2 Kingschapter 6
33 verses · Jeremiah, by tradition · 6th century BC · History
Now the sons of the prophets said to Elisha, “Please take note that the place where we meet with you is too small for us.
Introduction
Jeremiah, by tradition, History, 2 Kings Overview.
This chapter moves from a borrowed tool at a riverbank to a capital city starving under siege. It was written for Israelites who knew both border raids and the long hunger of a walled town. The first hearers would recognise the ambush tactics of Aram and the curse lists that treaties of the age attached to broken oaths. Listen for a prayer that a servant's eyes be opened, and for a strange mercy shown to captured raiders. Then watch a king who knows where the disaster comes from and still turns on the prophet. The account runs straight on into the next chapter.
Context
- Who
- Israelites living with border raids and, eventually, a starving capital
- What
- An account of a lost axe head recovered, of Aramean raiders blinded and spared, and of Samaria under siege and famine.
- Where
- The Jordan riverbank, the town of Dothan, and Samaria under siege.
- When
- The Aramean wars under Joram of Israel, about 849 to 845 BC.
- Why
- To show that the LORD's forces are greater than any enemy's, and that knowing a disaster comes from Him differs from turning to Him.
Historical context
The lost axe head is a small story about a real economy. Iron tools were expensive and often borrowed, and the man's cry that it was borrowed means he was liable for the replacement, a debt he could not pay, of the kind that put children into service in chapter 4.
Show the rest of the historical context, 3 more paragraphs
The raiding described next is how Aram actually fought Israel between the big campaigns, small mobile companies crossing the border to ambush, plunder and withdraw. A king who kept avoiding those ambush points would look to the Aramean court like a man with a spy in the room, which is why the accusation of a leak is the first assumption.
Dothan sat on a mound above a main north-south trade route and was easy to surround, and the servant's morning panic and Elisha's prayer that his eyes be opened to the horses and chariots of fire around the mountain use the same imagery as Elijah's ascent. The Arameans are then struck with confusion, led into Samaria and fed, which was extraordinary by regional standards, since a captured raiding party would normally be killed or maimed.
The siege at the end shows a city's economy collapsing. A donkey's head, the least edible part of an unclean animal, sold for eighty shekels of silver, and a small measure of what the text calls dove's dung for five; that last item is either literally what people were burning or eating at the end or a folk name for a cheap plant, and both readings are old. The mothers' agreement to eat their sons is the horror the Law had warned of by name in its list of covenant curses, and the same curse sequence, running from siege and famine reaching cannibalism through to exile, is the common legal language of the age, attested in the Succession Treaty of Esarhaddon of 672 BC. The king, tearing his robe, is seen to be wearing sackcloth underneath it, mourning in private while blaming the prophet in public.
Significance
The first hearers were given a sentence to hold onto in a siege: those who are with us are more than those who are with them. The odds are never the whole picture.
Show the rest of the significance, 1 more paragraph
They were also shown a starving king who knew the disaster was from the LORD and concluded he should kill the prophet. Recognizing God's hand and repenting are two different things.
This chapter in Jewish lifeWhat this chapter is in Jewish life and reading.
How it is read
The corpus keeps sixteen notes on this chapter, all of them Rashi in the Metsudah Tanach translation of Lakewood, New Jersey, under a CC-BY licence. The first is the one that binds the chapter to the one before it. Rashi says again that the miracles performed through Elisha are being listed here, and then he gives the tradition's explanation of why the school had outgrown its house. Our Rabbis said, he reports, that Gehazi used to turn away the students who came, and when he was banished many students came and the place became cramped on account of them, and he cites the tractate Sotah (Rashi on II Kings 6:1:1). The overcrowding that opens this chapter is therefore read as the direct result of the judgment that closed the last one, which is the classical reading of how the two episodes join.
