And it came to pass after this that Ben-Hadad king of Syria gathered all his army, and went up and besieged Samaria.
The Syrian raids have stopped. Now the king of Syria brings his whole army against Samaria and shuts the city in. Why does the attack come right after Israel had shown Syria mercy? And who stands behind a siege that starves God's own people?
The chapter before ends with Syrian soldiers fed and sent home instead of killed. One writer sets the new attack beside that kindness.
The record of the mercy shown to the Syrian raiders closes by saying that the raiding bands came no more into the land of Israel. Still, the Syrians stayed hostile to God's people. So we read, "Afterward Ben-hadad king of Syria mustered his entire army and went up and besieged Samaria" — the very city where such striking mercy had been shown.
Another writer asks why the good done to Syria left no mark, and points to wounded pride.
It is surprising how little mark the wonderful displays of power and grace through Elisha left on the people. They might show him outward respect, but that was all. Neither Israel nor Syria was much affected by them, though, as we have seen, both nations in turn had gained from the goodness shown… So things between Israel and Syria might improve for a time, but not for long. Their pride was hurt, and the Syrians waited for their chance, which came at last.
The famine that follows the siege is no accident of war. It matches a warning God gave Israel through Moses centuries earlier.
Now, under God's government, He lets the enemy besiege Samaria, and this brings a great famine on the city. The dreadful state the people are driven to fulfils a solemn prophecy spoken more than five hundred years earlier. Moses had warned the people of God that if they turned away from Him, the day would come when their enemies would besiege them. They would be so desperate that tender, delicate women would eat their own children in secret (Lev. 26:21-29; Deut. 28:49-57). This horror had at last come to pass.
Ben-hadad thinks he is acting for himself. A third writer calls him a tool in God's hand, and sees in the hunger he causes a picture of something bigger than one war.
The enemy of God's people never thinks himself beaten. The Syrian raiding bands stop their raids into the land, convicted of their wrongdoing by the power of the God of Israel. Ben-Hadad, by contrast, gathers all his army to besiege Samaria, and this siege brings a great famine with it. Such are the results of Israel's sin. God sent this enemy in judgment against His people, and the enemy did not know it. Yet at the same time he pictures the prince of death, whom sinful man cannot escape. The famine comes from the enemy's presence, for he would never dream of feeding those he is oppressing. It is like another form of death pressing down on this guilty people… But God has resources even against death.
Samaria kept the outward shape of worshipping the Lord. One writer shows what the famine drew out of its people and its king.
Samaria allowed every kind of sacrifice. The famine did not make the people and their king think again. It only exposed the terrible selfishness of men's hearts. To avoid dying of hunger, they sacrificed even their own children, instead of sacrificing themselves for them… The king even wore sackcloth next to his skin as a sign of mourning and self-denial. He probably hoped to turn the danger aside, but nothing touched his conscience or changed his heart.
One writer gives the reason God let the evil in Samaria show itself in full.
In the siege of Samaria the sin of the nation is allowed to show itself in all its horror. But this is so that the grace of God may be displayed in all its fullness. Where sin abounds, grace abounds much more. So here again we see a picture of that supreme display of grace at the Cross. There grace rises above all man's sin, and uses that very Cross to proclaim forgiveness and blessing to all the world.
- Mercy forgotten — Syria's army camps against the very city that had just fed its soldiers and sent them home. The kindness changed neither nation.
- Judgment allowed — God lets the enemy besiege Samaria, and the famine fulfils the warning Moses gave centuries before.
- Instrument unaware — God sends Ben-hadad without his knowing it, and his siege pictures death closing in on sinful people.
- Religion exposed — hunger did not soften Samaria. It laid bare selfish hearts and a king in sackcloth who never changed.
- Grace abounding — God lets the evil show its full depth so that His grace can rise higher still, pointing on to the Cross.
And there was a great famine in Samaria; and behold, they besieged it, until an ass's head was worth eighty silver-pieces, and the fourth part of a cab of dove's dung five silver-pieces.
The Syrian army has Samaria surrounded, and the price of food tells the story: a donkey's head and a scoop of dove's dung cost a fortune. The chapter raises a hard question — why did God let His own people come to this, and what did He do next?
