But the noble-hearted Elisha could not endure the thought of receiving all these favors without making some return, and he felt all the more bound to do something for her. To be barren, in those days, was regarded as a disgrace, so the prophet summoned her into his presence. But out of modesty and respect she only came to the door. Elisha announced to her that her home is to be blessed in the birth of a son. There were the disabilities of nature, and the woman regarded the announcement as improbable of realization, and, in true Oriental language, replied, “Nay, my lord, thou man of God, do not lie unto thine handmaid,” that is, do not deceive me, by exciting vain hopes in me. The Lord, however, according to His grace and truth, remembers even the desires which we cherish in silence, as no doubt this woman had done, but did not express, and He often gives to those who yield to His holy will without murmurs or complaints just that which they no longer dared to hope for. It makes a great difference whether we doubt of the divine promises from unbelief, or from humility or want of confidence in ourselves, because we consider the promises too great and glorious, and ourselves unworthy of them.
But God remembered this noble woman of Shunem, who had shown such kindness to His servant, and, according to the promise, a son was born into the great woman’s home. A ray of sunshine had indeed broken through the parted clouds and entered that home—sunshine such as had never been there before, and such as outshone all her estates.
Below the village, stretching away towards the south and east, were the wheatfields, and the child, as children sometimes will, slipped out from under the mothers watchful care, into the field where the reapers were at work. Absorbed in the work of the reapers, neither the father nor the son realized the intense heat pouring down out of a clear sky upon the field at the hottest season of the year. Presently, this child of promise, which had gladdened the hearts of his parents and brought such joy and sunshine to their home, came up to his father and said, “My head, my head.”
It was scarcely barley harvest when we crossed this plain with the glare of the sun out of a clear sky shining in our face, and with blood heated and thirsty withal, and the danger of a sun-stroke, we thought of the words of the child, and ever since they have had a new meaning. At once the father directed a lad to carry the child “to his mother,” and when the lad had brought him “he sat on her knees till noon, and then died.” All the mother’s hope turned to ashes, and her joy into grief, made all the more bitter because it was her only child. As she sat in her house with the dead child folded to her bosom, her soul cried out: “What is life?” Though passing fair, it is but as
A flower just opened in the sun,
And wilted, withered, ere the day is done;
A vapor swiftly floating in the sky,
That vanished as it caught our eye;
A fragrant perfume borne upon the gale,
That’s gone before we could its sweets inhale.