The axe head is read as a matter of fact and of mechanism. Rashi glosses the word for the iron as the axe head (Rashi on II Kings 6:5:1), and on the floating he says only that it floated on the water, while the Metsudah footnote carries Radak's account of how, that Elisha cut a new handle to fit the head, threw it in, and the handle found the hole in the blade and went into it and brought it up (Rashi on II Kings 6:6:1). At the third verse he glosses the word the company uses to press their master as being willing (Rashi on II Kings 6:3:1).
The war with Syria draws the closest work. The word for the place the Syrian king names Rashi renders through Targum Jonathan as covered and hidden, and he traces it to a verb meaning to be concealed, pointing at its use in Ruth (Rashi on II Kings 6:8:1). The prophet's warnings and the king's response he glosses plainly, the warning as one against going there (Rashi on II Kings 6:9:1) and the king's action as sending to see whether it was true (Rashi on II Kings 6:10:1). The Syrian king's outburst Rashi reads as a question about who was revealing his secret (Rashi on II Kings 6:11:1). On the order to find the prophet Rashi is brief, and the Metsudah footnote reports Malbim's reading of the errand, that the king sent his men to invite Elisha to his court in the hope of winning him over (Rashi on II Kings 6:13:1).
The chariots of fire and the blinding are the heart of the chapter, and Rashi's notes on them are careful about the divine Name. The hosts with the prophet he glosses as those who are there to help (Rashi on II Kings 6:16:1). At the striking of the Syrian troop he observes that Elisha did not mention the Name of God in the curse, while he did mention it in both of the prayers to open eyes, the attendant's and the troop's, and the footnote gives the reason from the Midrash on Genesis, that it is improper for the Name to be associated with evil and curses (Rashi on II Kings 6:18:1). That is a reading about how a prophet speaks rather than about what he does. Elisha's words leading the blinded army Rashi defends as true. The city they stood in was no longer the one the prophet was found in, because he had already left it (Rashi on II Kings 6:19:1).
The treatment of the captives and the famine close the chapter. The king's question about killing them Rashi turns back on him as a question about custom, whether it is his practice to kill those he takes captive (Rashi on II Kings 6:22:1), and the great feast he glosses as the preparing of a meal (Rashi on II Kings 6:23:1). In the siege he explains what was being bought and why, the dung of doves, with the footnote adding that it was used for fuel when there was no wood left to cook with (Rashi on II Kings 6:25:1). The woman's cry to the king on the wall Rashi reads as a misunderstanding on the king's part, that he thought she was asking for food (Rashi on II Kings 6:26:1), which sets up the horror of what she actually asks.
Eight further notes stand on this chapter with no English text in the corpus and are cited here unquoted. They are Metzudat David on II Kings 6:2:1, 6:7:1, 6:12:1, 6:15:1 and 6:24:1, and Radak on II Kings 6:17:1, 6:20:1 and 6:21:1. The opening of the servant's eyes at the seventeenth verse, which is the verse this chapter is best known by, carries a linked note of Radak and no kept text, so the classical commentary on that moment has to be followed out through the link.
What the rabbis say
The corpus carries forty rabbinic locators on this chapter, thirty-four Midrash and six Talmud, and the text of none, so each is cited and linked here rather than quoted. The cramped house of study draws four, Ein Yaakov (Glick Edition), Sanhedrin 11:106, Jerusalem Talmud Sanhedrin 10:2:22, Sanhedrin 107b:7 and Sotah 47a:11, and the last of those is the locator the kept note above names for the tradition about Gehazi turning students away. The lost axe head draws Ein Yaakov (Glick Edition), Sotah 1:49, Ein Yaakov, Sotah 1:56, Mekhilta DeRabbi Yishmael, Tractate Vayehi Beshalach 1:10 and Sotah 13a:15, and the floating draws Bamidbar Rabbah 19:6 and Midrash Tanchuma, Beshalach 2:1. Four of those six expound the crossing of the sea, so the tradition reads iron floating beside water standing up.
