The Shunamite Woman

2 Kings 4:8-37


The first thing we learn about this woman is that the Lord called her GREAT. He doesn't even give her name, just calls her great. She must have really caught the Lords attention in order for him to call her great.

Why did the Lord call her great? Well, first of all she appreciated of the man of God, Elisha. Every time Elisha would pass by her house, the Bible says that she constrained him to eat bread. Now I sort of had a good idea of what the word constrained meant, but I looked it up in the dictionary anyway. Here’s the dictionary definition of the word constrain. It means: to strain, to press, to argue, to exert force, to compel or force, to argue with irresistible power, or with the power sufficient to produce an effect. What a woman!! She wanted to take great care of the Man of God. Every time Elisha passed by, he knew he’d better turn from his journey into the woman’s house and let her feed him, or he’d have a fight on his hands. Ha.

The woman even wanted her husband to add on a small room to their house for Elisha to sleep in. That's where the word prophet chamber came from. She wanted the prophet completely taken care of. Not only that, this woman had some spiritual wisdom. In 2 Kings 4:9-10 she said to her husband, “I perceive that this is an holy man of God, which passeth by us continually. Let us make a little chamber I pray thee for him, and let us set for him there a bed, and a table, and a stool, and a candlestick: and it shall be, when he cometh to us that he shall turn in thither.”
She was in tune spiritually, and she had some spiritual wisdom. Let’s take each of the items that she wanted her husband to put into the prophet’s chamber, and apply them spiritually to our own lives.

In his room, she wanted:

A bed- (for resting)
A child of God needs rest. The Devil is a roaring lion seeking whom he may devour. A lion will always run after the weakest. Do you know what a lion does when he sees a herd of animals in the wild? He crouches in tall grass where he cannot be seen, and then he studies the herd. He watches ever so closely to see if there are any sick, weak, hurt, or young ones in the herd. He waits for just the right time, then he pounces on them. He chomps down with his mighty teeth, and he rips, and devours, and destroys the helpless creature. He doesn’t waste his time on the strong and mighty in the herd, he always goes for the weakest. If a child of God doesn’t get proper rest, he becomes tired and weak, and sometimes may even get sick because of lack of rest. Jesus said if you come to him, he’ll give you rest. When I don't get proper physical rest, my Bible reading and my prayer time grows weaker, and weaker. That’s just what the devil wants, it’s what he’s been waiting for, and he has a hay day devouring anyone to shreds. A child of God needs proper rest.

A table- (for eating)
Eating is for strength. A child of God needs proper nourishment. We will become weak if we don't eat right. Spiritually speaking, we will grow weak if we do not feast on God's word daily. What would happen if we just stopped eating all together? We would eventually die. Well, if we stop taking in God's word, we will die spiritually as well.

A stool- (for praying)
A child needs to communicate with his Father. Right? So a child of God needs to communicate with God the Father. Where do you think Elisha got his wisdom and the ability to do all those miracles? He received wisdom and the ability to do miracles by communicating with God. We may not be able to perform miracles physically on the outside like Elisha, but if we stay close to God, we will be able to perform miracles in people’s lives on the inside.

A candlestick- (for reading God's word.)
Man cannot live by bread alone, but by every word that procedeth out of the mouth of God. We just can't live without God's word. We need God to give us light so we can understand what we are reading. We need that candlelight. We need God to light up those precious pages so we can see more clearly and understand what we are reading.

Here are some more good things we can learn from the Great woman of Shunam. She thought of others before herself, and she was very humble. Elisha asked if she wanted him to say good things about her to the king, or if she wanted him to speak highly of her to the captain of the host so that she could be recognized. Boy, what an honor. How many of us would have taken him up on that?? But she was humble. Her answer was, "I dwell among my own people.”

We as Christians should dwell with our own people. We don't need to be great or spoken highly of in the sight of the world. We don't need to be recognized by the president of the United States of America. We just simply need to be recognized by God, and dwell humbly with our own brothers and sisters.

Even though she didn’t ask for anything, the prophet Elisha wanted to do something for her because she had been so good to him. If you are reading the passage in the Bible that goes along with this story, Notice that Elisha’s servant, Gehazi, is the one who gave Elisha a good idea of what the woman would want. He told Elisha that the woman had no son, and that her husband was old.

