Prophets Figure It Out as They Go

Translations of biblical verses follow Everett Fox’s works: The Five Books of Moses, The Schocken Bible, vol. 1 (New York: Schocken Books, 1995) and The Early Prophets, The Schocken Bible, vol. 2 (New York: Schocken Books, 2014), with modifications. All other translations are mine.

Yael Shemesh, “Elisha and the Miraculous Jug of Oil (2 Kgs 4:1–7),” The Journal of Hebrew Scriptures 8 (2008): 1–18 (at 10); see also pp. 10–11, n. 32.

Mordechai Cogan and Hayim Tadmor, II Kings, Anchor Bible 11 (New York: Doubleday & Co., 1988), 56. They also cite Saul’s worried father helplessly asking, מָה אֶעֱשֶׂה לִבְנִי, “What should I do about my son?,” after Saul disappears while looking for his father’s lost livestock (1 Sam 10:2).

Cf. Samuel Löw’s Maḥatzit Ha-shekel commentary to Shulḥan ‘Arukh OH 180. The modern critical scholar Arnold Ehrlich, Mikra Ki-Peschuto, II (New York: KTAV, 1969; orig. pub. in 1900 by Prose Books), 339, adheres to this view as well.

Shemesh, “Elisha and the Miraculous Jug of Oil,” 11.

Rashi argues that the woman comes to Elisha to seek his advice about when to sell the oil:

^{רש״י, מלכים ב ד:ז} וַתָּבֹא וַתַּגֵּד וְגוֹ'. בָּאת לִטֹּל עֵצָה, אִם לִמְכֹּר אִם לְהַמְתִּין עַד שֶׁיּוּקַר עוֹד, אָמַר לָהּ לְכִי מִכְרִי, כִּי יֵשׁ דַּי לְכָל נִשְׁיֵךְ, וְלִחְיוֹת אַתְּ וּבָנַיִךְ בַּנּוֹתָר, עַד שֶׁיִּחְיוּ הַמֵּתִים.

^{Rashi, 2 Kgs 4:7} She came and told, etc. She came for advice, whether to sell [the oil] or to wait until it would become even more valuable. He said to her, “Go sell [it], for there is enough for all your debt, and for you and your sons to live on what remains, until the dead are revived.”

William H. C. Propp, Exodus 1–18, Anchor Bible 2 (New York: Doubleday, 1999), 337.

Propp, Exodus 1–18, 337.

The notion that the details of a divinely ordained plan are revealed in the same jumbled order as they are spoken seems entirely unlikely.