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Commentaries and Other Bible Study Helps - Prayer Tents - Prayer Tents
8:1-6 The Shunammite's Land Restored. After the long narrative about the siege of Samaria, the Shunammite woman of 4:8-37 reappears. The key to understanding this new story is found in 4:13, where the woman declines Elisha's offer of help because she has a home among her own people. In 8:1-6, however, she no longer has such a home, for she has followed Elisha's advice and avoided famine by sojourning in Philistia.
8:1 Elisha had said. The prophecy had been delivered around the same time that Elisha restored the woman's son to life, and the famine had followed shortly thereafter (cf. 4:38). This general state of famine is to be distinguished from the even more severe famine in the city of Samaria described in 6:24-7:20, which is specifically the result of siege.
8:2 The land of the Philistines was a natural place for the Shunammite woman to seek refuge during a time of famine in Israel (the patriarch Isaac himself moved into this region in similar circumstances; Gen. 26:1), not least because of its proximity to Egypt, the breadbasket of the ancient world and the common destination throughout the biblical period of people escaping times of hardship (e.g., Gen. 12:10; 41:53-42:5; 47:4).
8:3 her house and her land. Someone has taken the woman's property in her absence--perhaps Jehoram himself, showing the same land-grabbing tendencies as his parents (cf. 1 Kings 21). The king was now the recipient of her appeal, as the person with primary responsibility under God for the establishment and maintenance of order and justice throughout the kingdom (cf. Psalm 72). In Israel the end of the seventh year was a proper time for restoration of property and cancellation of debt (Ex. 21:2-3; Deut. 15:1).
8:6 all the produce. The king goes farther than restoring everything that belonged to the woman; he also provides her with all the income from her land that she would have received had she stayed in the country.
