2 Kings 6:22-23: Elisha answered, You shall not kill them . . . . set bread and water before them, that they may eat and drink and go to their master. So he prepared a great feast for them; and when they had eaten and drunk he sent them away, and they went to their master. And the marauding bands of Arameans did not come again into the land of Israel.
Throughout 1-2 Kings, prophetic stories are stories about food. The man of God from Judah who confronts Jeroboam has been commanded not to eat and drink in Bethel, and when he violates this prohibition a lion kills him. Elijah is told to eat food from ravens, and then from the Gentile widow of Zarephath. And because Elijah keeps the food commandments of God, because he eats what God tells him to eat, he becomes a source of food – he miraculously provides for the
widow’s house through the famine. While Jezebel provides for hundreds of prophets of Baal and Asherah at her royal table, the true prophets of the Lord set up another table for the remnant of those who have not kissed Baal or bowed the knee.
Elisha too sets a table for the prophetic community that gathers around him. He heals the water of Jericho and prophesies about water for the three kings who are fighting Moab. He receives the food of the Shunammite woman, and is a mediator of life to her. He sprinkles meal into a pot of death and it becomes edible, and he multiplies loaves of barley bread to feed one hundred men. Food is one of the chief means that Elisha, and Jesus after him, use to carry on ministry: Those who give food to a prophet receive a prophet’s reward, and those who cling to the prophet hope for abundant food.
In this passage, food is a weapon in a battle with the Arameans. Elisha is surrounded by the hosts of heaven, and has no need to fight with the sword. Instead, he fights the Arameans with generosity, and overcomes their hostility with an abundance of hospitality – a “great feast.” That is what Paul says as well: If your enemy is hungry, feed him; if he is thirsty, give him something to drink. That is what we commit ourselves to here at this table, because that is what is taking place at this table. While we were yet sinners, Christ, the bread of life, gave Himself for us. While we were enemies, we were reconciled to God through the death of His Son (Rom 5).
God calls His enemies and spreads a great feast before us, and He says: Go and do likewise.
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