The Shunnamite and Her Son

An Unnamed Great Woman

An important thing we must notice as this woman is introduced in these verses is that we are not given her name. She remains anonymous. We have no idea who she is. However, she played a great part in the unfolding of this chapter as the unnamed great woman. The Spirit was doing a marvelous work and this woman was not going to receive the credit. Her identity remains hidden and unknown. The glory of the work that’s going to be done in this woman was not going to be hers. God was using this unknown, unnamed woman to recover His purpose for His people. Her name never hit the headlines documenting what great things God had done through her. Her ministry was a hidden one so that all eyes would and will be on the Lord Himself and not on man. We are meant to see what God had done in her. That is where the message is. In this dark day of apostasy and unbelief, what God did in this unnamed woman is going to shine like a bright light.

A Barren Womb

In Shunem there was a woman who lived with her husband. They had no children. For years she suffered from a barren womb. She had been unable to produce a child for her husband. This seeming tragic and painful reality became the place for the Lord to move. In Shunem lived this woman who was brought to nothing. She was marked by weakness, inability, and “I can’t.”

The Lord is after a church that is not made by the hand of man. The kind of church the Lord wants cannot be produced by anything that man can do or offer. The Letter to the Hebrews speaks of a city whose builder and maker is God. God uses the barren womb because there He must do all the work. “His strength is to be made perfect in weakness.” ² God often closes the womb in order to bring forth a child by his power³. The Shunammite woman had been “held back” from being able to produce through her own strength so that what came forth was born of the Spirit and not through the efforts and strength of man. This woman represented the church God is after. It was a city in which God did the work. Man received no glory or credit here. He and his efforts were ruled out.

Living in the Double Resting Place

Shunem comes from a Hebrew word that means; “double resting place.” Jesus teaches us about this double resting place in John 15:4,5 where He says; “abide in me and I in you. As the branch cannot bear fruit of itself, except it abide in the vine. No more can ye, except ye abide in me”. The picture here is of two resting places. “Abide in me.” Jesus is showing us that He is our resting place. We can come into Him and settle down. There is a whole world of potential available in all that this means. “In Him we live and move and have our being.”⁴. Jesus speaks of another resting place; “and I in you.” Christ finds His rest in us. In this teaching, Jesus is showing us that there is a “you cannot!” which we all have to face. The “you cannot” can live in the land of “He can!” Paul speaks of this as a great mystery full of riches and hope. “Christ in you the hope of glory.”⁵ What an amazing thing that God would find His rest in the heart of man, and man too gets to find his rest in God. Jesus goes on to show us that this double resting place is a place of inevitable destiny. It is the place of great fruitfulness. Something is going to come forth in a people who dwell in the double resting place. God’s purpose will unfold there. This is the life the gospel makes possible for us and this is where this Shunammite woman lived. Heaven and earth were united in Shunem. God and man sat together at table. Because of this, things could not stay the same.

A Word of Promise and Power

Heaven’s great prophet passed through that area continually and this woman took notice. She saw something special in Elisha. Nobody had to tell her. She saw beyond the visible and perceived his spiritual significance. She had a heart revelation of his greatness⁶. Out of that, she compeled him to abide with her. She showed him great hospitality in making him his own apartment complete with all the furnishings. In return, Elisha wanted to bless her. When he discovered her barren state, he promised her by that time next year, God would give her a son. Elisha spoke a word to her. It’s a word filled with promise and power. Man cannot produce the fruit that God is looking for in and through His people. But here was a word that was going to get the job done! When God wants to do something new He accomplishes it through a word; a word filled with promise and power. It’s not just any word that is needed in this hour. We need a prophetic word! In Revelation 19:10 John reveals to us what the prophetic is. He says; “the testimony of Jesus is the Spirit of prophecy.” The true prophetic anointing points to Jesus! It brings Him into view. Paul calls it, “the Spirit of Revelation in the knowledge of Him.”⁷ Elisha was releasing a prophetic word into this woman’s life. That word flooded the eyes of her heart with the light of the glory of the Son.

