What, then, is to be done? Hear Elisha: “Set bread and water before them, that they may eat and drink and go to their master.”
And so great provision was prepared, “and when they had eaten and drunk, he sent them away, and they went to their master.”
We might even excuse a strategic act in order to secure such a conclusion.
Elisha was supposed to be about a hundred years of age when he died. We have seen that he was a domestic rather than a public prophet. He was unlike his great predecessor and father. The awful Elijah dwelt alone. He came upon society now and then--came down like a flood from the threatening clouds; shot out like a fire, and burned the men whom he approached.
Elisha was exactly the contrary. He worked his miracles in the house. He often called upon people; he was quiet, serene, most sympathetic and tender-hearted. Now and then he could stand bolt upright and send away proud men from his door with a disdain that they could never forget; but in the usual process of his life he was a mother-man in Israel. He went into people’s houses and asked how they were. He consented to increase their oil and their flour, and to bless their family life with prophetic benedictions.