"Four Lepers"

But later, Ben-hadad king of Aram called up his entire army and marched to the siege of Samaria. The city was near starvation, and they besieged it so closely that a donkey’s head was sold for eighty shekels of silver, and a quarter of a kab of locust-beans for five shekels. One day, as the king of Israel was walking along the city wall, a woman called to him, ‘Help, my lord king!’ He said, ‘If the Lord will not bring you help, where can I find any for you? From threshing-floor or from winepress? What is your trouble?’ She replied, ‘This woman said to me, “Give up your child for us to eat today, and we will eat mine tomorrow.” So we cooked my son and ate him; but when I said to her the next day, “Now give up your child for us to eat”, she had hidden him.’ When he heard the woman’s story, the king rent his clothes. He was walking along the wall at the time, and when the people looked, they saw that he had sackcloth underneath, next to his skin. Then he said, ‘The Lord do the same to me and more, if the head of Elisha son of Shaphat stays on his shoulders today.’ Elisha was sitting at home, the elders with him. The king had dispatched one of his retinue but, before the messenger arrived, Elisha said to the elders, ‘See how this son of a murderer has sent to behead me! Take care, when the messenger comes, to shut the door and hold it fast against him. Can you not hear his master following on his heels?’ While he was still speaking, the king arrived and said, ‘Look at our plight! This is the Lord’s doing. Why should I wait any longer for him to help us?’ But Elisha answered, ‘Hear this word of the Lord: By this time tomorrow a shekel will buy a measure of flour or two measures of barley in the gateway of Samaria.’ Then the lieutenant on whose arm the king leaned said to the man of God, ‘Even if the Lord were to open windows in the sky, such a thing could not happen!’ He answered, ‘You will see it with your own eyes, but none of it will you eat.’ At the city gate were four lepers. They said to one another, ‘Why should we stay here and wait for death? If we say we will go into the city, there is famine there, and we shall die; if we say we will stay here, we shall die just the same. Well then, let us go to the camp of the Aramaeans and give ourselves up: if they spare us, we shall live; if they put us to death, we can but die.’ And so in the twilight they set out for the Aramaean camp; but when they reached the outskirts, they found no one there; for the Lord had caused the Aramaean army to hear a sound like that of chariots and horses and of a great host, so that the word went round: ‘The king of Israel has hired the kings of the Hittites and the kings of Egypt to attack us.’ They had fled at once in the twilight, abandoning their tents, their horses and asses, and leaving the camp as it stood, while they fled for their lives. When the four men came to the outskirts of the camp, they went into a tent and ate and drank and looted silver and gold and clothing, and made off and hid them. Then they came back, went into another tent and rifled it, and made off and hid the loot. Then they said to one another, ‘What we are doing is not right. This is a day of good news and we are keeping it to ourselves. If we wait till morning, we shall be held to blame. We must go now and give the news to the king’s household.’ So they came and called to the watch at the city gate and described how they had gone to the Aramaean camp and found not a single man in it and had heard no sound: nothing but horses and asses tethered, and the tents left as they were. Then the watch called out and gave the news to the king’s household in the palace. The king rose in the night and said to his staff, ‘I will tell you what the Aramaeans have done. They know that we are starving, and they have left their camp to go and hide in the open country, expecting us to come out, and then they can take us alive and enter the city.’ One of his staff said, ‘Send out a party of men with some of the horses that are left; if they live, they will be as well off as all the other Israelites who are still left; if they die, they will be no worse off than all those who have already perished. Let them go and see what has happened.’ So they picked two mounted men, and the king dispatched them in the track of the Aramaean army with the order to go and find out what had happened. They followed as far as the Jordan and found the whole road littered with clothing and equipment which the Aramaeans had flung aside in their haste. The messengers returned and reported this to the king. Then the people went out and plundered the Aramaean camp, and a measure of flour was sold for a shekel and two measures of barley for a shekel, so that the word of the Lord came true. Now the king had appointed the lieutenant on whose arm he leaned to take charge of the gate, and the people trampled him to death there, just as the man of God had foretold when the king visited him. For when the man of God said to the king, ‘By this time tomorrow a shekel will buy two measures of barley or one measure of flour in the gateway of Samaria’, the lieutenant had answered, ‘Even if the Lord were to open windows in the sky, such a thing could not happen!’ And the man of God had said, ‘You will see it with your own eyes, but none of it will you eat.’ And this is just what happened to him: the people trampled him to death at the gate.

Profiles in…no, not courage

Ben-hadad and the Aramean army

The famine

The two mothers

King Jehoram of Israel

Elisha

The four lepers

The king’s aide

God, His promises and His blessings

The Blessing

John 6:47–48 ESV

Truly, truly, I say to you, whoever believes has eternal life. I am the bread of life.

John 6:49 ESV

Your fathers ate the manna in the wilderness, and they died.

John 6:50 ESV

This is the bread that comes down from heaven, so that one may eat of it and not die.

John 6:51 ESV

I am the living bread that came down from heaven. If anyone eats of this bread, he will live forever. And the bread that I will give for the life of the world is my flesh.”

John 6:52 ESV

The Jews then disputed among themselves, saying, “How can this man give us his flesh to eat?”

John 6:53 ESV

So Jesus said to them, “Truly, truly, I say to you, unless you eat the flesh of the Son of Man and drink his blood, you have no life in you.

John 6:54 ESV

Whoever feeds on my flesh and drinks my blood has eternal life, and I will raise him up on the last day.

John 6:55 ESV

For my flesh is true food, and my blood is true drink.

John 6:56 ESV

Whoever feeds on my flesh and drinks my blood abides in me, and I in him.

John 6:57 ESV

As the living Father sent me, and I live because of the Father, so whoever feeds on me, he also will live because of me.

Related Media

Related Sermons