The Pulpit Commentary — 2 Kings — Section 47

"Smooth Jet it be or ro11gh, It will be still the beet ; Winding or etre.ight it matters not, It leacls me to thy rest." m. That great trials MAY HA VE A BLESSED END. The end of this woman's great trial was the restoration of her dead child to life. This was brought about: 1. In c()'fl,- mction with her own efforts. If she had remained at home, and not sped her way to the prophet at Carmel, her boy in all probability would, it would seem, have remained a corpse, and would have had to be buried for ever out of her sight. When she reached him, see how earnestly she pleads: ".And when she came to the man of God to the hill, she caught him by the feet," etc. 2. By the power of God through Elisha. In the following verses we have a representation of the way in which this was brought about. God helps man by man. All our trials might have a blessed end. "Our light affliction, which is but for a moment, worketh for us a far more exceeding and eternal weight of glory." Yes; whilst" we look not at the things that are seen," the result, under God, depends upon ourselves.-D. T. Vere. 32-37.-The relation of prayer to BllCIYIUiary causes. "And when Elisha was come into the house, behold, the child was dead," etc. The death of the Shunam- mite's son, as we have seen in the preceding verses, was in many senses to her a very severe trial-a trial from which we have inferred that great trials often sprin,g from great mercies; that great trials should be patiently endured; and that great trials might have a blessed· end. By prayer Elisha. now raised the woman's dead boy to life. See what Elisha. did here. I. HE PBAYED TO THE LORD. "Let this child's soul come into him again." II. HE PUT HIMSELF mTo DIRECT CONTACT WITH '!'HE CHILD. Mouth to the child's mouth, eyes to the child's eyes, hands to the child's hands, a.s if he transfused all the vita.I magnetism of bis own nature into the person of the dead child. III. HE PEBSEVEBED WITH THE EFFORT. Until the child's fiesh waxed warm, and the child sneezed with the breath of new life.-D. T. Vers. 38--44.-Ministries to man, ,good and bad. "And Elisha came again to Gilgal : and there was a. dearth in the land," etc. Elisha had returned to Gilgal, the seat of a school of the prophets; he had come thither once more on bis yearly circuit, and during the famine which prevailed in the land. As the students sat before their master, he discerned in their emaciated forms the terrible effects upon them of the famine. In the narrative we discover the action of several ministries, or events with which men are visited more or less in passing through this sublunary state. I. Here is the ministry of SEVERE TRIAL, "There was a. dearth in the land." To be destitnte of those provisions which are essential to the appeasement of hunger and the sustentation of life is undoubtedly one of the greatest trials. Such destitution is of two kinds-the avoidable and the unavoidable. The former is common. Tens of thousands of people in this country, which so a.bounds with wealth, are, alas! subject to the trial of this destitution every day. But men bring this destitution on them- selves. To the heartless cupidity of one class of men, and the indolence, extravagance, and intemperance of another, the poverty which is rampant in England to-day must be ascribed. The latter kind of destitution, viz. the inevitable, is that recorded in these verses; it arose out of the sterile condition into which the land was thrown. This was the destitution which now prevailed in Israel; it afflicted all, the good and the bad. In truth, Nature knows of no moral distinctions; she treats kings and paupers, tbe righteous and the wicked, alike. II. Here is the ministry of anoss IGNORANCE. In order to allay the ravenous hunger of his pupils, Elisha 8aid to his servant, "Set on the great pot, and seethe pottage for the sons of the prophets. And one went out into the field to gather herbs, and found a wild vine, nnd gathered thereof wild gourds, his lap full, and came and shred them into the pot of pottage : for they knew them not. So they poured out for the men to eat. And it came to pass, as they were eating of the pottage, that they crled out, and said, 0 thou man of God, there is death in the pot. And they could not eat thereof." Whatever were the herbs which the servants gathered it matters not;  THE SECOND BOOK OF TUE KINGS. [OR, IV, 1-#,