2 Kings 4:29

29. If thou meet… salute him not As though he had said, “You will have no time to linger, and a pausing to give or receive compliments may not only cause much waste of time, but so distract your thoughts as to frustrate the object of your mission.” When a miracle is wrought through many intermediate instruments and agencies it is necessary that those instruments be in perfect unison with each other, and in sympathy and harmony with the mind and will of Him with whom alone is the power to work miracles.

Lay my staff upon the face of the child Did Elisha expect that the child would be raised by this means? The Scripture does not say, and all attempts to answer this question must be at best merely conjectural. Keil thinks that Elisha sent Gehazi, not expecting that he would raise the child, but to show the Shunammite, and perhaps Gehazi also, that the power to work a miracle did not lie magically in himself or his staff, but solely in the power of God, exerted in answer to the prayer of faith. It is possible, however, that the failure was owing to the unfitness of Gehazi to work his part of the miracle, or to the fact that after Elisha had given this command to Gehazi and sent him away, he changed his mind and went himself with the woman. See more on 2 Kings 4:31.