2 Kings 4:2-7

4:2 Elisha said to her, “What can I do for you? Tell me, what do you have in the house?” She answered, “Your servant has nothing in the house except a small jar of olive oil.” 4:3 He said, “Go and ask all your neighbors for empty containers. 1  Get as many as you can. 2  4:4 Go and close the door behind you and your sons. Pour the olive oil into all the containers; 3  set aside each one when you have filled it.” 4:5 So she left him and closed the door behind her and her sons. As they were bringing the containers to her, she was pouring the olive oil. 4:6 When the containers were full, she said to one of her sons, 4  “Bring me another container.” But he answered her, “There are no more.” Then the olive oil stopped flowing. 4:7 She went and told the prophet. 5  He said, “Go, sell the olive oil. Repay your creditor, and then you and your sons can live off the rest of the profit.”

2 Kings 4:42-44

Elisha Miraculously Feeds a Hundred People

4:42 Now a man from Baal Shalisha brought some food for the prophet 6  – twenty loaves of bread made from the firstfruits of the barley harvest, as well as fresh ears of grain. 7  Elisha 8  said, “Set it before the people so they may eat.” 4:43 But his attendant said, “How can I feed a hundred men with this?” 9  He replied, “Set it before the people so they may eat, for this is what the Lord says, ‘They will eat and have some left over.’” 10  4:44 So he set it before them; they ate and had some left over, just as the Lord predicted. 11 

1 tn Heb “Go, ask for containers from outside, from all your neighbors, empty containers.”

2 tn Heb “Do not borrow just a few.”

3 tn Heb “all these vessels.”

4 tn Heb “to her son.”

5 tn Heb “man of God” (also in vv. 16, 22, 25, 27 [twice]).

6 tn Heb “man of God.”

7 tn On the meaning of the word צִקְלוֹן (tsiqlon), “ear of grain,” see HALOT 148 s.v. בָּצֵק and M. Cogan and H. Tadmor, II Kings (AB), 59.

8 tn Heb “he”; the referent (Elisha) has been specified in the translation for clarity.

9 tn Heb “How can I set this before a hundred men?”

10 tn The verb forms are infinitives absolute (Heb “eating and leaving over”) and have to be translated in light of the context.

11 tn Heb “according to the word of the Lord.”