At the beginning of the chapter a widow of a man of the school of the prophets appealed to Elisha help her with a creditor who threatened to take her two sons as his slaves for payment of her debt. Elisha told her to gather as many jars as she could and pour the little oil she had left into the jars. As she began to pour, the oil from the original jar did not run out until all the jars were filled. Elisha then commanded the widow to sell the oil and pay her debts and to live on what is left from the proceeds of the oil sale. Elisha repeated essentially the same miracle at the end of the chapter when he received an offering of twenty loaves of bread and fed a hundred men of the school of the prophets (and possibly their wives and children). And this is the same type of miracle Elijah performed in 1 Kings 17 with the widow of Zerapheth. God provides by increasing or extending one's need or deficiency rather than giving you more of what you already have in abundance, especially when your deficiencies are offered or surrendered totally and willingly to the Lord.