The first item on the price list was food the law had banned:
In some parts people prize donkey flesh as food. But the Jews were forbidden to eat it as unclean. They ate it even so, in the terrible famine at the siege of Samaria.
What the second item was is less certain:
Some take this in 2 Kings 6:25 to mean a kind of herb. We have plants with names like that, such as cowslip and hart's-tongue. The Arabs have a herb they call "sparrows' dung."
The famine was no surprise to God. Hamilton Smith traces it back to a warning Moses gave centuries before:
Now, in the government of God, He allows the enemy to besiege Samaria, and this brings "a great famine" in the city. The people are driven to terrible extremes, and so a solemn prophecy spoken more than five hundred years earlier comes true. Moses had warned the people of God about turning away from Him. The time would come when their enemies besieged them, and they would be driven so far that tender, delicate women would eat their own young children in secret (Lev. 26:21-29; Deut. 28:49-57). This abomination had at last come to pass.
Rossier adds that the besieging army was itself an instrument in God's hand:
God sent the enemy, though the enemy did not know it, in judgment against this people. At the same time he pictures the prince of death, whom sinful man cannot escape. The famine follows the presence of the enemy. He would never dream of feeding the people he is oppressing.
Extreme prices did not drive the city back to God. They revealed what was in it. Rossier looks at the famine, and at the sackcloth the king wore under his robes. He sees religion that never reached the conscience:
The famine did not make the people and their king think again. It only revealed the terrible selfishness of men's hearts. To avoid dying of hunger, they sacrificed even their own children, instead of sacrificing themselves for them... The king even wore sackcloth against his skin as a sign of mourning and self-denial. He probably hoped it would turn the danger away. But nothing touched his conscience and nothing changed his heart.
The king charged the trouble to God's servant. Bellett sets that instinct beside the oldest examples of it:
This was man charging God with all the trouble that was happening — or charging His servant, which is the same thing. It was like Adam at the beginning of our sin. He said, "The woman whom you gave to be with me, she gave me fruit of the tree, and I ate." It was like Cain, who said, "Am I my brother's keeper?" It laid the sin and the sorrow on the one head that was clear and free of it all.
God's answer follows at once. Bellett marks it by the prices themselves:
But then it is that God's remedy reveals itself. Then it is that grace abounds. And instead of a donkey's head selling for eighty pieces of silver, a measure of flour and two measures of barley would now sell for one shekel — in the gate of the city that had destroyed itself.
Wolston sets Elisha's news beside the news he brings:
This was salvation for those starving, perishing people. I admit it was salvation for a shekel of silver. Thank God, I have better news for you than Elisha had for the Samaritans. There is salvation for you, poor hungry sinners — not tomorrow for a shekel of silver, but now, this very moment, for nothing.
- Price one: sin. The siege prices are the bill for leaving God. Unclean food cost a fortune, just as Moses had warned.
- Price two: pretence. Hidden sackcloth cost the king nothing. Hunger exposed his heart; it did not change it.
- Price three: blame. Instead of owning the cause, the king blamed the one man free of it. That is Adam's and Cain's old reflex.
- Price four: grace. God reversed the market. Flour and barley sold for a shekel in the same gate where a donkey's head had cost eighty pieces.
- Price five: none. Samaria's plenty cost a shekel. The salvation announced now costs nothing at all.
And it came to pass as the king of Israel was passing by upon the wall, there cried a woman to him saying, Help, my lord O king!
The cry comes from inside a starving city: Samaria is under siege, and a woman calls out to her king as he walks the wall. Her appeal, and the answer she gets, show what is left of a nation and its ruler once they abandon God.
The famine was not an accident of war. Writers trace it back to a warning spoken centuries earlier.
Now, under God's government, God allows the enemy to besiege Samaria, and this brings "a great famine" on the city. The people of the city sink into fearful straits. So the solemn prophecy spoken more than five hundred years before comes true. Moses had warned the people of God that if they turned away from Him, the time would come when their enemies besieged them. They would sink to such straits that tender, delicate women would secretly eat their own children (Lev. 26:21-29; Deut. 28:49-57). This terrible evil had at last come to pass.
Her words sound like a plea for bread. They were not.
