Biblical view of marriage #120: What will the neighbors think?

[paulcarp]

One day Elisha came to Shunem, where there was a woman of influence, who urged him to dine with her. Afterward, whenever he passed by, he used to stop there to dine. So she said to her husband, "I know that he is a holy man of God. Since he visits us often, let us arrange a little room on the roof and furnish it for him with a bed, table, chair,

Comments

[seventorches]

Why did Elisha have his servant Gehazi speak to her even though she was standing right there? Then he says "call her", and speaks to her directly, what was she in the foyer the first time or what?

[paulcarp]

I don't know. I think it is to show that Gehazi was Elisha's "prophet in training," and may have something to do with Elisha's status as a "man of God." But it sure seems strange and unnecessarily convoluted to me. When I'm not serious, I'll suggest Gehazi is the pimp, and Elisha is the father of the child.

[don_fitch]

Indeed, the neighbors may well have agreed with the later Wise Men who wrote the Talmud, to the effect that their religion descended in the female line because (among other things) everyone in the village knows who a child's mother is, but sometimes there may be a bit of doubt concerning the identity of the father.