Now the wife of one of the sons of the prophets cried out to Elisha, “Your servant, my husband, is dead, and you know that your servant feared the LORD. And now his creditor is coming to take my two children as his slaves!”Now a certain woman of the wives of the sons of the prophets cried out to Elisha, saying, “Your servant my husband is dead. You know that your servant feared Yahweh. Now the creditor has come to take for himself my two children to be slaves.”Now there cried a certain woman of the wives of the sons of the prophets unto Elisha, saying, Thy servant my husband is dead; and thou knowest that thy servant did fear the Lord: and the creditor is come to take unto him my two sons to be bondmen.Now there cried a certain woman of the wives of the sons of the prophets unto Elisha, saying, Thy servant my husband is dead; and thou knowest that thy servant did fear Jehovah: and the creditor is come to take unto him my two children to be bondmen.
4 sermons cite this verse
And I'm going to start at verse 1, 2 Kings 4, beginning at verse 1. A certain woman of the wives of the sons of the prophets cried out to Elisha, saying, Your servant, my husband, is dead, and you know that your servant feared the Lord, and the creditor is coming to take my two sons to be his slaves. So Elisha said to her, what shall I do for you? Tell me, what do you have in the house? And she said, your maidservant has nothing in the house but a jar of oil. Then he said, go. bless you I was wondering why people was clapping I was reading the scriptures I thought I was so anointed that there was an anointing in the reading So Elisha said to her, what shall I do for you? Tell me, what do you have in the house? And she said, your maidservant has nothing in the house but a jar of oil. Then he said, go, borrow vessels from everywhere, from all your neighbors, empty vessels. …
… In Jesus' name I pray, amen. So in 2 Kings chapter four, starting in verse one, it says, the wife of a man from the company of the prophets cried out to Elisha, your servant, my husband is dead and you know that he revered the Lord, but now his creditor is coming to take my two boys as his slaves. This woman is a widow, but she's not just a widow that's grieving, she's panicking because the creditors are coming. And in this culture, you didn't just file for bankruptcy, you didn't just restructure your debt, you didn't just risk losing your house, they could actually come and take your kids. And they could sell them as slaves and use that money to pay off your debts. So she is absolutely desperate. She just lost her husband, and now she's facing the possibility of losing her boys, her heart, her future. And so she reaches out to the prophet Elisha. Now in the Old Testament, prophets were God's spokespersons. …
… She feels like she has nothing left. And we see her story in 2 Kings 4, verse one, that says, one day the widow of a member of the group of prophets came to Elisha and cried out, my husband who served you is dead. And you know how he feared the Lord, but now a creditor has come threatening to take my two sons as slaves. Here we have a widow who's now a single mom. We don't know her name. Her husband has died, and he's not some random guy. He was from the company of prophets, which would have been young men that studied under Elisha. They were kind of like seminary students who were learning to become prophets, and she says, this man who served God and served you, he's no longer there and I have a great debt. The creditors may take my son. Now, what does that mean? Well, in this time in history, it sounds crazy, but if you owed money to someone, they legally could come and take your children as temporary slaves, not forever, but your sons or your daughters might have to work off a debt for the next four or five or six years. …
… Here is a situation with a mother, a widow, who's in debt. A certain woman, verse 1, a certain woman of the wives of the sons of the prophets cried out to Elisha saying, your servant, my husband, is dead. and you know that your servant feared the Lord and the creditor is coming to take my two sons to be his slaves. So Elijah said to her, what shall I do for you? Let me back up for a second, verse one. Your servant, my husband is dead. So he, I'm sure he was a good servant but he didn't make any provisions for his family when he died. My wife's gonna cry when I die for about five minutes. Okay, maybe six. She might cry for six minutes. I bet I say that too loud. Somebody might come up with some plans to do something to me. So Elisha said to her, verse 2, what shall I do for you? Tell me, what do you have in the house? …