A woman cried out to the king for help, but she was not asking for food. She had a complaint against another woman. The two had agreed to kill and boil their sons on different days so that they could eat. She said she gave her son the first day, and they killed him and ate him. Now she said the other woman had hidden her son when it was her turn to provide him as food (vv.26-29).
The king's reply names the Lord. That is as far as it goes.
Why did the king of Israel not even consider praying to the Lord in this predicament? He could speak of the Lord (v.27), but had no faith whatever in God's sovereign goodness.
Another writer asks what real mourning would have led the king to do first.
Had the king's mourning been true, he would have thought first of getting rid of his false gods, and of turning in heart to the Lord. But he did not believe that God had the power or the will to help, and in despair he had to confess his own powerlessness. It is a sad picture of man away from God.
One writer sees the king's religious talk as an attempt to put God under obligation.
This king was the wicked descendant of ancestors just as wicked. He was awake to his danger, but not to his sin. He had put on the clothing of repentance — Job's sackcloth without Job's self-loathing. He talks about the Lord like a godly man: "If the LORD will not help you, how shall I help you?" And none of this is hypocrisy. The sackcloth is not on the outside for the people to see, but "within, upon his flesh." He is trying to establish a claim on God by the very thing that shows he has no claim. And how many people, not hypocrites at all, are doing that! They turn their repentance itself into a kind of righteousness. But the whole meaning of repentance is that we have none.
The king's despair did not stay despair. What came next grew out of it.
The king was punishing himself at the very moment when, full of hatred, he was seeking the life of the prophet of the Lord... He had said to the woman in distress, "If the LORD will not help you, how shall I help you?" He had torn his clothes at the horrible reality. Yet he turned with violence on the only man who offered him a way of salvation... One thing he would not admit, and it was the most important thing of all: his sin had earned him death and judgment.
God's mercy arrives at the lowest point of the story. That timing is the lesson.
However much misery there was to draw out His pity, there was no goodness to plead on man's behalf. And it pleased God to bring in His mercy at the very moment when the evil that had provoked His judgment lay fully exposed. Is there any exception to His ways here? Or is this instead a principle of His ways?
- Cause. The siege and the famine are not bad luck. They are the judgment Moses had described if the nation turned away from God.
- Cry. The woman on the wall was not begging for bread. She wanted a ruling on whose child would be eaten next. That is how low sin had brought the city.
- Confession. The king's answer is true and useless at once: he admits he can do nothing, names the Lord, and never turns to Him.
- Counterfeit. The sackcloth under his clothes was real feeling about danger, not about sin. He turned repentance into a claim on God, when repentance means having no claim at all.
- Contrast. Where man had no goodness to show, God brought in His mercy — timed so that grace would stand out as pure grace.
And he said, If Jehovah do not help thee, whence should I help thee? Out of the threshing-floor, or out of the winepress?
Samaria is under siege, the people are starving, and a woman cries out to the king from the street. He answers with a confession, not an order — and with a question about the LORD that exposes his own heart.
The horror inside Samaria was not a random disaster. Commentators trace it back to a warning given centuries earlier.
In His government God allows the enemy to besiege Samaria, and this brings "a great famine" on the city. The people are driven to such desperate need that a prophecy spoken more than five hundred years before is fulfilled. Moses had warned the people of God that if they turned away from Him, their enemies would besiege them. He said they would be driven so far that tender, delicate women would secretly eat their young children (Lev. 26:21-29; Deut. 28:49-57). This horror had at last come to pass.
What the king says is correct. If God withholds help, no ruler can produce bread out of an empty threshing floor. But saying the right thing about God is not the same as counting on Him.
Why did the king of Israel not even consider praying to the Lord in this predicament? He could speak of the Lord (v.27), but had no faith whatever in God's sovereign goodness.
Later the people see sackcloth against the king's skin, hidden under his robes. It is the dress of a mourner. One writer sets that beside his pious-sounding reply and says the problem is not play-acting.
This king was the wicked descendant of ancestors just as wicked. He was awake to his danger, though not to his sin. He had put on the clothing of repentance — Job's sackcloth without Job's hatred of himself. He talks piously of the Lord: "If the LORD will not help you, how shall I help you?" And all this is not hypocrisy — the sackcloth is not outside for the people to see, but "within, upon his flesh." He is trying to establish a claim on God by the very thing that shows he has no claim. And how many, who are not hypocrites at all, are doing that! They turn their repentance itself into a kind of righteousness. But the whole meaning of repentance is that we have none.
