Elisha and the Shunammite

The account of the interactions between Elisha and the Shunammite woman (2 Kings 4) includes several episodes, but it is a unified narrative, arranged as a modified chiasm:

A. Shunammite woman prepares an upper room for Elisha, 4:8-11.

B. Elisha promises the woman a son, 4:12-17 (“Call this Shunammite,” v 12).

C. The son dies, 4:18-21.

D. The Shunammite’s husband fails to help, 4:22-23.

E. The Shunammite finds and worships Elisha, 4:24-28.

D’. Gehazi fails to help, 4:29-31.

A’. Elisha raises the boy in the upper room, 4:32-35.

B’. Elisha presents the revived boy to his mother and she worships, 4:36-37 (“Call this Shunammite,” v 36).

There’s a great deal going on here: The “upper room” is a small temple, and the bed serves as an altar where sons die and are reborn. Elisha is the bearer of the divine presence. The boy’s death and resurrection is a Passover. The indifference of the husband and ineffectiveness of Gehazi say something about the impotence of Israel’s leaders in caring for Mother Zion and her children (illustrated in the following chapter).

At the center of the text, though, the Shunammite bows at the feet of Elisha and offers her complaint and her need. Elisha responds, and the woman answers with another act of homage, again bowing “at his feet” (v. 37). Worship and prayer are the means for the child’s resurrection; worship is the mother’s response to her son’s resurrection. Worship is means; worship is the goal.