How many of us would have asked for something great, if given the chance? Yet this woman asked for nothing. So Elisha called the woman to him, and told the woman that she would have a son. At first she didn’t believe him. But God always sticks to his promises though, doesn’t he? She did have a son just as Elisha said. The baby grew strong and healthy. The woman and her husband were so grateful to finally have a son.

When her son became old enough, he went out to work with his Father in the fields. The Bible doesn’t tell us how old the boy was, but it does say that he was just a lad, and yet still small enough to sit on mommy’s knee. So my guess is that the boy was maybe around the ages of 5 to 7. After working in the field a while with his father, the boy began to complain about his head hurting. His Father told one of the men working with him to carry the boy back home to his mother.

The Bible says in chapter four, verse twenty, the woman of Shunam sat and held her sick child on her knees till he died. The woman of Shunam was a good mother. There are some mothers that do not care properly for their babies when they are sick. The woman of Shunam is a great example of how a mother should be. My mother was like the woman of Shunam when it came to her sick children. But now that I think of it, my mother was like that when it came to any sick child. If she had her way, she’d rather sit and hold a sick child all day long than do anything else.
My mother was just like the Shunamite woman in other ways as well. Most of the single Bible school students knew where to go when they needed a good southern, home cooked meal. Mother loved cooking for them all. They would come up to Mom at church and ask if they could come over and eat. Some of them didn’t even ask, they just popped in right about supper time. Mom didn’t care, she fed them all.

My Mother also went straight to God with her troubles. I never heard her go to another person with a problem that she had. Oh, snd let me tell you, she had a lot of them. But you see, they were the troubles that were visible to me. I’m sure she had so many more, but she carried them to God. She never complained to her children. What a blessed, blessed mother she was. The Bible says in Proverbs 31:28, “Her children arise up and call her blessed.” So I just can’t help but write about her when I get the urge. It’s a natural thing. I just have to arise up and call her blessed, and I do every day.

And guess what I just did? I ran ahead of myself. That was the next lesson that we were going to learn about this great woman. She knew where to go when trouble hit her life. She didn't waste any time getting to Elisha. We don't need to waste time getting to God when trouble hits our lives as well. It’s obvious in the Bible that she didn't even tell her husband about her son being dead. She was calm, and she carried her complaint straight to the one who could help her. A lot of times we just waste time talking about our troubles to others when we should just run with it to God. She also didn't want to trouble her husband about it, or upset him until after she had gone to Elisha. Her husband didn’t even understand why she was taking off so quick to find Elisha. He said, in chapter four, verse twenty-three, “ Honey, Why are you going to see Elisha today, it’s not new moon, nor the Sabbath?”

And she answered him in the same verse and said, “Don’t you worry dear, It shall be well.” She told the servant who was leading the donkey for her, to go forward, and not to even slow down unless she told him too.

We need to run to God, and not take our time getting there either. It's so wonderful that we can go directly to God about our troubles. We don't have to go through another man or a priest. We have access to the throne of grace anytime. Praise God.

When Elisha saw her coming from afar off, he sent his servant to ask her if all was well. When Gehazi met up with her, she told him that all was well. She kept it all inside her heart until she got to the man of God. Why didn’t she say something to Gehazi, you might ask.. Well, it would have slowed her down. She didn’t want to waste time telling her troubles to a man that couldn’t help her anyway. She needed to talk to the man of God herself. When she got to Elisha, she fell down, and grabbed him at his feet.

Sometimes we just need to grab God at his feet and just hold on, and let out all of our troubles, cares and worries to him. We need to be honest, and straightforward with God, like the woman of Shunam was with Elisha. She said to Elisha, " didn't I desire a son, and didn't I tell you not to deceive me about it?!!.".

Elisha told Gehazi to run ahead of him and place the staff upon the childs face. Do you know that The Great Woman of Shunam wouldn’t even leave Elisha. She could have left with Elisha's servant, and ran to see if the servant could heal her son, but she didn't want to leave the man of God. She knew where the real source of God's power was. We need to trust God alone to handle our problems and not man. The Great woman of Shunam said in verse thirty, "As the Lord liveth, and as thy soul liveth, I will not leave thee."