Having admitted he is helpless, the king does not turn to God. He swears to take Elisha's head. Shifting blame like this is as old as the first sin.
Here man blamed God — or His servant, which is the same thing — for all the trouble that was happening. It was like Adam at the beginning of our sin: "The woman whom you gave to be with me, she gave me fruit of the tree, and I ate." It was like Cain: "Am I my brother's keeper?" It was laying the sin and the sorrow on the one head that was completely clear and free of it all.
Another writer weighs the king's sackcloth against his hunt for the prophet, and names what that hunt would cost him.
Outwardly, who was the mourner? People talk a good deal now about humiliation. But here we see that the man who wore sackcloth was hostile to God. He showed how far he had sunk morally by seeking the prophet's life. That was to rob himself of the only existing link between himself and God in grace. For God was acting in grace, through Elisha, and had been doing so all along.
The king expected no answer to his question. God gave one the next day, through the prophet he had marked for death.
The sixth chapter closes in the utter despair that had come on the leaders of the people. The seventh opens like a trumpet call. It brings a message of mercy from the Lord: "Then Elisha said, Hear the word of the LORD." Things were at their very worst, and God comes forth to do His best.
- Help forsaken. The famine fulfilled Moses' warning: a people who leave God would face siege, and women would eat their own children.
- Help confessed. No threshing floor or winepress of his could feed her. He named the LORD, but had no faith in Him.
- Help counterfeited. Sackcloth hidden under his robes tried to build a claim on God out of the one thing that proves a man has none.
- Help attacked. Instead of turning to God, he blamed His servant. He struck at the one head free of guilt, and cut himself off from his only link with God's grace.
- Help given. Man's resources hit zero and his sin stood exposed. Then the word of the LORD promised plenty for the next day. At man's worst, God does His best.
And the king said to her, What aileth thee? And she said, This woman said to me, Give thy son, that we may eat him to-day, and we will eat my son to-morrow.
The scene is Samaria under siege, with food gone and a king walking the wall while a woman cries out for help. His short question draws out an answer so horrifying that it turns a famine story into proof that God's oldest warnings were true.
The woman cries to the king, but the king has nothing to give her. She is appealing to a man as helpless as she is. One commentator sums up the city, and the king's response to it:
The distress was extreme. The king of Israel was completely helpless, and everything was in confusion. No wonder the king tore his clothes and wore sackcloth. But there was no fear of God in him. Instead there was a murderous intent against the prophet of God.
The woman's reply is not a complaint about hunger. It is the report of an agreement: one son today, the other son tomorrow.
What a famine it was! Tender women, each of them mothers, agreed together to take the lives of their children. One child was cooked and eaten. The next day that child's mother was furious, because the other woman's child was kept back and the cannibal meal she had waited for never came. So she appealed to the king for justice he was too shaken to give her! Again we say, what a famine this was! It erased from women the very marks of their sex: gentleness, tenderness, and love for their own children.
What the woman describes was not unforeseen. Moses had put the warning in writing long before Israel entered the land.
Now, under God's government He allows the enemy to besiege Samaria, leading to "a great famine" in the city. The people inside are driven to a desperate state, and so a solemn prophecy spoken more than five hundred years before comes true. Moses had warned the people of God that if they turned away from Him, a time would come when their enemies would besiege them. They would sink so low that tender, delicate women would eat their young children in secret (Leviticus 26; Deuteronomy 28). This horror had at last come to pass.
Readers often find this verse hard to believe. One writer answers that the problem is not the record, but our habit of hiding the dark side.
You can imagine nothing worse than a woman boiling her own son. When God draws a picture, He draws a true picture. Man likes to draw a bright picture and to throw a veil over the dark side; God describes faithfully what man is.
The king's sackcloth was hidden. He wore it under his robes, where no one could see it. One writer explains why that sincerity still left him short of blessing.
