Where do we Go from here? 2 kings 3-11
The Outline Bible (Section Outline Four (2 Kings 6–7))
A. The plight of the people (6:24–29): Conditions inside Samaria become so terrible that people resort to cannibalism!
A. The plight of the people (6:24–29): Conditions inside Samaria become so terrible that people resort to cannibalism!
B. The prejudice of the king (6:30–33): The king of Israel blames Elisha and the Lord for this terrible situation.
C. The prophecy of Elisha (7:1–2): Elisha makes a twofold prophecy:
1. There will be abundant food for the famine-stricken city within 24 hours (7:1).
2. The king’s officer who doubted Elisha’s first prophecy will not be able to eat any of the food (7:2).
D. The panic of the Arameans (7:3–11): Four Israelite men with leprosy enter the abandoned camp of the Arameans.
1. The desperation (7:3–4): Since they are starving anyway, four Israelite men with leprosy decide to throw themselves upon the mercy of the Arameans outside Samaria.
2. The discovery (7:5–8): When the men go to the Arameans, they find an abandoned camp still stocked with food, for the Lord had caused the Arameans to flee at the sound of a great army approaching.
3. The duty (7:9–11): The lepers conclude that it is their moral obligation to share the news with Samaria’s starving citizens, so they return to the city and tell the gatekeepers.
E. The plunder by the people (7:12–16): After the king of Israel sends out scouts and confirms the discovery, the people rush out and collect the abundant plunder of food and silver. This fulfills Elisha’s first prophecy.
F. The passing of the officer (7:17–20): The king assigns the officer who scoffed at Elisha’s words to control the traffic at the gate, but he is trampled to death in the rush, fulfilling Elisha’s second prophecy.
(1) The Siege and Its Effects (2 Ki 6:24–33)
24 Some time later, Ben-Hadad king of Aram mobilized his entire army and marched up and laid siege to Samaria. 25 There was a great famine in the city; the siege lasted so long that a donkey’s head sold for eighty shekels of silver, and a quarter of a cab of seed pods for five shekels.
26 As the king of Israel was passing by on the wall, a woman cried to him, “Help me, my lord the king!”
27 The king replied, “If the LORD does not help you, where can I get help for you? From the threshing floor? From the winepress?” 28 Then he asked her, “What’s the matter?”
She answered, “This woman said to me, ‘Give up your son so we may eat him today, and tomorrow we’ll eat my son.’ 29 So we cooked my son and ate him. The next day I said to her, ‘Give up your son so we may eat him,’ but she had hidden him.”
30 When the king heard the woman’s words, he tore his robes. As he went along the wall, the people looked, and there, underneath, he had sackcloth on his body. 31 He said, “May God deal with me, be it ever so severely, if the head of Elisha son of Shaphat remains on his shoulders today!”
32 Now Elisha was sitting in his house, and the elders were sitting with him. The king sent a messenger ahead, but before he arrived, Elisha said to the elders, “Don’t you see how this murderer is sending someone to cut off my head? Look, when the messenger comes, shut the door and hold it shut against him. Is not the sound of his master’s footsteps behind him?”
33 While he was still talking to them, the messenger came down to him. And [the king] said, “This disaster is from the LORD. Why should I wait for the LORD any longer?”
6:24–25 After an unspecified amount of time has passed, Ben-Hadad mounts yet another attack on Israel. This time the Syrians besiege Samaria itself rather than simply raiding chosen towns as in 2 Kgs 6:8–10. The siege is so effective that Samaria’s inhabitants are reduced to paying high prices for nonsavory items like a donkey’s head or a few beans. It seems unlikely that the city can hold out much longer.
6:26–33 Just how desperate Samaria’s citizens have gotten becomes apparent when two mothers approach Israel’s king with a problem. Their dilemma is quite like the one brought to Solomon in 1 Kgs 3:16–28, for it involves two mothers, two sons, one of which has died and one of which is still living, and the future of the living child. In a cruel twist of the Solomon story, though, the mothers have agreed to eat their children; but one woman has broken the pact. The dead boy’s mother wants the king to make the other woman keep her word. Syria’s siege has led to the worst sort of atrocities.
The king blames Elisha for the siege, perhaps reasoning that Syria still wants to eliminate the prophet. Ironically, the king seems to forget how Elisha protected Israel from the Syrians in those instances. He is now acting toward Elisha the way Ahab acted toward Elijah (cf. 1 Kgs 18:1–15). He considers his chief asset a liability, his best friend an enemy, and swears to have the prophet killed.
Meanwhile, Elisha sits in his home, speaking with the city’s leaders. Gray thinks the leaders’ presence in Elisha’s home indicates their opposition to the king, but Hobbs probably is right to infer rather that these men held Elisha in high regard.66 Elisha instructs the visitors to lock the door to bar the king’s assassin, but the man arrives too quickly. Once in Elisha’s presence, however, the messenger does nothing. The author concludes this portion of the episode by noting the king now believes that the Lord has caused their problems, so there is no need to allow the Lord’s prophet to live. Why not simply kill Elisha or turn him over to the Syrians and hope the enemy will leave?
(2) Elisha Predicts the Siege’s End (2 Ki 7:1–2)
1 Elisha said, “Hear the word of the LORD. This is what the LORD says: About this time tomorrow, a seah of flour will sell for a shekel and two seahs of barley for a shekel at the gate of Samaria.”
