[10] The Shunammite woman even sets up a little "temple" for Elisha in the "upper room," (verse 10) where she places a bed, a table, a chair and a lampstand (Hebrew: menorah); a comparable set of furniture to those in the Jerusalem temple ("table" for "showbread"; "chair"/"throne" for "ark"; "bed" for "altar").

In the widow's case, the loss of support from her sons, after losing the protection from her husband, would severely ruin her life.

a similar structure in 1 Kings 17:7–16 and Mark 6:35–44; 8:1–10) and received some full jars of oil, worth enough money to relieve the woman and her children from their plight.

[14] The main act is the Shunammite's appeal to Elisha and his response, and this is prefaced by three background scenes, each of which begins with the phrase "one day".

[13] The episode may be outlined as follows: [15] The group of prophets in Elisha's community must literally scrape together a living in the barren area of lower Jordan valley, but their trust in YHWH enables them to enjoy divine care.

One obviously inexperienced man finds a vegetable he does not recognize and put it in the large cooking-pot for meal, but it turns out to have toxic effects.

[24] During the 2013 excavations in Tel Rehov a team directed by the Hebrew University of Jerusalem archaeologist Amihai Mazar uncovered a pottery fragment (sherd) bearing the name "Elisha", a table and a bench in a particular room excavated from a ruin dated to the second half of the ninth century BCE (the period when the prophet Elisha was active), which is linked to 2 Kings 4:8–10.

[29] Additionally, a storage jar from the same period was found in the ruin of another building at Tel Rehov bearing the inscription "Nimshi", the same name as the father or grandfather of the 9th-century king Jehu.