2 Kings, Chapter 4 - Where Miracles Begin | Prophets of Israel Daily

[music] Shalom friends. Welcome to the Prophets of Israel Daily. This is Jeremy Gapel. I'm here [music] with Arya Ramlets. Today we're learning the book of 2 Kings, chapter 4. And this series is brought to you by the Land of Israel Network at the landofisrael.com. All right, friends. After the fire and thunder of Elijah, chapter 4 shows us Alicia, a very different kind of prophet, a prophet of water. He performs intimate personal life-giving miracles. He steps into the private pain of ordinary people. And he brings blessing in life. And it opens with a desperate widow. Verses 1 and two. Her husband, one of the prophets, has died and left her in crushing debt. And now the creditor is coming to take her two sons as slaves to pay it. She cries out to Alicia. And Alicia asks her a question. What do you have in the house? And she says, "Nothing except a small jar of oil." And this story always reminds me of the miracle of Kaneka. One jar of oil that brings hope. >> Yeah. I mean, first of all, Jeremy, the the fact that a creditor is going to take her sons away is a little bit jarring. Also, something seems a little bit rough, almost inhumane about that, like cruel. And it makes you wonder about the society in general. But but what you said, you know, about the miracle itself, I really do love where the miracle begins with Alicia's question, right? He says, "What do you have in the house?" Because it teaches us something profound. I think about the way Hashem works. The woman says she has nothing, right? Nothing but one little jar of oil. So small she almost doesn't even mention it. Um and Alicia tells her, "Go borrow empty vessels from all of your neighbors, as many as you can, and start pouring." And that tiny jar of oil keeps flowing and flowing, filling vessel after vessel after vessel until every single borrowed container is full enough to sell, pay the entire debt, and live on the rest. And notice what God did not do. He didn't create oil out of thin air. He took the little bit she already had, the thing she dismissed as nothing, and multiplied it. The the miracle started with what was already in her hands. And uh and Jeremy, I can't help but to feel like that's one of the most hopeful truths in the Tanakh. I mean, there's so much in there. The fact it was that little tiny, it makes me think of King David. He wasn't even invited among the sons of Yishi. That small little bit. But so often we feel like like we have nothing to offer, nothing to work with. You know, our resources, our talents, our faith feel like one small jar at the bottom of an empty house. But Hashem doesn't ask for what we don't have. He asks like Alicia, what do you have? And then he multiplies it. And our job is to to bring one little jar and to keep pouring in faith. And you can't forget to bring enough empty vessels, right? Because the blessing only flows as far as we can make room for it. The oil stopped only when the vessels ran out. Hashem's abundance is limited not by his supply obviously, but by the size of the space we prepare to receive it. I love that idea. You know, sometimes life it just can get really hard. I mean, imagine this widow in debt. She's losing her son to the creditor to pay off the debt. In those times, a widow in debt, it doesn't get much harder than that. And that's why there's a mitzvah, a commandment to be kind to the widow, especially in those times. I mean, the Torah singles out the widow, the orphan, the most vulnerable again and again because God himself watches over them. So, no matter how hard it gets, there's always a pan. There's always some kind of small flask that blessing can flow into. And she thought she had nothing. And that one little flask became her family's salvation. Anyway, the next story is really the heart of the chapter, the Shunamite woman. Um, there's a seemingly wealthy, maybe generous woman in the town of Shunm. And she notices Alicia passing through again and again on his travels. And she says to her husbands, "I can tell this is a holy man of God who keeps passing our way. Let's build a small room for him on our roof. put a bed in, a table, a chair, a lamp, so that whenever he comes through, he has a place to stay. And it's this simple act of hospitality, asking for nothing in return. And Alicia is so moved by her kindness, he wants to repay her, he asks what can be done for her. And his servant, Geekazi, points out that she has no child and her husband is pretty old. So Alicia calls her and tells her, "At this season next year, you will be holding a son in your arms." and she can barely believe it. Don't deceive me, she says. Don't give me false hope. But it happens exactly as the prophet promised. Verse 17, she bears a son. And then years later, tragedy strikes. The boy has grown and one morning he goes out into the fields where his father's working with the harvesters. And suddenly he cries out, "My head, my head." He's carried back to his mother. He