When Elisha got to her house, he went into the room where the child lay dead, and he closed the door behind him. Before Elisha did anything else, he prayed to God first of all. Then the Bible says in verse 34 and 35, that Elisha lay upon the child, and put his mouth upon the child’s mouth, and his eyes upon the child’s eyes, and his hands upon the child’s hands. Then the child’s flesh became warm. Elisha walked around for a bit, then laid upon the child a second time. The child then sneezed seven times, and opened his eyes.

You know, that sure is a funny way to bring someone back to life, huh? But you know, sometimes the Lord uses stuff like this to confound the wise. What people don’t understand in the Bible, they want to skip over. I think there is a reason behind everything the Lord does. I believe that every word in the King James Bible has a meaning, and when I don’t understand it, that means I’m the one who is ignorant of what God is saying. I believe that the reason Elisha touched the boys mouth, eyes, and hands is because, if you think about it, those are the most important parts of our body the Lord can use for himself. With our mouth, our eyes, and our hands we can do the most for Jesus Christ. We can use our eyes to read God’s word, and study the scriptures so that we can help others. We can use our mouth to speak for God and lead souls to him. We can use our hands to help others, and be a blessing to others. For instance, we can help with extra chores around the house when Mom doesn’t feel good, or we can help out an old person by cleaning their house or mowing their lawn. Just because you are young does not mean you are limited when it comes to doing things for God. The Lord will use your hands, your mouth and your eyes the most for his glory.

Not only will God use your mouth, your eyes, and your hands, but the devil will use them too if you turn them over to him. Just like these tools are the most important tools for God to use, they are the most important tools that the devil will use as well. Those three tools, your mouth, your eyes, and your hands, are the tools the devil will use to get you to sin against God the most. And let me tell you, the devil can do some mighty powerful damage with those tools. He will do damage that can last for eternity, and maybe even send souls to hell. While we are young, we need to hand over those three tools to God before the devil gets a hold of them. That’s why I believe Elisha touched the boy’s mouth, eyes, and hands.

Also before the boy opened his eyes, he sneezed 7 times. Why seven times, I wonder? The Lord could have shortened the passage up, and said, “ The body of the child became warm, and he opened his eyes.” You know, there is a reason why the Lord put in his word,” seven times.” The Lord doesn’t waste words. I believe there is an explanation for every word in the Bible. Do you think it was because the boy was seven years old? Maybe that’s true, and maybe it’s not, but whether it is or isn’t, I know one thing for sure, every word that God put into the King James Bible was put there for a purpose. The number seven has always been a very important number to God. The number of days for quarantine in the old testament was seven. Elisha told Naaman to go and wash his self seven times in the Jordan River, 2 Kings 5:14. In Joshua 6:6 there were seven priest, and seven trumpets. The youngest King was Joash, and he was crowned at seven years old, 2 Chron. 24:1. There were seven maidens given to Esther at the time of her purification, Esther 2:9. The Word of God was purified seven times, Psalms 12:6. David said in the Psalms, “Seven times do I praise thee,” Psalms 119:164. There are seven things the Lord hates in Proverbs 6:16. There were seven loaves in Matthew 15:36. And after the Lord Jesus fed the multitude, they took up seven baskets full of leftovers. There are seven churches in Revelation 1. There are seven spirits of God, Revelation 4:5. There are seven seals in Revelation 5:5, and there are seven angles with seven trumpets in Revelation 8:6.

In closing, one last thing we can learn from the Great Woman of Shunam is, the Bible says in verse thirty seven that she came into the room, and fell down at Elisha’s feet, and bowed herself to the ground. She gave God glory, and thanks, before she even picked up her child. We should always give credit where credit is due. I believe it went exactly in the order God recorded it. How many women would have run past Elisha and picked up their child and hugged it first. How many women would have wanted to run over to their child just to touch him, to see if he was really alive? Not the Great Woman of Shunam, she gave God the glory first, and then the Bible says she took up her child. That’s what we should do when God almighty answers our prayers. We should never forget to thank him first of all. What a great woman this Shunamite was.