The king stands here, as always in Israel, for a people just as guilty as he is. This king was the wicked descendant of ancestors just as wicked. He was awake to his danger, but not to his sin. He had put on the clothing of repentance — Job's sackcloth without Job's self-loathing… And none of this was hypocrisy. The sackcloth was not on the outside for people to see; it was inside, against his flesh. He is trying to establish a claim on God by the very thing that shows he has no claim. And how many people, without being hypocrites at all, are doing that! They turn their repentance itself into a kind of righteousness, when the whole meaning of repentance is that we have none. And God waits. He holds back the blessing He wants to give, because to give it then would be to approve what is not true. In this way the king's sackcloth was the very thing that blocked the blessing.
Rescue did come to this city, but no one inside had earned it.
It was no work of the Samaritans and no work of the lepers that saved them that day. No, it was the intervention of God in sovereign grace, and it is the same today. So far from man's works or merits having anything to do with it, it is when the sin of man has risen to its full height that the gospel of God comes out.
- Warned — Moses described this scene centuries before it happened. God's word proved true in its threats as much as in its promises.
- Starved — hunger stripped mothers of tenderness, until two women bargained over which son died first.
- Helpless — the king had nothing left to give. The one appealed to was as empty as the woman appealing.
- Unhumbled — the king's sackcloth was real. But repentance used as a claim on God is repentance misunderstood, and it held the blessing back.
- Rescued — God stepped in once every human claim had collapsed. No one inside the walls earned it.
And we boiled my son, and ate him and I said to her on the next day, Give thy son, that we may eat him; and she has hidden her son.
These words describe a bargain between two starving mothers in a besieged city. One son was eaten. The second was hidden. The quarrel then went to the king, as if it were an ordinary broken deal. Samaria's famine raises two questions. How did God's people sink this far, and what does God do with a ruin this complete?
This horror was no accident of war. Commentators trace it back to mercy that changed nothing, and to a warning Moses gave Israel long before they entered the land.
Jehoram, the king who had turned away from God, already owed his life to Elisha. Yet this great mercy seems to have changed nothing, either in the king or in the nation. Now God's government lets the enemy besiege Samaria, and this brings "a great famine" in the city. Their suffering grew so terrible that a solemn prophecy, spoken more than five hundred years earlier, came true. Moses had warned the people of God that if they turned away from Him, a time would come when their enemies would besiege them. They would sink so low that gentle, tender women would eat their own young children in secret (Lev. 26:21-29; Deut. 28:49-57). This horror had happened at last.
One writer meets the reader's disgust head on. What the Bible records here is horrible, and it is true.
Even mothers forgot their natural love for their own children. Think of a woman, a mother, boiling and eating her own child. Impossible, you say. No, women did it. God had said they would do it... The Word of God never fails. This is the beauty of Scripture: it paints man as he is, and woman as she is, not as a historian or a novelist paints them.
Another writer walks through the bargain itself, and where it ended.
What a famine it was! Tender women, all of them mothers, agreed together to take the lives of their own children. They cooked one child and ate it. The next day that child's mother was furious, because the other woman kept her own child back and the cannibal dish she had looked forward to never came. So she appealed to the king for a remedy he was too shaken to give her! Again we say, what a famine this was! It wiped out from women the very qualities of their sex: gentleness, tenderness, and love of their children.
She takes her case to the highest authority in the city, and he has no answer. One writer notes what the king never even tries.
Why did the king of Israel not even consider praying to the Lord in this predicament? He could speak of the Lord (v.27), but had no faith whatever in God's sovereign goodness.
The king did feel something. But where he wore his sackcloth tells its own story.
In the king we see a certain measure of looking to God — he wore sackcloth next to his skin. In Scripture sackcloth is a well-known symbol of repentance. But he was too proud to let the people know he thought God's hand was on him, so he wore the sackcloth underneath, not on the outside. He was like many people today, who have a certain seriousness but would not want their neighbours to know. He did not want to admit his sin. He would have been glad to blame God or His servant for this condition, which was the result of Israel's sin.
One writer puts that instinct in a long line of others.
This was man charging God — or His servant, which comes to the same thing — with all the trouble that was happening. It was like Adam at the beginning of our sin: "The woman whom you gave to be with me, she gave me fruit of the tree, and I ate." It was like Cain: "Am I my brother's keeper?" It was laying the sin and the sorrow on the one head that was clear and free of it all.
The story does not stop in despair. One writer marks the moment when the promise came, and what that timing shows.