sits on her lap until noon and then he dies right there in her arms. And look at what the woman does. Seemingly calm and collected, moving with purpose, just doing what needs to be done. She's in the middle of this unthinkable grief. She carries her dead son up to Alicia's room, the very room that she built. She lays him on the prophet's bed, shuts the door, and she leaves him there. She doesn't tell her husband the boys died. She simply asks for a donkey and a servant so she can hurry to the man of God. She rides all the way to Mount Carmel to find Alicia. And I cannot point out that Alicia is hanging out on Mount Carmel, the place where his mentor Elijah the prophet made his mark as the most spectacular prophet in biblical history. I he was just there hanging out thinking, meditating, praying, being a prophet. And what's remarkable is that I can't help but feeling that this is the chapter saying Alicia has learned the lesson. A silent thin voice, that's where Hashem is found, not in the marvelous spectacle of Carmel. And when Alicia sees her coming in the distance, he sends his servant Gay Khazi running ahead to ask, "Is all well with you? Is all well with your husband? Is all well with the child?" And she gives her uh one word. Verse 26, shalom. Shalom. That's Jeremy. That single word, shalom. It is well. I mean, shalom is peace. But here it's like it is well. That's what she's saying. spoken by a mother who has just laid her dead child on a bed is such a moving expression of the depth of her faith. At least I think so. You know, think think about what she's doing. Her son is dead and instead of screaming, instead of despairing, instead of accepting it, she acts. She lays the boy specifically on Alicia's bed in the room she built for the man of God as if to say, "This is where the answer lives." Right? She tells no one he's died, and I can't help but to think she doesn't want to create any realities. The more minds perceive that, the more the reality is created. But that's just my feeling. She doesn't want her husband to know. She saddles the donkey and drives straight to the prophet and refuses to be turned away. She refuses the servant and she grabs hold of Alicia's feet and will not let go until he comes. This is a woman who in the face of death itself simply refuses to give up hope. And and I think that maybe her answer, shalom, it as well isn't denial. It's it's defiance. Perhaps that's why Alicia himself didn't see through it because on some level it was really true. It's a declaration of faith in the midst of the worst thing that can happen to a human being. I think she's saying this is not the end of the story. I will not accept that this is how it ends. And Jeremy, I I think there's really a tremendous model here for how we can meet our own darkest moments. Not passive res resignation, not collapsing to the ground brokenness, but a a fierce active faith that takes the broken thing and lays it down before Hashem and holds on and refuses to let go until there's an answer. And I really think that this is the spirit that our whole people need right now. On a certain level, we really have right now to even look at death and declare shalom. It's well, not because it is well, but because we refuse to stop believing that it can be, >> man, that it can be, that it will be. I mean, her faith is just remarkable. That word shalom is so powerful. And it really was in some ways her faith in action was rewarded because, you know, fa it's a faith that does something. And we've spoken about this before, but I cannot mention it. faith. Amuna in Hebrew is really a fusion of four different words from the same root. Amuna, immun and emun. Faith practice through training with loyalty built on trust. I think that's the right way to respond. That's like exactly what it is. Faith practiced in training with loyalty built on trust. It's exactly what she's embodying her. Her her faith wasn't a feeling that she sat with. It wasn't something that that she thought about her in some sort of theology. It was something that she practiced. It was loyal. It was an expression of trust. It was active. She didn't just believe. She saddled the donkey and rode. And when she reaches Alicia, she won't be put off by the servant. She won't accept the staff Alicia sends with Ghazi to lay on the boy. She grabs hold of the prophet himself and says, "As Hashem lives, I will not leave you." She won't settle for a messenger. She demands the master. And that relentless active faith is what Alicia motivates him ultimately to go himself. And so Alicia comes to the house. He goes up alone to the room, shuts the door on two of them, and prays to Hashem. And then he does something shocking. He stretches himself out over the child, mouthto mouth, eyes to eyes, hands to hand, pouring his own warmth and life into the boy, and the child's flesh begins to grow warm. Alicia gets up, paces the room, stretches over him once more, and the boy sneezes seven times, opens his eyes, and life is restored