2 Kings 8:2

Did after the saying. The woman of Shunem had learned that there are blessings in the path of obedience. The instruction given was by the direction of God, and although difficulties and hardships still lay ahead, the results would have been far worse if she had refused to obey those instructions.

Land of the Philistines. The Philistines were settled upon a fertile plain between the sea and the mountainous highlands of central Palestine. It was a land of plenty as compared with the rocky slopes of the central ridge. When there was a famine in the land of Canaan, Isaac took his sojourn into the land of the Philistines (Gen. 26:1). Abraham, under similar conditions, had gone down to Egypt to sojourn there (Gen. 12:10). Naomi had sojourned in the land of Moab “about ten years” (Ruth 1:4). So now, during this seven-year period of famine, the woman of Shunem also took up her sojourn in the country of the Philistines.