Bible Commentaries

Elisha announced to him the word of the Lord: “At the (this) time to-morrow a seah of wheaten flour (סלת, see at 1 Kings 5:2) will beworth a shekel, and two seahs of barley a shekel in the gate, i.e., in themarket, at Samaria.” A seah, or a third of an ephah = a Dresden peck(Metze), for a shekel was still a high price; but in comparison with theprices given in 2 Kings 6:25 as those obtained for the most worthless kinds of food, it was incredibly cheap. The king's aide-de-camp (שׁלישׁ: see at 2 Samuel 23:8; נשׁען למּלך אשׁר, an error in writing for נשׁ המּלך אשׁר, cf. 2 Kings 7:17, and for the explanation 2 Kings 5:18) therefore replied with mockery at this prophecy: “Behold (i.e., granted that) the Lord made windows in heaven, will this indeed be?” i.e., such cheapness take place. (For the construction, see Ewald, §357, b.) The ridicule lay more especially in the “windows in heaven,” in which there is an allusion to Genesis 7:11, sc. to rain down a flood of flour and corn. Elisha answered seriously: “Behold, thou wilt see it with thine eyes, but not eat thereof” (see 2 Kings 7:17.). The fulfilment of these words of Elisha was brought about by the event narrated in 2 Kings 7:3.

“Four men were before the gate as lepers,” or at the gateway, separatedfrom human society, according to the law in Leviticus 13:46; Numbers 5:3, probablyin a building erected for the purpose (cf. 2 Kings 15:5), just as at thepresent day the lepers at Jerusalem have their huts by the side of the Ziongate (vid., Strauss, Sinai u. Golgatha, p. 205, and Tobler, Denkblätter ausJerus. p. 411ff.). These men being on the point of starvation, resolved toinvade the camp of the Syrians, and carried out this resolution בּנּשׁף, in the evening twilight, not the morning twilight (Seb. Schm., Cler.,etc.), on account of 2 Kings 7:12, where the king is said to have received the newsof the flight of the Syrians during the night. Coming to “the end of theSyrian camp,” i.e., to the outskirts of it on the city side, they found no onethere. For (2 Kings 7:6, 2 Kings 7:7) “the Lord had caused the army of the Syrians to hear anoise of chariots and horses, a noise of a great army,” so that, believing theking of Israel to have hired the kings of the Hittites and Egyptians to fallupon them, they fled from the camp in the twilight אל־נפשׁם, withregard to their life, i.e., to save their life only, leaving behind them theirtents, horses, and asses, and the camp as it was. - The miracle, by whichGod delivered Samaria from the famine or from surrendering to the foe,consisted in an oral delusion, namely, in the fact that the besiegers thoughtthey heard the march of hostile armies from the north and south, and wereseized with such panic terror that they fled in the greatest haste, leaving behind them their baggage, and their beasts of draught and burden. It is impossible to decide whether the noise which they heard had any objective reality, say a miraculous buzzing in the air, or whether it was merely a deception of the senses produced in their ears by God; and this is a matter of no importance, since in either case it was produced miraculously by God. The kings of the Hittites are kings of northern Canaan, upon Lebanon and towards Phoenicia; חתּים in the broader sense for Canaanites, as in 1 Kings 10:29. The plural, “kings of the Egyptians,” is probably only occasioned by the parallel expression “kings of the Hittites,” and is not to be pressed.

When these lepers (these, pointing back to 2 Kings 7:3.) came into the campwhich the Syrians had left, they first of all satisfied their own hunger withthe provisions which they found in the tents, and then took differentvaluables and concealed them. But their consciences were soon aroused, sothat they said: We are not doing right; this day is a day of joyful tidings: ifwe are silent and wait till the morning light, guilt will overtake us; “for it isthe duty of citizens to make known things relating to public safety”(Grotius). They then resolved to announce the joyful event in the king'spalace, and reported it to the watchman at the city gate. העיר שׁער stands as a generic term in a collective sense for the personswho watched at the gate; hence the following plural להם, and in2 Kings 7:11 השּׁערים. “And the gate-keepers cried out (what they hadheard) and reported it in the king's palace.”

The king imagined that the unexpected departure of the Syrians was only aruse, namely, that they had left the camp and hidden themselves in thefield, to entice the besieged out of the fortress, and then fall upon them andpress into the city. בּהשּׂדה according to later usage for בּשּׂדה (vid., Ewald, §244, a). In order to make sure of the correctness orincorrectness of this conjecture, one of the king's servants (counsellors)gave this advice: “Let them take (the Vav before יקחוּ as in 2 Kings 4:41) five of the horses left in the city, that we may send and seehow the matter stands.” The words, “Behold they (the five horses) are asthe whole multitude of Israel that are left in it (the city); behold they are asthe whole multitude of Israel that are gone,” have this meaning: The fivehorsemen (for horses stand for horsemen, as it is self-evident that it wasmen on horseback and not the horses themselves that were to be sent outas spies) can but share the fate of the rest of the people of Samaria,whether they return unhurt to meet death by starvation with the peoplethat still remain, or fall into the hands of the enemy and are put to death,in which case they will only suffer the lot of those who have alreadyperished. Five horses is an approximative small number, and is therefore not atvariance with the following statement, that two pair of horses were sentout with chariots and men. The Chethîbההמון is not to bealtered, since there are other instances in which the first noun is writtenwith the article, though in the construct state (vid., Ewald, §290, e.); andthe Keriis only conformed to the following כּכל־המון. 2 Kings 7:14 ,2 Kings 7:15. They then sent out two chariots with horses, who pursued the flyingenemy to the Jordan, and found the whole of the road full of traces of thehurried flight, consisting of clothes and vessels that had been thrownaway. The Chethîbבּהחפזם is the only correct reading, since it isonly in the Niphal that חפז has the meaning to fly in greathaste (cf. 1 Samuel 23:26; Psalm 48:6; Psalm 104:7).

When the returning messengers reported this, the people went out andplundered the camp of the Syrians, and this was followed by theconsequent cheapness of provisions predicted by Elisha. As the peoplestreamed out, the unbelieving aide-de-camp, whom the king had ordered totake the oversight at the gate (הפקיד, to deliver the oversight) forthe purpose of preserving order in the crowding of the starving multitude,was trodden down by the people, so that he died, whereby this predictionof Elisha was fulfilled. The exact fulfilment of this prediction appeared somemorable to the historian, that he repeats this prophecy in 2 Kings 7:18-20 along with the event which occasioned it, and refers again to its fulfilment.