Elisha Raises the Shunammite's Son #36

The raising of the Shunammite’s son is one of the most detailed miracle stories about the prophet Elisha. A woman from Shunem, who had shown him steady kindness, receives a son through his promise, only to lose the boy to sudden illness. She goes to find the prophet, and Elisha restores the child to life. The account is in 2 Kings 4.

The Account

A wealthy woman of Shunem repeatedly offers Elisha a meal when he passes through, and she persuades her husband to build a small room on the roof for him, furnished with a bed, table, chair, and lamp (2 Kings 4:8-10). Wanting to reward her, Elisha learns from his servant Gehazi that she has no son and her husband is old. He tells her that at this time next year she will hold a son, and she does (2 Kings 4:11-17).

Some years later the child goes out to his father in the field, cries, “My head, my head!” and is carried home, where he sits on his mother’s lap until noon and dies (2 Kings 4:18-20). She lays him on Elisha’s bed, shuts the door, and sets out to find the prophet at Mount Carmel, answering every question with “It is well” (2 Kings 4:21-26). She grasps Elisha’s feet and refuses to leave without him. Elisha first sends Gehazi ahead with his staff, but the child does not respond (2 Kings 4:29-31).

Elisha arrives, enters the room, shuts the door, and prays to the Lord. He lies on the child, mouth to mouth, eyes to eyes, hands to hands, and the boy’s flesh grows warm. After pacing the house and stretching over him again, the child sneezes seven times and opens his eyes (2 Kings 4:32-35). Elisha calls the mother and says, “Take up thy son.” (2 Kings 4:36).

Setting and Context

The story belongs to a group of narratives about Elisha’s ministry in the northern kingdom of Israel during the ninth century BC. It closely parallels the earlier account of Elijah raising the widow of Zarephath’s son (1 Kings 17:17-24), including the act of stretching out over the child and the mother’s declaration of faith in the prophet. Elisha had asked for a double portion of Elijah’s spirit (2 Kings 2:9), and this scene is one of several that show he inherited his master’s role.

The account has a sequel. Years later Elisha warns the woman to leave for seven years during a famine, and when she returns and appeals to the king for her land, Gehazi happens to be telling the king this very story, and her property is restored (2 Kings 8:1-6).

What It Reveals

The miracle displays the prophet’s role as a channel of God’s life-giving power, and the text is careful to show that the power comes through prayer to the Lord, not from Elisha’s own touch. It also honors hospitality: kindness to a servant of God is rewarded, and the woman’s steady trust in the face of grief is held up as a model. Her repeated phrase, “It is well,” has been read as a confession of faith under pressure.

Christian readers have long seen in the Old Testament raisings a foreshadowing of the raising of Jairus’s daughter, the widow’s son at Nain, and Lazarus in the Gospels, all of which continue the pattern of God’s care for the bereaved.