Thomas Nelson Annandale

“ Many of these little observations of fact have, through the ignorance of commentators, absorbed a miraculous tinge, for instance the story of the she-bears which rent the children who mocked Elisha, that of the mess of wild gourds given by the same prophet to the sons of prophets who visited him in a time of famine, and even that of the “miraculous draught of fishes.”
She-bears are notoriously bad-tempered when prematurely roused from their winter sleep by any noise. ”

“ That the mess of colocynth was an attempt on the part of Elisha to poison the sons of the prophets who had waxed sarcastic on the disappearance of Elijah, there is no evidence; but if it was so, it was a very clumsy attempt; for the colocynth is only poisonous in large quantities and is so bitter that a single mouthful of food in which it was present even in small quantities would betray it immediately. The young men who partook of the mess would naturally eject it at once. The whole of the pot was emptied out and Elisha was obliged to provide from his secret hoard a mess of porridge. ”

“ When I was in Palestine some years ago friends who knew the country advised me never to drink direct from a spring or stream but to adopt the method of Gideon’s selected men—not for magical reasons but on sanitary grounds. The springs and streams of Palestine abound in leeches, which a careless drinker is very apt to swallow. ”