2 Kings 4 · a question people ask
Did the Shunammite's son really die?
The chapter says so in its own voice, twice: "he sat on her knees until noon, and then died" (4:20), and when Elisha comes into the house, "behold, the child was dead, and lying on his bed" (4:32). In Hebrew died and dead are both forms of the verb mut (tap died), the verb of the widow's "Your servant my husband is dead" (4:1). Gehazi's words after the staff, "The child has not awakened" (4:31), are what Gehazi told Elisha, not the narrator's. Later the book calls her "the woman whose son he had restored to life" (8:1), and Gehazi tells the king, "this is her son, whom Elisha restored to life" (8:5). This is told differently from the widow's son in 1 Kings 17, where the narrator says "there was no breath left in him" (1 Kings 17:17) and never uses the word died of him; here the narrator does.
The verses
“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 the LORD. Now the creditor has come to take for himself my two children to be slaves.””
“When he had taken him and brought him to his mother, he sat on her knees until noon, and then died.”
“Gehazi went ahead of them, and laid the staff on the child’s face; but there was no voice and no hearing. Therefore he returned to meet him, and told him, “The child has not awakened.” When Elisha had come into the house, behold, the child was dead, and lying on his bed.”
“Now Elisha had spoken to the woman whose son he had restored to life, saying, “Arise, and go, you and your household, and stay for a while wherever you can; for the LORD has called for a famine. It will also come on the land for seven years.””