2 Kings 4:31

31. Neither voice, nor hearing He uttered no cry, he paid no heed. That is, he gave no signs of life. Here again comes up the question, Why was Gehazi’s mission with the staff a failure? First of all, we maintain that it is far from certain or evident that Elisha expected his staff and his servant would be effectual in raising the dead. On the contrary, it is very possible that he meant Gehazi’s mission should be a failure, in order to show that the miracle could not be wrought by any supposed magic of the staff, or by any mere human agency whatever. But on the other supposition, certainly admissible, and even probable, that the prophet expected his staff to resuscitate the child, the failure is thus well explained by Kitto: “Elisha did not at first mean to go himself to Shunem, and for that reason sent his staff to supply the lack of his own presence. But after he had sent away the servant, his observation of the uneasiness of the mother, whom he had expected to have gone home satisfied, and her avowed determination not to leave him, induced him to alter his purpose, and with the kindness natural to him, to forego his own engagements at Carmel, and to accompany her to her forlorn home. It was probably in consequence of this change of plan that no response was made to the first claim of faith by means of the staff. That appeal was in fact superseded the moment he resolved to go in person, the Lord thus reserving for the personal intercession of his prophet the honour of this marvellous deed.”

But Gehazi’s supposed unfitness to work the miracle, and the woman’s lack of faith in him, are facts not to be overlooked. They may be a sufficient reason for the failure of Gehazi’s mission. For in the realm of the miraculous Divine Power works not blindly nor arbitrarily, but according to sacred laws. To affirm that there must be a sympathetic union or spontaneous affiliation between the human agencies employed and those deeply concerned in a given miracle, is only to say what is abundantly suggested in the Scriptures. Nor is this to degrade a class of miracles to the low plane of animal magnetism, or explain them away on naturalistic principles; yet it need not be denied that the psychological basis of animal magnetism was a medium through which many miracles were performed, and without which some miracles could not have been wrought. When the disciples, after their failure to heal a lunatic child, asked Jesus why they could not work the miracle, he replied, “Because of your unbelief,” Matthew 17:20. Compare Matthew 13:58; Mark 6:56; Mark 9:23.