Unsung Heroes: He Brought Meal To Save The Meal

Introduction: This event took place in the days of Elisha, who followed Elijah as one of God’s prophets, during the days of Israel’s divided kingdom. Many of the people in both nations, Israel in the north and Judah in the south, gave up on the God of Israel and began to worship various false gods or idols. But even then, there were a number of men who were faithful to the True God and were studying to be prophets under Elisha’s instruction. One of his students, in fact, died suddenly leaving a wife and two young boys. The story how Elisha saved the day for those three is one of the greatest short stories ever!

Now there is a famine, meaning food was scarce. What was Elisha going to do? Even better, how was he going to handle the task of feeding a bunch of hungry students?

Text, 2 Kings 4:38-41, KJV: 38 And Elisha came again to Gilgal: and there was a dearth in the land; and the sons of the prophets were sitting before him: and he said unto his servant, Set on the great pot, and seethe pottage for the sons of the prophets. 39 And one went out into the field to gather herbs, and found a wild vine, and gathered thereof wild gourds his lap full, and came and shred them into the pot of pottage: for they knew them not. 40 So they poured out for the men to eat. And it came to pass, as they were eating of the pottage, that they cried out, and said, O thou man of God, there is death in the pot. And they could not eat thereof. 41 But he said, Then bring meal. And he cast it into the pot; and he said, Pour out for the people, that they may eat. And there was no harm in the pot.

Thoughts: Elisha was truly a man of faith, as we can see here. Even though there’s a famine (“dearth”) going on, he knew the LORD would provide. He instructed his servant to “set on the great pot, and seethe pottage” for his students. That would involve, most likely, finding wood for a fire, water for the broth or gravy, and—oh yeah—something else for the pottage itself. Whether or not this pottage was the same recipe as Jacob served Esau, back in Genesis, is open to question. Elisha saw the fact of a number of hungry men and he had the faith that he would be able to feed them. Not once do we read that he even asked God for how this was going to happen—his faith was that great.

As is many times the case, there was a well-meaning individual who went to find some vegetables (“herbs”) and came across a wild vine. He didn’t know what the “wild gourds” were but took them back to the pot and “shred” them into the pottage. But this was about the worst thing he could have done.

Some commentators have the opinion that the “wild gourds” were poisonous; others that they simply caused a great deal of discomfort. We may never know.

One of the “sons of the prophets” did know, however, and he plus apparently some others immediately tasted something wrong in the food. The group cried out, “O man of God, there is death in the pot!” Praise God for those who are able to discern something wrong before it becomes a very serious problem.

Needless to say, they couldn’t eat the pottage, and who could blame them? Why would anybody want to risk death from eating lunch? The man who brought the wild gourds was probably not very popular by this time, wouldn’t you say?

But when Elisha heard about it, again, he of great faith, he simply told them, “Then bring meal.” I’ve never heard of meal (corn meal, oat meal, or any kind of grain product like this) being an antidote to a poisonous dinner! In this case it was. Now here’s where the unsung hero comes in.

Note that Elisha says, “Bring meal”. He didn’t have any of it himself! Otherwise he would have maybe handed it to one of the students and said, “Throw this in the pot and the meal is healed” or something similar. Did any of the students have “meal” or access to it? Remember, this was during a famine and any kind of food product would have been precious indeed.

I also wonder if Elisha remembered Elijah telling him about the widow of Zarephath who had so little. She was on her way to make her last meal with a little bit of oil and a little bit of meal but in faith, she prepared something for Elijah at his request. There was oil and meal for many days, because of her faith (1 Kings 17).

So whoever this unsung hero was, he or she provided a lifesaving gift of “meal” to heal the noonday meal. The food was edible now, and Elisha said, “Pout out for the people”, or in today’s speech, “Let’s eat!”

An unsung hero saved the day for a group of student prophets. That person gave something that was likely precious indeed—their own food—to help others risking something very bad happening to them. We know nothing about this hero except their deed, and that’s enough. May we too be willing to provide something we have when there’s a genuine need.

Scripture quotations taken from the King James Version of the Bible (KJV).