Unsung Heroes: The Man Who Fed A Hundred Men

Introduction: A number of miracles took place in the Old Testament. In 2 Kings 4 alone, there are at least three such miracles mentioned: the pot of oil that kept flowing until all the vessels in town were full and the time, maybe just before this, when Elisha found some meal then used it to cure or heal a poisonous mess of pottage. Now here comes a man with a small offering of grain and barley loaves. When this man gave what he had, what happened then?

Text, 2 Kings 42-44, KJV: 42 And there came a man from Baalshalisha, and brought the man of God bread of the firstfruits, twenty loaves of barley, and full ears of corn in the husk thereof. And he said, Give unto the people, that they may eat. 43 And his servitor said, What, should I set this before an hundred men? He said again, Give the people, that they may eat: for thus saith the LORD, They shall eat, and shall leave thereof. 44 So he set it before them, and they did eat, and left thereof, according to the word of the LORD.

Thoughts: This brief story follows the account of how Elisha the prophet cured a poisonous batch of pottage by throwing in some meal. Now a man from Baal-Shalisha (location uncertain) brought Elisha 20 barley loaves and an unspecified amount of grain, “full ears in the husk”. As the text indicates, these were firstfruits and under the Law were supposed to be taken to the house of the LORD (Ex. 23:19, 34:26). The problem was that the farmer, Elisha, and the sons of the prophets were living in Israel, the northern kingdom, and there was no Temple in that kingdom! This man did the next best thing: since there was no genuine House of God where he could bring these first fruits, he found the man of God, Elisha, and gave his produce to him.

Elisha knew exactly what to do. He told his servant to start feeding the people! The servant must have been absolutely surprised when he said, “You honestly think this is enough for 100 people?” to which Elisha replied, “There’ll be enough. The LORD says they’ll eat and have some left over.” And that’s exactly what happened.

This unsung hero, the farmer who brought his produce to Elisha, maybe had no idea just how or in what capacity his offering would be used. It’s possible this even took place while there was still a famine as mentioned in this chapter and he might have been tempted to keep his crops for himself. But he took it to Elisha (by the way, there is no indication he stayed to eat with Elisha or the others), and with God’s power, one man fed a hundred more. There’s a song that has the lyrics, “Little is much when God is in it” and how true that was in this instance.

You and I may only have a little but God can still do a lot with it, when it’s given to Him!

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