The Syrian king's suspicion of his own men draws Midrash Tanchuma Buber, Tazria 12:3 and Midrash Tanchuma, Tazria 9:1. The servant waking to the surrounded city draws five, Mekhilta DeRabbi Shimon Ben Yochai 14:12, Midrash Lekach Tov, Exodus 14:13:3, Shir HaShirim Rabbah 7:1:2 and Yalkut Shimoni on Torah 232:2, with Mekhilta DeRabbi Yishmael, Tractate Vayehi Beshalach 3:22 standing over verses 15 to 17 together. The opening of his eyes to the chariots of fire draws four more, Kohelet Rabbah 3:15:1, Midrash Sekhel Tov, Shemot 14:31:16, Midrash Tanchuma Buber, Emor 12:1 and Midrash Tanchuma, Emor 9:1. The striking of the troop with blindness draws Midrash Sekhel Tov, Bereshit 19:11:1, which expounds the blindness at Lot's door. The march into Samaria draws Midrash Aggadah, Leviticus 5:1:8, Midrash Tanchuma Buber, Vayikra 18:1 and Midrash Tanchuma, Toldot 12:7, and the opening of their eyes inside the city draws Midrash Sekhel Tov, Shemot 4:11:4.
The meal set before the captives draws four, Bava Batra 75a:4, Ein Yaakov (Glick Edition), Bava Batra 5:24, Ein Yaakov, Bava Batra 5:17 and Ein Yaakov, Niddah 3:10, and the tradition files the episode with the law of property and of the treatment of an enemy. The siege and the famine draw Pesikta Rabbati 29:4 across verses 24 to 29, and the price of a donkey's head and of dove's dung draws Bereshit Rabbah 25:3, Bereshit Rabbah 64:2, Megillah 25b:15 and Midrash Aggadah, Leviticus 26:29:1. That last locator expounds the curse of Leviticus that names parents eating their children, which is the verse the tradition reads this famine against.
The king tearing his clothes and the sackcloth found underneath draw Bereshit Rabbah 84:20, Ein Yaakov (Glick Edition), Taanit 1:47, Ein Yaakov, Taanit 1:52 and Esther Rabbah 8:1, and two of those sit in expositions of fasting and one in the Midrash on Esther, where a king's mourning dress is the subject. His oath against Elisha draws Pesikta Rabbati 29:5. What each of them teaches is a saying of the rabbis, and is reported as theirs wherever this site quotes one. The quotations wait on a fetch that carries the text.
Sources: Rashi, Rashi on II Kings 6:1:1 to 6:26:1, sixteen notes, the Metsudah Tanach series, Lakewood, N.J, CC-BY; Metzudat David, Metzudat David on II Kings 6:2:1, 6:7:1, 6:12:1, 6:15:1 and 6:24:1, cited by ref because the corpus carries no English text; Radak, Radak on II Kings 6:17:1, 6:20:1 and 6:21:1, cited by ref because the corpus carries no English text; and reported inside the Metsudah footnote at 6:6:1; Malbim, Malbim reported inside the Metsudah footnote at Rashi on II Kings 6:13:1, on the Syrian king's errand to Dothan; The Sefaria corpus, scripts/data/sources/sefaria/2-kings/6.json, the 40 rabbinic locators of this chapter, 34 Midrash and 6 Talmud.
The heads below are this chapter's scenes. The numbered points under each are its verses.
The iron did swim
2 Kings 6:1-2
the place where we meet with you is too small for us: The sons of the prophets tell Elisha that “the place where we meet with you is too small for us”. They ask his leave before building by the Jordan, and his answer is one word, “Go”. Whoever comes to Elisha in this chapter finds him attending to it.