This was sin carried out to the full. Like the cross of Christ, this was the height of evil. This was exactly the moment when Samaria's sin was at its worst. But, as at that same cross of Christ, this very moment became the occasion for God to display His grace. The ruin was complete, and there was no hope from man. It is then that Elisha opens his lips with a promise and delivers a word from the Lord.
- Warned. Moses described Samaria's horror five hundred years before it happened. God's word never fails — its warnings no less than its promises.
- Ruined. Famine erased even a mother's love for her child. Scripture records it, because Scripture shows people as they really are.
- Helpless. The woman appealed to the king, who could name the Lord but never thought to pray to Him, and so had no relief to give.
- Blaming. The king hid his sackcloth under his clothes and blamed God's servant — laying the sin on the one head that was free of it all.
- Rescued. Evil reached its height and human hope was gone. At that exact moment the prophet spoke a promise. That is how grace works.
And it came to pass when the king heard the words of the woman, that he rent his garments; and he was passing by upon the wall, and the people looked, and behold, he had sackcloth within upon his flesh.
Samaria is under siege and starving. As the king walks the wall, a woman tells him she has boiled and eaten her own son. He tears his clothes in horror, and the crowd sees what he wore underneath. What did that hidden sackcloth prove — grief, religion, or a heart still set against God?
Sackcloth carried a fixed meaning. The striking thing is where this king wore it.
In the king we see a certain measure of looking to God — he wore sackcloth next to his flesh. In Scripture sackcloth is a well-known symbol of repentance. He was too proud to let the people know he thought God's hand was on him, so he put the sackcloth inside, not outside. He is like many a person today, who has a certain amount of seriousness, but would not like his neighbours to know.
Samaria had not abandoned religion. Yet the famine did not soften the city, and the sackcloth went with no change of heart.
Samaria tolerated every kind of sacrifice. The famine did not make the people and their king reconsider. It only showed the terrible selfishness of men's hearts: to avoid dying of hunger, they were sacrificing even their own children instead of sacrificing themselves for them. Such things happened there, and not because the outward features of religion had been driven out. The king even wore "sackcloth beneath on his body" as a sign of mourning and self-denial. He probably hoped to turn the danger away. But his conscience was not touched and his heart was not changed.
Under the sackcloth, the king's rage was looking for a target — and it found God's prophet.
He had sackcloth on his flesh, but murder in his heart. Alas, what power of Satan over man's heart and mind is shown in this! The heart of the king rises in bitter passion against God, and His prophet will serve to vent the rage of his unrepentant, unsubdued heart. It is not the only occasion in history where rulers have put the blame of national calamities upon God; and how often men's hearts rise against God, rather than humble themselves in repentance, under the pains of what they cannot change or overcome.
One writer presses further. The king was not pretending. He was truly shaken — and that was the danger.
This king was the wicked descendant of ancestors just as wicked. He was awake to his danger, though not to his sin, and he had put on the clothes of repentance — Job's sackcloth without Job's self-loathing. He talks piously of the Lord: "If the Lord will not help you, how shall I help you?" And all this is not hypocrisy — the sackcloth is not outside for the people to see, but underneath, on his body. He is trying to build a claim on God out of the very thing that proves he has no claim. And how many, who are not hypocrites at all, are doing that! They turn their repentance itself into a righteousness of their own, when the whole meaning of repentance is that we have none.
The same writer draws a startling conclusion: the sackcloth itself stood in the way of blessing.
The king's sackcloth was, in this way, the very hindrance to blessing. If He had given it before that sackcloth was stripped off, He would have hidden His precious grace and turned His free gift into wages. So He delays the blessing. He lets the ungodliness of the king's heart come out. Then, when every claim on man's part is shut out, He brings in His grace as grace.
The same crisis fell on two men. One put on sackcloth. The other looked up.
The very thing that made the king wear sackcloth only lifted Elisha's eyes to where he knew the chariots of fire and horses of fire were always to be found: "Those who are with us are more than those who are with them." It is the same today. Satan's moral darkness settles on those who forget to think about the things above, where Christ sits. Had the king's mourning been true, he would have thought first of getting rid of his false gods, and of turning in heart to the Lord. But he did not believe that God had the power or the will to help. In despair he had to admit that he himself was powerless.
