4 Kings 4:38
And Eliseus returned to Galgal, and there was a famine in the land, and the sons of the prophets dwelt before him. And he said to one of his servants: Set on the great pot, and boil pottage for the sons of the prophets.
Open 4 Kings 4:38 in the Motif Searcher, word by word across all five texts →Show on the spiral →The verse in its languages
- Vulgate (Clementine)
- Et Eliseus reversus est in Galgala. Erat autem fames in terra, et filii prophetarum habitabant coram eo. Dixitque uni de pueris suis : Pone ollam grandem, et coque pulmentum filiis prophetarum.
- Septuagint (Swete)
- Καὶ Ἐλεισαῖε ἐπέστρεψεν εἰς Γάλγαλα· καὶ ὁ λιμὸς ἐν τῇ γῇ, καὶ οἱ υἱοὶ τῶν προφητῶν ἐκάθηντο ἐνώπιον αὐτοῦ· καὶ εἶπεν Ἐλεισαῖε τῷ παιδαρίῳ αὐτοῦ Ἐπίστησον τὸν λέβητα, καὶ ἕψε ἕψεμα τοῖς υἱοῖς τῶν προφητῶν.
- Hebrew (WLC)
- וֶאֱלִישָׁ֞ע שָׁ֤ב הַגִּלְגָּ֨לָה֙ וְהָרָעָ֣ב בָּאָ֔רֶץ וּבְנֵי֙ הַנְּבִיאִ֔ים יֹשְׁבִ֖ים לְפָנָ֑יו וַיֹּ֣אמֶר לְנַעֲר֗וֹ שְׁפֹת֙ הַסִּ֣יר הַגְּדוֹלָ֔ה וּבַשֵּׁ֥ל נָזִ֖יד לִבְנֵ֥י הַנְּבִיאִֽים
Haydock's commentary
Galgal, where he had been often before.
Dwelt. Hebrew, "sat," like disciples attending to the instructions of their master, Acts xxii. 3. (Calmet)
To one, &c. Hebrew and Septuagint, "to his servant," Giezi. (Menochius)
Eliseus provided for the temporal as well as for the spiritual wants of his followers. (Haydock)
The famine had been sent by God, to punish the idolatry of the people, chap. viii. 1. (Menochius)
From Haydock's Catholic Bible Commentary, 1859, in the transcription made by Todd Easton and kept online by John Paul Wohlschied at johnblood.gitlab.io/haydock.
The Fathers on this verse
St Jerome The Letters of St. Jerome, To Eustochium
9. When Elijah, in his flight from Jezebel, lay weary and desolate beneath the oak, there came an angel who raised him up and said, “Arise and eat.” And he looked, and behold there was a cake and a cruse of water at his head. Had God willed it, might He not have sent His prophet spiced wines and dainty dishes and flesh basted into tenderness? When Elisha invited the sons of the prophets to dinner, he only gave them field-herbs to eat; and when all cried out with one voice: “There is death in the pot,” the man of God did not storm at the cooks (for he was not used to very sumptuous fare), but caused meal to be brought, and casting it in, sweetened the bitter mess with spiritual strength as Moses had once sweetened the waters of Mara. …
St Jerome The Letters of St. Jerome, To Rusticus
The maidservants who attend upon her you must regard as so many snares laid to entrap you; for the lower their condition is the more easy is it for you to effect their ruin. John the Baptist had a religious mother and his father was a priest. Yet neither his mother’s affection nor his father’s wealth could induce him to live in his parents’ house at the risk of his chastity. He lived in the desert, and seeking Christ with his eyes refused to look at anything else. His rough garb, his girdle made of skins, his diet of locusts and wild honey were all alike designed to encourage virtue and continence. The sons of the prophets, who were the monks of the Old Testament, built for themselves huts by the waters of Jordan and forsaking the crowded cities lived in these on pottage and wild herbs. …