A well-to-do woman in Shunem urges Elisha to eat at her home whenever he passes through the area. Recognizing him as a holy man of God, she and her husband prepare a small furnished room where he can stay.

Elisha wants to repay her hospitality. Through his servant Gehazi he learns that she has no son and that her husband is old.

Elisha promises that by the same time the following year she will hold a son. The woman initially resists the promise, afraid of being misled, but she later gives birth exactly as announced.

Years later the boy goes out to his father among the reapers and suddenly cries that his head hurts. He is carried to his mother and dies on her lap at noon.

She lays him on Elisha’s bed, closes the door, and immediately travels to Mount Carmel to find the prophet.

When Gehazi approaches, she does not entrust the crisis to him. She reaches Elisha, grasps his feet, and pours out the anguish behind the promise she had once been afraid to receive.

Elisha returns with her. After praying, he stretches himself upon the child, and warmth returns to the boy’s body.

The child sneezes seven times and opens his eyes.

Elisha calls the woman in and tells her to take her son. She falls at his feet before lifting the child and leaving.

The story begins with quiet hospitality and becomes a narrative about promise, devastating loss, determined appeal, and restoration.