The Child in the Refrigerator: Narrative Death in 2 Kings 4:8–37

Abstract

While many of the children who are the results of miraculous birth narratives in the Hebrew Bible proceed to lead important lives, the son promised to the Shunammite woman by Elisha in 2 Kings 4:8–37 serves no function but to be born, die, and be resurrected. In this article, the author uses the “Woman in the Refrigerator” comic book trope to examine the treatment of this child in the text as mere motivation for the protagonist of the story. The boy in 2 Kings 4:8–37 is an innocent victim who lives only to die at the whim of the biblical authors/editors.