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their common meals were prepared. By some misadventure the person so sent
brought among other herbage a very noxious fruit - probably the wild, or so-called
"squirting" cucumber,^184 which he had mistaken for the ordinary cucumber, one of
the most common and favorite articles of food in the East.
The dangerous error was discovered after the meal had begun. An appeal to Elisha as
the "man of God" brought speedy help. The symbolic meaning of casting "meal" into
the pot was, that this was the ordinary and healthy food by which that which had
been bitter and dangerous was now to be changed into palatable and nourishing diet.
While the help Divinely brought by the prophet as the "man of God" was miraculous,
it had, as we readily perceive, also a symbolic significance, the more so, that "the
sons of the prophets" had, as disciples, been learning from Elisha. And thus did it
become true in every sense: "Pour out for the people, that they may eat. And there
was no harm in the pot."
Closely connected with this is the next event recorded. If the former showed how
easily God could remove from the provision of His people that which was hurtful by
the addition of that which in itself is nutritious and wholesome, the next event affords
another instance how readily He can send unexpected provision to supply the wants
of His servants. The lesson which it teaches is as old as that of Isaac's reaping an
hundredfold of what he had sowed in Gerar at a time of famine (Genesis 26:12), and
as true to all time, and to all God's servants, as it had been to the patriarch. In the
present case, much needed help in their straits came to Elisha and to his companions
from Baal-Shalisha, or Beth-Shalisha. We remember the district as connected with
the history of Saul (1 Samuel 9:4): "the land of Shalisha," perhaps the "three valleys"
land. It lay north of Lydda, in the plain of Sharon, and was not far distant from that
Gilgal which we have described, and the location of which it confirms.^185
We know that the Lord directed the first-fruits to be given to the Priests and Levites
(Numbers 18:13; Deuteronomy 18:4). This ordinance could not any longer be obeyed
in the kingdom of Israel, since the Aaronic priesthood, for whose support it was
destined, was not in office there. But the pious in Israel, to whom such contributions
were not merely matter of obligation nor only of law, but who willingly offered to
Jehovah, in acknowledgment of His sovereignty and proprietary over the land, knew
to observe the spirit, if they could no longer obey the letter, of the law. Accordingly
this unnamed man from Baal-Shalisha brought, as is expressly stated, to the "man of
God" "bread of the first-fruits, twenty loaves of barley and bruised ears of corn^186 in
his sack."^187
The provision supplied by the piety of this unnamed giver Elisha would, in the same
spirit of devotion, have shared with those around him. But such conduct ill accorded
with the spirit of Elisha's servant. Indeed, it may have been that this history was
(^)