- Hidden — Sackcloth is Scripture's sign of repentance. This king hid it under his robes, too proud to let anyone see it.
- Hollow — Samaria kept every outward sign of religion. The famine proved that a form of mourning can go on while the conscience stays untouched.
- Hostile — Under the sackcloth was murder. The king would not humble himself, so he blamed God and turned his rage on God's prophet.
- Counterfeit — Job's sackcloth without Job's self-abhorrence. Repentance becomes a claim on God, when the whole meaning of repentance is that we have no claim.
- Delayed — The sackcloth itself held back the blessing. God waited until every claim was stripped away. Then what came to Samaria could be grace, not wages.
And he said, God do so, and more also to me, if the head of Elisha the son of Shaphat shall remain on him this day!
Samaria is under siege and starving. The king has just heard that mothers in the city are eating their own children, and his answer is to swear death on the prophet who could have helped him.
The king's clothing said one thing and his oath said another.
He had sackcloth on his flesh, but murder in his heart. See what power Satan has over man's heart and mind here! The heart of the king rises in bitter passion against God. His prophet will serve to vent the rage of that unrepentant, unsubdued heart. This is not the only time in history that rulers have blamed God for national disasters. And how often men's hearts rise against God instead of humbling themselves in repentance, under pains they cannot change or overcome!
He wore the sackcloth under his robes, where no one would see it. One writer finds in that a familiar half-seriousness about God.
He was like many a person today who has a certain amount of seriousness, but would not like his neighbours to know. He did not like to admit his sin. He was ready to blame God or His servant for a situation that came from Israel's sin.
Sackcloth was the known sign of repentance. So why did wearing it leave the king further from God, not nearer?
This king was the wicked descendant of ancestors just as wicked. He was awake to his danger, though not to his sin, and had put on the clothing of repentance — Job's sackcloth without Job's self-loathing... He is trying to build a claim on God out of the very thing that is the sign he has no claim. And how many people, not hypocrites at all, are doing exactly that! They turn their repentance itself into a kind of righteousness, when the whole meaning of repentance is that we have none... The king's sackcloth was, in this way, the very hindrance to blessing... So God delays the blessing. He lets the ungodliness of the king's heart come out. Then, when every claim on man's side is completely shut out, He brings in His grace as grace, with no stain on its glory.
Jehoram's quarrel was not with Elisha. It was with God, and Elisha was the only target within reach.
He swore by God that Elisha must be killed. Why? Because Elisha was the one person in Samaria who represented God, and Jehoram blamed God for the famine. God could certainly have prevented it, but He did not. The famine was a punishment for Jehoram's guilt. Instead of judging himself, Jehoram decided to judge Elisha — the one man through whom he could have found deliverance... How many there are who bitterly condemn the Lord Jesus when they are in trouble! Yet He is the one source of real help for them.
One writer sums up the injustice in a single line.
He lays the blame on the head which alone was free from the sin.
Why did Elisha's past help count for nothing now? One writer finds the answer in what the fear of death does to the heart.
This proves that the human heart cannot remember or value any mercy it has received while the fear of death still hangs over it. Elisha had been the witness and servant of God's grace and power, turning away many disasters from the nation. Yet the king gave him no respect or favour for the past. Instead he threatened his life unless he kept on helping them.
Set the king beside the prophet and the picture reverses. Which of the two was the real mourner?
I was very struck the other day by the contrast in 2 Kings 6 — the prophet and the king, Dothan and Samaria. Outwardly, who was the mourner? People talk a great deal now about humbling ourselves. But here we see that the man wearing sackcloth was at war with God. He showed how far he had sunk by seeking the prophet's life. That meant cutting himself off from the only link he had with God in grace. God was acting in grace through Elisha, and had been all along. But what made the king a mourner was God's action toward the people.
- Cause. The famine came from the nation's own sin, not from Elisha. The king laid the blame on "the head which alone was free from the sin."
- Cover. The king wore the sign of repentance without the thing itself — "Job's sackcloth without Job's self-loathing."
- Claim. Repentance turned into a merit stops being repentance. Its whole meaning is that we have no claim on God — and God held back the blessing until every claim was gone.
- Cutting off. The king's oath struck at the only link left between him and God's grace.