out of death. Alicia calls the mother in, and simply says, "Here, take your son." She comes, falls at his feet, bows to the ground, and lifts her living child into her arms. And the chapter closes with two more miracles. I mean, Alicia asked for double the spirit, and he's just pouring out the miracles here. Um, but they're about uh something very down to earth. It's really about lifegiving. It's about food. Verses 38-41, there's a famine and the company of prophets is cooking a stew and someone accidentally throws in a poisonous wild gourd. And [snorts] there's death in the pot. They cry. Alicia throws in flour and the poison is neutralized and they eat safely. Then verses 42 through 44, the end of the chapter, a man brings Alicia 20 loaves of barley. And Alicia says, "Give it to the hundred men to eat." His servant protests. Uh 100 men. 20 loaves. Like what are you going to do? Alicia says, "Give it to them for Hashem says they will eat and have some leftover." And they do. Abundant oil, abundant loaves. The poison is removed from the food. The boy brought back the life. There's no fanfare. There's no giant spectacle. It's just lifegiving blessing that flows like water from Alicia. >> Right. And Jeremy, I don't want to overlook those last two smaller miracles that you just mentioned because together with the oil, they reveal what kind of prophet Alicia really is. And it's deeply instructive. I think it's a it's a manifestation of his deep of his personality, of who he is and what he's about. I mean, look at the pattern of this whole chapter. a widow's debt, a childless woman's longing, uh a dead child, a poison pot of stew, 20 loaves of bread for a hungry group of prophets and training, right? There were prophets in training. Yes. Um these are not showdowns with kings. There's no fire on a mountain. There's no confrontation with Bal. There's no armies. Alicia's miracles are about ordinary human needs. debt, children, food, grief, the stuff that we're all sort of struggling with in our lives. You know, he he meets people in their kitchens and in their bedrooms and in their fields. And where Elijah was the prophet of thunder and fire and cosmic confrontation, Alicia is the I think more more the prophet of compassion, you know, bending down into the small private struggles of everyday people. Also with Naman, he didn't go out and greet him and speak words. He wasn't impressed by all that stuff, you know, and and and and I think there's a teaching in that many of many of us need to to I think reflect on this. At least I do because we tend to think holiness lives in in in the dramatic, in the mountaintop moment, in the grand gesture. But Alisa shows us that Hashem is just as present in the ordinary. you know, caring whether a widow can feed her children, whether a poisoned pot might sicken the poor, whether a hungry crowd gets fed. That that's holy work. The the God of of fire on Mount Carmel is also the God who cares about the oil in a poor woman's jar. And that means the opportunities for holiness in our own lives are everywhere. Not just in that rare dramatic moment, but in every small act of feeding the hungry, lifting the debtor, comforting the grieving, Alicia teaches us that compassion in the ordinary is is its own kind of transcended holiness, its own type of prophecy in some ways. >> Yeah. Well, I really feel like that's the heart of it. And I feel like in some ways that this chapter teaches us um this profound lesson and it's in two directions, you But first for our own lives, the chapter hands us a whole posture for facing hardships and for serving others. It's like when we feel we have nothing, God asks what's in our hands and then multiplies our little jar. So bring what we got and prepare enough vessels to receive the blessing. That really is the message that Hashem can do anything when it seems like we have nothing. You think about the 1948 war. It was like a band of Holocaust survivors. They didn't have enough guns for every soldier. And with whatever we had, we defeated so many trained armies all around us. And so when darkness strikes, we have to be like the Shounomite woman, not to collapse. It's like, hold on. Declare shalom in the face of despair. And when we look to serve, look where Alicia looked. Just ordinary people right in front of us. The debt, the grief, the empty plate, the poor. That's where holiness actually lives. And so may we be the people like Alicia who bring the little jar and keep pouring. Um, my friends, we will see you again tomorrow. And the wheels are turning and we're already now going deep into the book of Kings. We're learning the prophets of Israel together every day. And I want to invite you to take your learning to the next level. Ari and I want to invite you to experience the land of Israel fellowship. It's a global community from countries all over the world. We gather live every Sunday. We learn together. We grow together. We pray together. 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