Commentaria in IV Regum
17. And the Woman Conceived, and Bore a Son
Tropologically, hear from the Lives of the Fathers, book VI, chapter x: the Sunamitess received Eliseus because she had no attachment to any man. The Sunamitess is said to have the person of the soul, Eliseus that of the Holy Spirit: at whatever hour, therefore, the soul withdraws from worldly confusion and disturbance, the Spirit of God will come to it, and then it will be able to bear, though it be barren.
23. WHAT IS THE CAUSE WHY THOU GOEST TO HIM? TO-DAY IS NOT THE CALENDS (namely the New Moon, which was the first day of the moon and of the month, and therefore as it were a feast to the Hebrews) NOR THE SABBATH.—Hence it is plain, says Abulensis, Question XXX, Vatablus, Serarius and others, that it was the custom to go to Eliseus and the other holy prophets on feast days, to receive their exhortations and pious admonitions, and to ask their prayers and blessing.
AND SHE ANSWERED: I WILL GO,—as if to say: I utterly desire, wish and determine to go to Eliseus. She conceals the cause, lest her husband, hearing that his only son was dead, should faint away with grief.
24. DRIVE.—Lead the ass, and me on the ass, to Eliseus.
26. IS ALL WELL WITH THEE? etc., AND SHE ANSWERED: WELL.—“Well,” for although my son is dead to my great grief, yet I know that he is dead by the will and decree of God, which is most right and most holy. Or because presently it “will be well” with me: for I altogether trust that he will be raised again by thee. So of the dead girl Christ says: “She is not dead, but sleepeth,” because I shall presently raise her from death, so that she may seem not so much dead as asleep, Luke viii. The Sunamitess, however, used this as a pretext with Giezi, that through him access to Eliseus might be open to her, who, a virgin and chaste, avoiding the company of women, if he had heard that her son was already dead, would send his servant Giezi to raise him, as in fact he afterwards did.
27. SHE CAUGHT HOLD OF HIS FEET, AND GIEZI CAME TO REMOVE HER.—For Giezi knew the humility, religion and chastity of Eliseus, so that he would not wish to be touched, and honoured and as it were adored by a woman in this touch of his feet.
29. TAKE MY STAFF.—Hence Cassian, book I of the Institutes, chapter ix, teaches that Eliseus carried a staff, and that therefore the ancient monks carried one, and adds its mystical meaning, saying:
“The carrying of which spiritually warns that they ought never to go unarmed among so many barking dogs of vices and the invisible beasts of spiritual wickedness; from which Blessed David, asking to be delivered, says: Deliver not up to beasts the souls that confess to thee; but to beat them back when they rush in with the sign of the cross, and drive them farther off, and, when they rage against them, to destroy them by the continual memory of the Lord’s passion and the imitation of His mortification.”