2 The officer on whose arm the king was leaning said to the man of God, “Look, even if the LORD should open the floodgates of the heavens, could this happen?”
“You will see it with your own eyes,” answered Elisha, “but you will not eat any of it!”
7:1–2 Elisha makes two predictions about the lifting of the siege. First, he promises that food will be cheap and plentiful by the next day. This prediction seems incredible in light of their situation and suffering. Second, when the king’s messenger doubts Elisha’s word (reassuring that even an immediate rainfall would not solve their problems that fast; cf. Gen 7:11; 8:2), the prophet predicts that the man will see the plentiful food yet will not eat any of it. Eyes of faith reassured Elisha’s servant in 2 Kgs 6:16–17, while here doubt will close the messenger’s eyes in death before he can be rescued from hunger.
(3) The Siege is Lifted (2 Ki 7:3–20)
3 Now there were four men with leprosy at the entrance of the city gate. They said to each other, “Why stay here until we die? 4 If we say, ‘We’ll go into the city’—the famine is there, and we will die. And if we stay here, we will die. So let’s go over to the camp of the Arameans and surrender. If they spare us, we live; if they kill us, then we die.”
5 At dusk they got up and went to the camp of the Arameans. When they reached the edge of the camp, not a man was there, 6 for the LORD had caused the Arameans to hear the sound of chariots and horses and a great army, so that they said to one another, “Look, the king of Israel has hired the Hittite and Egyptian kings to attack us!” 7 So they got up and fled in the dusk and abandoned their tents and their horses and donkeys. They left the camp as it was and ran for their lives.
8 The men who had leprosy reached the edge of the camp and entered one of the tents. They ate and drank, and carried away silver, gold and clothes, and went off and hid them. They returned and entered another tent and took some things from it and hid them also.
9 Then they said to each other, “We’re not doing right. This is a day of good news and we are keeping it to ourselves. If we wait until daylight, punishment will overtake us. Let’s go at once and report this to the royal palace.”
10 So they went and called out to the city gatekeepers and told them, “We went into the Aramean camp and not a man was there—not a sound of anyone—only tethered horses and donkeys, and the tents left just as they were.” 11 The gatekeepers shouted the news, and it was reported within the palace.
12 The king got up in the night and said to his officers, “I will tell you what the Arameans have done to us. They know we are starving; so they have left the camp to hide in the countryside, thinking, ‘They will surely come out, and then we will take them alive and get into the city.’ ”
13 One of his officers answered, “Have some men take five of the horses that are left in the city. Their plight will be like that of all the Israelites left here—yes, they will only be like all these Israelites who are doomed. So let us send them to find out what happened.”
14 So they selected two chariots with their horses, and the king sent them after the Aramean army. He commanded the drivers, “Go and find out what has happened.” 15 They followed them as far as the Jordan, and they found the whole road strewn with the clothing and equipment the Arameans had thrown away in their headlong flight. So the messengers returned and reported to the king. 16 Then the people went out and plundered the camp of the Arameans. So a seah of flour sold for a shekel, and two seahs of barley sold for a shekel, as the LORD had said.
17 Now the king had put the officer on whose arm he leaned in charge of the gate, and the people trampled him in the gateway, and he died, just as the man of God had foretold when the king came down to his house. 18 It happened as the man of God had said to the king: “About this time tomorrow, a seah of flour will sell for a shekel and two seahs of barley for a shekel at the gate of Samaria.”
19 The officer had said to the man of God, “Look, even if the LORD should open the floodgates of the heavens, could this happen?” The man of God had replied, “You will see it with your own eyes, but you will not eat any of it!” 20 And that is exactly what happened to him, for the people trampled him in the gateway, and he died.
7:3–11 Four lepers with nothing to lose become the first to enjoy the fulfillment of Elisha’s prophecy. As lepers they had to live outside the city (Lev 13:46), but they stayed near the gate to beg for food. Ironically, just as the once-leprous Naaman led Syria to many victories over Israel, so now these lepers will lead Israel’s looting of Syria’s army. These men reason that the Syrians will kill them if the siege is effective, so they decide to cast themselves on the enemy’s mercy. They will be no worse off no matter what happens.
When the lepers reach the edge of the Syrian camp, they discover the enemy has gone. God caused them to hear yet another unseen army (cf. 2 Kgs 6:17), which led them to retreat without taking their possessions. Not believing their good fortune, the lepers eat their fill, plunder the camp like a great four-man leprous army, and generally enjoy themselves. Eventually they feel they must share the good news or invite punishment, however, so they go back and report. This whole scene provides a delightful counterpart to the grim episode in 2 Kgs 6:24–33.
7:12–16 The king finds it hard to believe this quartet of lepers. He reasons that the Syrians are attempting to lure the Israelites out of the city so they can kill them, “a tactic similar to that employed by his ancestors at Ai (Josh 8:3–28).” One of the officers suggests they send a few horses and men out as decoys to see if the Syrians have indeed left. Like the lepers, he comments that if the men stay in the city they will die anyway, so they may as well test the king’s theory.69 When they do, the lepers’ word proves true. The city plunders the enemy camp, and food does become cheap, just as Elisha predicted it would.
7:17–20 Elisha’s second promise also comes to pass. The officer who doubted the prophet’s word in 7:2 is crushed to death by the hungry mob that pours out of the city gate. His death stands as a testimony of the truthfulness of God’s word through the prophet. It also reminds the book’s readers to believe God’s word, hope in God’s provision, and count on God’s deliverance.