2 Kings 6:1
“The writer returns here to the series of miracles which Elisha performed for the benefit of the prophetical schools under his care. The connection, in this point of view, is with 2Ki 4:44. The place where we dwell with thee - literally, “the place where we sit before thee,” i. e. “the place where we assemble and sit to bear thy teaching.” Elisha visited the sons of the prophets in circuit, staying a short time at each place where a “school” was established. Perhaps he was now visiting Jericho. Compare 2Ki 2:5.”
each of us can get a log: Albert Barnes notes that trees were scarce across most of Palestine and plentiful in the Jordan Valley. Barnes points to Jericho, known from early times as the city of palms at Deuteronomy 34:3 and Judges 1:16. Each man was to cut his own log.
2 Kings 6:2
“Take every man a beam - Trees were rare in most parts of Palestine, but plentiful in the Jordan Valley. Jericho was known in early times as “the city of palms” Deu 34:3; Jdg 1:16.”
2 Kings 6:3-4
One of the company presses Elisha to come himself, and he agrees with the same brevity, I will go. A prophet does not treat cutting beams as beneath him. The text spends two verses on an errand, because the ordinary labor is what sets up the loss that follows.
2 Kings 6:3
“And one said, be content, I pray thee, and with thy servants,.... Or be pleased to go with us; he begged it as a favour, that, being awed by his presence, they might preserve peace and order, and have his advice as to the spot of ground to erect their edifice on, and might be protected by him from harm and mischief by men or wild beasts: and he answered, I will go; he consented to it, knowing perhaps before hand that he should have an opportunity of working a miracle there, as he did.”
1 more voice on this verse
2 Kings 6:3
“When one of them, accidentally fetching too fierce a stroke (as those that work seldom are apt to be violent), threw off his axe-head into the water, he did not say, "It was a mischance, and who can help it? It was the fault of the helve, and the owner deserved to stand to the loss." No, he cries out with deep concern, Alas, master!”
Matthew Henry · Commentary on the Whole Bible (1707-1721)puritan
began to cut down some trees: Justin Martyr names the purpose of the building: a house where the sons of the prophets would read and study the law of God. He read the stick and the water of this story as a figure of Christ crucified on the tree and of cleansing by water.
2 Kings 6:4
“Elisha, by casting a stick into the river Jordan, recovered the iron part of the axe with which the sons of the prophets had gone to cut down trees to build the house in which they wished to read and study the law and commandments of God; even as our Christ, by being crucified on the tree, and by purifying us with water, has redeemed us, though plunged in the direst offences which we have committed, and has made us a house of prayer and adoration.”
Justin Martyr · written before 165 · Dialogue with Trypho, Chapter LXXXVIpatristic
2 Kings 6:5-7
the iron axe head fell into the water: The iron axe head falls into the Jordan, and the man cries that “it was borrowed”. Elisha “cut a stick, threw it there, and made the iron float”, an act staged with nothing grand about it. The LORD who sent fire from heaven attends here to one man's borrowed tool.
2 Kings 6:5
“The ax head - literally, as in the margin. The Jews used iron for the heads of axes at a very early date (see Deu 19:5). They probably acquired a knowledge of the smelting process in Egypt, where iron was employed at least from the time of the third Rameses.”
made the iron float: Adam Clarke calls the stick a sign with no natural power to raise the iron, and the floating iron a true miracle. Tertullian says the wood sank as the iron rose. Matthew Henry saw no need for that second wonder and took the stick as a signal summoning the iron.
2 Kings 6:6
“He cut down a stick - This had no natural tendency to raise the iron; it was only a sign or ceremony which the prophet chose to use on the occasion. The iron did swim - This was a real miracle; for the gravity of the metal must have for ever kept it at the bottom of the water.”
Adam Clarke · Commentary on the Bible (1810-1826)evangelical
2 more voices on this verse
2 Kings 6:6
“And accordingly Elisha, having taken "wood" and cast it into that place where the iron had been submerged, forthwith it rose and swam on the surface, and the "wood" sank, which the sons of the prophets recovered. Thus they understood that the spirit of Elijah was presently conferred on him.”
Tertullian · written before 220 · An Answer to the Jews 13patristic
2 Kings 6:6
“We need not double the miracle by supposing that the stick sunk to fetch up the iron, it was enough that it was a signal of the divine summons to the iron to rise. God's grace can thus raise the stony iron heart which has sunk into the mud of this world, and raise up affections naturally earthly, to things above.”
