Amid these enchanting and picturesque scenes lived the Shunammite. The Bible gives her no name. She needs none. She is simply “a great woman.” Standing in her doorway, in three directions, she could look out over the fields of grain, and see the slow movements of the heavily loaded camels drudge up from the seaport of Acre, or down through the great plain of Esdraelon from the mountains of Naphtali or the hill country of Gilead, beyond the Jordan. If Elisha came from Carmel, he would approach Shunem by the Acre road. Accompanied by Gehazi, one of the sons of the prophets, she could see them trudging along the dusty camel path at a great distance, and she said to her husband, “Behold now, I perceive that this is an holy man of God.” So much for the personal appearance of Elisha. He carried a good face, which commended itself even to this discerning woman. Prompted by the manly bearing of the prophet, he had scarcely reached the gate when she stood before him, and pointing to her home, “she constrained him to eat bread.” It appears that Elisha passed frequently through Shunem. No doubt Carmel, which lay in the middle of the northern part of the kingdom, was the place where the faithful worshippers of Jehovah, who lived in the north, came together from time to time, and were strengthened in their faith, and instructed by the prophet. This would call Elisha to pass up from Carmel to Shunem and the north. “And so it was, that as oft as he passed by, he turned in thither to eat bread.” Happy household! Most gracious hospitality! That sweet home, amid the olive groves of Shunem, ever afterwards became the resting place of the good Elisha. The pious, but keen-sighted woman, who at the first recognized in Elisha “an holy man of God,” was not deceived or disappointed when she became more fully acquainted with him in his frequent stops. Indeed, she must have been very favorably impressed with his bearing, for she proposed to enlarge her hospitality. She said to her husband, “Let us make a little chamber, I pray thee, on the wall,” that is, upon the flat roof of the house, with walls which would be a protection against storms, “and let us set for him there a bed, and a table, and a stool and a candlestick.” Beautiful and thoughtful provision. In such a room Elisha would be protected from every interruption, such as it was hardly possible to avoid entirely in the house, and there he might pass his time in quietness.