4 Kings 4:41
But he said: Bring some meal. And when they had brought it, he cast it into the pot, and said: Pour out for the people, that they may eat. And there was now no bitterness in the pot.
Open 4 Kings 4:41 in the Motif Searcher, word by word across all five texts →Show on the spiral →The verse in its languages
- Vulgate (Clementine)
- At ille : Afferte, inquit, farinam. Cumque tulissent, misit in ollam, et ait : Infunde turbæ, ut comedant. Et non fuit amplius quidquam amaritudinis in olla.
- Septuagint (Swete)
- καὶ εἶπεν Λάβετε ἄλευρον καὶ ἐμβάλετε εἰς τὸν λέβητα· καὶ εἶπεν Ἐλεισαῖε πρὸς Γιεζεὶ τὸ παιδάριον Ἔγχει τῷ λαῷ καὶ ἐσθιέτωσαν· καὶ οὐκ ἐγενήθη ἔτι ἐκεῖ ῥῆμα πονηρὸν ἐν τῷ λέβητι.
- Hebrew (WLC)
- וַיֹּ֨אמֶר֙ וּקְחוּ קֶ֔מַח וַיַּשְׁלֵ֖ךְ אֶל הַסִּ֑יר וַיֹּ֗אמֶר צַ֤ק לָעָם֙ וְיֹאכֵ֔לוּ וְלֹ֥א הָיָ֛ה דָּבָ֥ר רָ֖ע בַּסִּֽיר
The Fathers on this verse
St Methodius Oration Concerning Simeon and Anna On the Day that They Met in the Temple
IX. Let then, says he, what I have thus far said in brief, suffice for the present as my offering of thanks to God. But what shall I say to thee, O mother-virgin and virgin-mother? For the praise even of her who is not man’s work exceeds the power of man. Wherefore the dimness of my poverty I will make bright with the splendour of the gifts of the spirits that around thee shine, and offering to thee of thine own, from the immortal meadows I will pluck a garland for thy sacred and divinely crowned head. With thine ancestral hymns will I greet thee, O daughter of David, and mother of the Lord and God of David. For it were both base and inauspicious to adorn thee, who in thine own glory excellest with that which belongeth unto another. …
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 Ambrose On the Duties of the Clergy, Chapter I. We are taught by David and Solomon how to take counsel with our own heart. Scipio is not to be accounted prime author of the saying which is ascribed to him. The writer proves what glorious things the holy prophets accomplished in their time of quiet, and shows, by examples of their and others' leisure moments, that a just man is never alone in trouble
6. Let us compare this leisure of his with that of others. Other men for the sake of rest are wont to withdraw their minds from business, and to retire from the company and companionship of men; to seek the retirement of the country or the solitude of the fields, or in the city to give their minds a rest and to enjoy peace and quietness. But Elisha was ever active. In solitude he divided Jordan on passing over it, so that the lower part flowed down, whilst the upper returned to its source. On Carmel he promises the woman, who so far had had no child, that a son now unhoped for should be born to her. He raises the dead to life, he corrects the bitterness of the food, and makes it to be sweet by mixing meal with it. Having distributed ten loaves to the people for food, he gathered up the fragments that were left after they had been filled. …