Daily Manna · Day 113 · April 23
Borrow Not a Few
“Then he said, Go, borrow thee vessels abroad of all thy neighbours, even empty vessels; borrow not a few.”
You have learned to ask for the manageable thing. A little more patience, a slightly better week, help getting through Thursday.
Read the story it sits in, because the instruction is stranger than it looks. A widow of one of the prophets is about to lose her two sons; the creditor is coming to take them as slaves, which was legal. Elisha asks what she has in the house and she says nothing, save a pot of oil. Then: go, borrow thee vessels abroad of all thy neighbours, even empty vessels; borrow not a few.
Three things in that sentence are worth slowing over. Abroad, meaning she has to go out and be seen doing it, in a village where everyone knows her situation. Empty, so there is nothing to do with the jars but wait and look foolish. And borrow not a few, which is the only quantity Elisha gives her. He does not tell her how much oil there is. He tells her the limit will be set at her end.
Verse 6 is the whole point of the story and is almost never quoted. When the vessels were full, she said, Bring me yet a vessel. And he said unto her, There is not a vessel more. And the oil stayed. Nothing about the supply gave out. What gave out was the room she had made for it, and the size of the miracle had been settled on her doorstep before a drop was poured.
Note what the story never claims. It does not promise that whatever you ask for arrives, and Elisha is not a technique. The oil was for a debt, not for a comfortable life; verse 7 has her selling it and living on the remainder.
Still: how many jars did you collect this morning, and what did you decide about the answer before you asked?
Daily Manna runs on a two-year cycle. The year two reading for day 113 is He Shall Receive Me (Psalm 49:15).