fruits twenty barley loaves and כּרמל = כּרמל גּרשׂ, i.e., roasted ears of corn (see the Comm. on Lev 2:14), in his sack (צקלון, ἁπ. λεγ., sack or pocket). Elisha ordered this present to be given to the people, i.e., to the pupils of the prophets who dwelt in one common home, for them to eat; and when his servant made this objection: “How shall I set this (this little) before a hundred men?” he repeated his command, “Give it to the people, that they may eat; for thus hath the Lord spoken: They will eat and leave” (והותר אכול, infin. absol.; see Ewald, §328, a.); which actually was the case. That twenty barley loaves and a portion of roasted grains of corn were not a sufficient quantity to satisfy a hundred men, is evident from the fact that one man was able to carry the whole of this gift in a sack, and still more so from the remark of the servant, which shows that there was no proportion between the whole of this quantity and the food required by a hundred persons. In this respect the food, which was so blessed by the word of the Lord that a hundred men were satisfied by so small a quantity and left some over, forms a type of the miraculous feeding of the people by Christ (Mat 14:16., 2Ki 15:36-37; Joh 6:11-12); though there was this distinction between them, that the prophet Elisha did not produce the miraculous increase of the food, but merely predicted it. The object, therefore, in communicating this account is not to relate another miracle of Elisha, but to show how the Lord cared for His servants, and assigned to them that which had been appropriated in the law to the Levitical priests, who were to receive, according to Deu 18:4-5, and Num 18:13, the first-fruits of corn, new wine, and oil. This account therefore furnishes fresh evidence that the godly men in Israel did not regard the worship introduced by Jeroboam (his state-church) as legitimate worship, but sought and found in the schools of the prophets a substitute for the lawful worship of God (vid., Hengstenberg, Beitrr. ii. S. 136f.).
Chap. 5
Verse 1
Curing of Naaman from Leprosy. - 2Ki 5:1. Naaman, the commander-in-chief of the Syrian king, who was a very great man before his lord, i.e., who held a high place in the service of his king and was greatly distinguished (פּנים נשׂא, cf. Isa 3:3; Isa 9:14), because God had given the Syrians salvation (victory)