In Ruth 1:6,7 we see what turned a tragic situation around. It says there in Ruth, that the two ladies were going to leave Moab because they HEARD in the country of Moab how that the Lord had visited His people in the giving of bread. Naomi heard something! Someone, another unnamed person, came with a word--not just any word, but a specific word. It was a word regarding God visiting them in the giving of bread. In type, that phrase is speaking of God’s visiting the land in the giving of His Son, “the bread of life.”⁸ It was a word of His appearing.⁹ The message came and in its very essence was the revelation of the Son and it did something in them like no other word will do! Ruth 1:7 says; “Wherefore she went forth out of the place where she was…and they went on the way to return unto the land of JUDAH.” This was no general word! It was a prophetic word filled with promise and power. It did what no other kind of word can do. She heard it, and in its power and inspiration she left the place where she was. Where was she? She was in the place where the power of sin and death had dominion. Where did this word take her? It took her back to the land of Judah, the land where God’s king rules. She heard a word that gets the job done. Paul speaks of an administration of the Spirit that the church is to know.¹⁰ It is an administration of glory. It is the releasing of a word filled with, “the light of the knowledge of the glory of God in Jesus’ face.”11 To have that kind of word is the challenge of every generation. As God’s ministers His word we should never want to take the pulpit just to share ‘our’ favorite word. We must have God’s word in the pulpit in our day. It’s the only word that accomplishes His purposes. Under its power the barren womb is going to be filled. A child comes into being out of this word of His appearing. It is the word of the gospel of the glory of God in Jesus’ face that brings a son to birth. There is a word that has in it the unveiling of the Son. In that word, a people behold their God¹². This same word is filled with promise and power. What a challenge Elisha is to us as he released a word that gave the barren woman hope about having a son!

1 Thess. 1:5. “For our gospel came not unto you in word only, but also in power, and in the Holy Ghost, and in much assurance…” Assurance comes from a root word that means to carry out fully. The gospel message comes with great promise. It cannot embraced as a doubtful thing. A son would be born through the power of this kind of prophetic word and ministry.

A Bride Becomes a Mother

It was never enough for a Hebrew woman to just become a bride. As honorable and special as it was to be loved by and to give love back to a husband, there was always a strong desire working in the heart of the bride, that she might have a child for her husband. This child, to her, would be the visible expression of the love and intimacy she and her husband knew. For the prophet to bring this up and make this promise was no small thing to this woman. Elisha touched an area of great desire and apparent pain when he promised her a son. What she could not produce in and of herself, was going to come from God. She hadn’t been able to have children but God had another plan. A son was going to be born in her home and God was going to use this woman and her son to fulfill the purpose the nation as a whole was not living in. Weakness does not disqualify us. Our weakness is joined with God’s strength. A child will come to birth through a barren womb. Weakness is living in the land of Shunem. His strength is being made perfect in weakness. The “I cannot!” is living in the land of “He can!” and fruitfulness results.

Something goes wrong

The child was born through the promise and power of God. Before you know it, it was harvest time and the lad was out in the fields with his father. One day the boy grabbed his head, fell to the ground, and before the day was over he died. That which God had produced by His own word and power had died.

There is an assault on that which God is doing in the church. The enemy wants to destroy the fruit that comes out of our intimacy with God. He desires to prevent any visible expression of our intimacy with God in the land. How the enemy hates a church born by the Spirit and power of God. He wants to, in some way, remove it from the earth. Little does he know that heaven’s prophet who began all this still lives! Little does he know that there is a great woman who lives in the double resting place where fruit is destined to come forth. There is a word that has been spoken that is filled with promise and power and “he that believeth shall not be ashamed”.¹³ “His word will not return to Him void.”¹⁴.

A Mother’s Bold Faith

The boy’s father responds by getting his son back to his mother. This is significant. The Spirit wrote the word with this intention. With that in view, we see heaven’s answer, on the earthly side of things, was to get the child back to his mother’s arms. Heaven’s answer, on the heavenly side of things was God’s great prophet on the mount. When her child died in her arms, she didn’t respond like as typical mother would. There was no wailing, travailing, weeping, no crying out, “all is over. Why God? Why did you let this happen? Now there needs to be a burial!” That would be the typical response when a child dies. But that was not what this woman did. She took her dead son and laid him in the prophet’s chamber. She communicated with her husband, and sacrificially rode to where heaven’s great prophet was and fell at his feet in bold faith. Her husband was not very encouraging. She had to press beyond the limitations of the law which limits our hopes to special days and special moments. He told her this was no special day. God wasn’t doing anything at the moment. You will have to wait until a special day comes along. But there is an eternal day released at the cross that frees us from waiting for special moments in God. The Psalmist speaks of “a day that the Lord has made.”¹⁵ There is an eternal day that has been released through the work of the cross in which we can live. In boldness of faith this woman reached out of her day into the day the Lord has made and went to tell this one who began it all what had taken place.

