Shunem (2)
Shunem
Its modern representative, Solam, is three and a quarter miles north of Zerin. and is briefly noted in the Memoirs accompanying the Ordnanace Survey (2:87). The following particulars concerning its situation are given by Conder (Tent Work, 1:123):
"Westward the view includes Fuleh — the crusading Castle of the Bean, with its fosse and marshy pool outside, and extends as far as Carmel, fifteen miles mawly. Phus the whole extent of the ride of the Shunammite woman (2Ki 4:24) under the burning noontide sun of harvest-lime is visible. Were the houses of that time no larger than the mud-cabins of the modern village, it was not a great architectural undertaking to build a little chamber for the prophet, and the enumeration of the simple furniture of that chamber — the bed, perhaps only a straw mat, the talle, the stool, and the lamnp, seems to indicate that it was only such a little hut that was intended. Another point may be noted: how camme it that Elisha so constantly passed by Shunem? The answer seems simple; he lived habitually on Carmel, bit he was a native of Abel Meholah, 'the Meadow of Circles,' a place now called 'Ain Helwehi, in the Jordan valley, to which the direct road led past Shunem down the valley of Jezreel."
