggling inside, finding it hard not to collapse and weep, but absolutely determined to see Elisha.
When we arrived, she quickly climbed off the donkey, ran to my master, fell at his feet and grabbed at him.
Well, my master is a famous
prophet, and we get some strange behaviour from women at times – young ones wanting to marry him and old ones wanting to mother him – but I didn’t expect anything like that from the Shunammite! She had always been so sensible and serious. I suppose I was too hasty as I went to push her away, and Elisha quickly told me to be gentle with her. He said that she was obviously upset and that something terrible must have happened that God hadn’t told him about. As usual, he was
right. She deserved care from me, not criticism. I’m afraid that I’m a slow learner: quick to act and a bit slow to think. I try to learn, but it’s hard. Without Elisha guiding me, I don’t know where I would be.
With just a few words she showed what the problem was.
“Did I ask my lord for a son?” she asked. “Did I not say, ‘Do not deceive me?’”
Without waiting to hear any more, Elisha recognised that something terrible had
happened to her son, and ordered me urgently, “Tie up your garment and take my staff in your hand and go. If you meet anyone, do not greet him, and if anyone greets you, do not reply. And lay my staff on the face of the child.”
I didn’t even stop to pack anything or take any money – I just ran out of the door carrying Elisha’s staff. Everything was urgency that day, and I knew that I had a long journey in front of me: first down the mountain and then a gradual climb the rest
of the way as I made my way up the valley of Jezreel towards Shunem.
I met several people on the way, and, oh! it was hard. But I pursed my lips and hurried on. Some of them even greeted me, but I just ran past them all in silence – except for my gasping breath. Never before had I just ignored people like that, and I hope I never have to again. Maybe that was why Elisha gave those instructions. I could have spent hours on the road exchanging news, as I
normally do – particularly with the big bag of news I was carrying in my mind that day!
Hour after hour I hurried on, with no idea what I would find when I arrived. I outran both the donkey and that fit young man, but I was close to exhaustion when I finally stumbled up the road towards the Shunammite’s house.
[to be continued...]
Notes
[1] Luke 4:25; James 5:17-18 (see also 1 Kings 17:1; 18:1, 41-45)
[2] 2 Kings 8:1
[3] 1 Samuel 7:16
[4] The distance from Shunem to Mount Carmel is about 35 km (22 miles).