The Letter to the Hebrews speaks of this bold faith, inviting us to let it work in us also.¹⁶ It’s a faith that boldly approaches Heaven’s High Priest to find grace and help in time of need. We go to the One who hears and we dare to believe He will be moved by our bold approach to Him.

There is a transaction between heaven and earth in this double resting place. Heaven found its rest in the woman. The woman found her rest in Heaven’s great prophet of resurrection. Heaven and earth became one again in Shunem. This has always been God’s desire.¹⁷

Heaven and Earth Become One

This great faith of this woman went beyond all the special days and threw herself at the feet of heaven’s great prophet, a place of intercession and travail. There she cried out; “This wasn’t my idea! I didn’t come up with this. You did! This thing began with you. You are the author of it. It began through a word out of your mouth. It needs your intervention now that what you started would live and reach heaven’s destiny for which it was born! If this child is going to go on to realize his destiny in the time of harvest, it will be because you have done it. WILL YOU COME AND RELEASE A WORD OF PROMISE AND POWER AGAIN? THAT WHICH YOU HAVE BROUGHT TO BIRTH MUST NOW BE KEPT BY THAT SAME POWER BY WHICH IT BEGAN. Will you yourself come and do something? It will take nothing short of a personal encounter between you and this child. No staff or servants will do it. You yourself must come.”

So, heaven’s prophet came to where the child was and he stretched himself out on the lad; mouth to mouth, eye to eye, hand to hand. There was a total identification between heaven’s great prophet and this dead child. Elisha identified completely with him in his death and out of that, the boy is restored to life.

A Testimony Reestablished

There is a connection between this woman and her child and the state and condition of God’s own people. The Lord’s people were in unbelief, not walking with the Lord. God had no living testimony of Himself to the nations. Instead, His people were withdrawn from Him in unbelief.

In that day of apostasy and great unbelief, God put a woman of bold faith on display. In the midst of an unbelieving nation God had a believing woman. Out of her bold faith came a testimony. In Shunem, lived a son that exists only by the promise and power of God. In that lad, there was one who bore the testimony of Jesus who said; “I am He that liveth and was dead….”¹⁸ Though the nation as a whole was not walking in the high purpose and calling of God, there was still a woman and her son standing as a living witness of the power of His resurrection¹⁹ for the nations to see.

Even when the people of God as a whole let go of their calling, God will still have a people of His own. They will walk with the Lamb in the double resting place, and will live in an abiding intimacy with Him. Like this woman and her son, God will have a witness of Himself to His own people and to the nations. The Lord can point to this woman and say; “Here! This is My witness. This is what I want.”

God will have a testimony before all nations as the God of Resurrection. He will have, in the earth, a church that exists only because of the power and promise of God. It will not be the by-product of anything man can do. The church is a people born by a word of promise and power, living in the likeness of His resurrection. There is no other explanation for them.

In the end, the hero of the story was not the woman and her son. It was heaven’s great prophet who had within himself a word and a ministry of promise and power. He passes by us continually with a specific word. He is coming today, to this place where we find ourselves. By His grace, can we say, as this woman of Shunam, “Lord abide with us. Find Your rest here. We will find our rest in You.” The Lord is a seeking God.²⁰ He is looking throughout the whole earth. He is searching for a resting place in a people. Can we discern that and open ourselves to His frequent approaches? He longs to come to accomplish His great work of filling the barren womb and bringing back from death the crown of His creation, a man who lives and moves and has his being in God.

Footnotes: 1. 1 Peter 2:9; Titus 2:14.2. 1 Cor. 1:26-31; 2 Cor. 12:9,3. Gal. 4:26-31. Isaac, the son of promise comes from the barren womb.4. Acts 17:28.5. Col. 1:27.6. Gal. 1:12,15, 16; Matt. 16:15-18.7. Eph. 1:15-18; 2 Cor. 4:6.8. John 6: 32-35. 9. 1 Samuel 3:21.10. 2 Cor. 3:8; 17, 18. 11. 2 Cor. 4:6.12. Isaiah 40:9. Isaiah is speaking of a prophetic word that brings God to view. 13. Isaiah 28:16. 14, Isaiah 55:11. 15. Psalm 118:24; Luke 4:17-21. 16. Hebrews 4:16. 17. Matt. 6:10. 18. Revelation 1:18. 19. 2 Cor. 1:8-10; Philip. 3:10,11. 20. Psalm 14:2; 53:2; 2 Chron. 16:9; 1 Sam. 13:14; Isaiah 59:16; Ezekiel 22:30 . 21. Romans 1:16, 17.