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Commentary Index | Return to PrayerRequest.comKeil and Delitzsch Commentary - 2 King 4:38 - 4:38
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Elisha Makes Uneatable Food Wholesome. - 2Ki 4:38. When Elisha had returned to Gilgal, the seat of a school of the prophets (see at 2Ki 2:1), i.e., had come thither once more on his yearly circuit, during the famine which prevailed in the land (see at 2Ki 8:1), and the prophets' scholars sat before him (the teacher and master), he directed his servant (i.e., probably not Gehazi, but the pupil who waited upon him) to put the large pot to the fire and boil a dish for the pupils of the prophets. שָׁפַט answers to the German beisetzen, which is used for placing a vessel upon the fire (cf. Eze 24:3).
2Ki 4:39
One (of these pupils) then went to the field to gather vegetables (אֹרֹת, olera: for the different explanations of this word see Celsii Hierobot. i. 459ff., and Ges. Thes. p. 56), and found שָׂדֶה גֶּפֶן, i.e., not wild vines, but wild creepers (Luther), field-creepers resembling vines; and having gathered his lap full of wild cucumbers, took them home and cut them into the vegetable pot. because they did not know them. פַּקֻּעֹת is rendered in the ancient versions colocynths (lxx πολυπὴ ἀγρία, i.e., according to Suid., Colocynthis), whereas Gesenius (Thes. p. 1122), Winer, and others, follow Celsius (l.c. i. 393ff.), have decided in favour of wild cucumbers, a fruit resembling an acorn, or, according to Oken, a green fleshy fruit of almost a finger's length and an inch thick, which crack with a loud noise, when quite ripe, and very gentle pressure, spirting out both juice and seeds, and have a very bitter taste. The reason for this decision is, that the peculiarity mentioned answers to the etymon פָּקַע, to split, in Syr. and Chald. to crack. Nevertheless the rendering given by the old translators is apparently the more correct of the two; for the colocynths also belong to the genus of the cucumbers, creep upon the ground, and are a round yellow fruit of the size of a large orange, and moreover are extremely bitter, producing colic, and affecting the nerves. The form of this fruit is far more suitable for oval architectural ornaments (פְּקָעִים, 1Ki 6:18; 1Ki 7:24) than that of the wild cucumber.
2Ki 4:40
The extremely bitter flavour of the fruit so alarmed the pupils of the prophets when they began to eat of the dish, that they cried out, “Death in the pot,” and therefore thought the fruit was poison. If eaten in any large quantity, colocynths might really produce death: vid., Dioscorid. iv. 175 (178).
2Ki 4:41
Elisha then had some meal brought and poured it into the pot, after which the people were able to eat of the dish, and there was no longer anything injurious in the pot. וּקְחוּ, then take, וּ denoting sequence in thought (vid., Ewald, §348, a.). The meal might somewhat modify the bitterness and injurious qualities of the vegetable, but could not take them entirely away; the author of the Exegetical Handbook therefore endeavours to get rid of the miracle, by observing that Elisha may have added something else. The meal, the most wholesome food of man, was only the earthly substratum for the working of the Spirit, which proceeded from Elisha, and made the noxious food perfectly wholesome.