- Contrast. The king mourns and rages; the prophet is the one still in touch with God. Trouble does not create the heart's condition — it exposes it.
And Elisha sat in his house, and the elders sat with him. And [the king] sent a man before him. Before the messenger came to him, he himself said to the elders, Do ye see how this son of a murderer has sent to take away my head? See, when the messenger comes; shut the door, and keep him off with the door is not the sound of his master's feet behind him?
Commentary for this verse has not been generated yet.
And while he yet talked with them, behold, the messenger came down to him. And [the king] said, Behold, this evil is of Jehovah why should I wait for Jehovah any longer?
The siege of Samaria has reached its worst: food is gone, mothers have eaten their children, and King Jehoram has sworn to behead Elisha. Verse 33 raises two questions: who speaks these words, and what does it mean to blame God for trouble and then refuse to wait for Him?
Commentators differ over the speaker. Most read the verse as the king's outburst, spoken right behind his own messenger.
The king had been claiming to wait for the God of Elisha. Now, when deliverance seems as far off as ever, he throws it all up. It is as if he said, "It is useless to look to the Lord for deliverance." The unbelief and passion of his heart break out.
Others take the words as Elisha's. On this reading the prophet names the true source of the trouble and declares that the waiting is over.
The truth here was, "This trouble is from the LORD." No one in Israel cared to admit it... The king's hypocrisy is now out in the open and his guilt plain. Elisha's cry, "This trouble is from the LORD! Why should I wait for the LORD any longer?" was clearly connected with that exposure. Sin had now reached its lowest depth. There was nothing left to wait for but that God should glorify Himself in showing mercy to whom He would show mercy.
Read as the king's words, this is only half a confession. He admits where the trouble comes from, but not what brought it on.
This is the man who had said to the woman in distress, "If the LORD does not help you, where can I get help for you?" This is the man who had torn his clothes at the horror of it. Yet he turned in violence on the only person who offered him a way of rescue. He had forgotten that the prophet saved his life, "not once, not twice," and that the Lord had been holding out a helping hand to him with limitless patience. None of it meant anything to him. The one thing he would not admit was the most important thing of all: his sin had earned him death and judgment.
The king's complaint has its own logic, and one writer spells it out.
Then comes the messenger followed by the king, charging the Lord with all the evil. The king says, in effect, "What is the good of Elisha sitting in his house doing nothing? He delivered me once before from destruction; why does he not act now? What is the good of his professing to wait upon the Lord? Nothing happens. I will give up all thought of the Lord, and I will take off the head of Elisha the prophet of the Lord."
Two things were missing, and they stand or fall together.
There was no fear of God before the king's eyes. There was no confidence in God either. The fear of God and confidence in God go together.
This way of thinking did not die with Jehoram.
How often a man in revolt against God reasons like Jehoram! God does not give me what I want. He does not heal someone dear to me. He does not bring me out of my money troubles. So I will be done with my obligations toward Him; He no longer exists for me. The reason is that, like Jehoram, man's heart does not want to go to the root of his trouble — sin — and admit its consequences. He does not want to repent. His pride refuses to throw itself on the mercy of his judge.
What follows in chapter 7 is not the judgment the moment deserves. The reply comes through the very man marked for death.
How will God respond to so much wickedness and rebellion? He has His grace announced by the very man whose life the king is seeking! ... God proclaimed that the next day He would give plenty and satisfy the hungry poor, when their very sin was the cause of the famine.
The timing is not an accident. It is how God works.
We look at the wickedness of man shown here, and we ask, "What possible reason could there be here for the coming blessing?" And we can only answer, "None, surely; none at all."... God chose to bring in His mercy at the very moment when the evil that had provoked His judgment lay fully exposed. Is this an exception to His ways? Or is it rather a principle of His ways?
- Disputed voice — commentators differ: is verse 33 the king giving up on God, or Elisha saying the waiting is over?
- Half-confession — the king admits the trouble comes from God. He never admits the sin that brought it.
- Root refused — he would admit anything but that his sin deserved judgment, so he turned on the one man who could have helped him.
- Fear and confidence — where there is no fear of God there is no trust in Him either; the two rise and fall together.
- Mercy at the bottom — with the evil fully exposed, God promises plenty within a day, and He says it through the prophet marked for death.