Matthew Henry · Commentary on the Whole Bible (1707-1721)puritan
Elisha has the man take the iron with his own hand. Tertullian says the sons of the prophets understood that the spirit of Elijah now rested on Elisha. Justin Martyr read the recovered iron as a picture of sinners raised by Christ out of the depths of their offences.
2 Kings 6:7
“Therefore said he, take it up to thee,.... This the prophet said to the man that had lost it: and he put out his hand, and took it; it being on the top of the water within his reach.”
The prophet who hears what Syria whispers in the bedchamber
2 Kings 6:8-10
After consulting with his servants: The king of Aram plans his camps in council. Each time “the man of God” sends word to the king of Israel of the place to avoid. The text counts the pattern itself, “Time and again Elisha warned the king”, and that repetition draws Aram's suspicion.
2 Kings 6:8
“The work of God's prophets is to give us warning; if, being warned, we do not save ourselves, it is our own fault, and our blood will be upon our own head. The king of Israel would regard the warnings Elisha gave him of his danger by the Syrians, but not the warnings he gave him of his danger by his sins.”
Matthew Henry · Commentary on the Whole Bible (1707-1721)puritan
1 more voice on this verse
2 Kings 6:8
“The king of Syria - Probably the great Benhadad (see 2Ki 6:24).”
John Gill notes that the Targum reads the Arameans going down as lying hidden there. Gill pictures them concealed at the foot of a hill, waiting unseen. Elisha's warning told the king which road to avoid.
2 Kings 6:9
“And the man of God sent unto the king of Israel,.... That is, Elisha sent to him: saying: beware that thou pass not such a place: not go to it, but avoid it, and pass another way: for thither the Syrians are come down: are hidden, as the Targum; lie covered at the bottom of the hill, so as not to be seen.”
sent word to the place: Adam Clarke reads the king's message as a check on whether the warning was true. The Latin Vulgate says that the king sent ahead and occupied the place, and Clarke judged that likely, though the Hebrew does not say it. Either way the Arameans found their plans known.
2 Kings 6:10
“Sent to the place - To see if it were so. But the Vulgate gives it quite a different turn: Misit rex Israel ad locum, et praeoccupavit eum. The king of Israel sent previously to the place, and took possession of it; and thus the Syrians were disappointed. This is very likely, though it is not expressed in the Hebrew text. The prophet knew the Syrians marked such a place; he told the king of Israel, and he hastened and sent a party of troops to pre-occupy it; and thus the Syrians found that their designs had been detected.”
Adam Clarke · Commentary on the Bible (1810-1826)evangelical
2 Kings 6:11-12
the king of Aram became enraged: The king of Aram suspects a traitor and demands to know “which one of us is on the side of the king of Israel”. A servant names the source: Elisha “tells the king of Israel the very words you speak in your bedroom”. No human informant is blamed after that.
2 Kings 6:11
Benhadad supposed that there must be a traitor in his camp. He asks therefore, “Will no one denounce him?”
Albert Barnes gives the Hebrew literally as the secret place of your bedchamber, the most private room of a king with a harem. Barnes thought the officer had his information from Israelites. Matthew Henry hears an Aramean confessing that nothing is hidden from the God of Israel.
2 Kings 6:12
“In thy bedchamber - literally, “in the secret place of thy bedchamber,” i. e.,” in the greatest possible secrecy.” The seclusion of the harem must be taken into account for the full appreciation of the force of the phrase. Probably the Syrian lord who answered Benhadad had received his intelligence from some of the Israelites.”
1 more voice on this verse
2 Kings 6:12
“Here a confession of the boundless knowledge, as before of the boundless power, of Israel's God, is extorted from Syrians. Nothing done, said, thought, by any person, in any place, at any time, is out of the reach of God's cognizance. 13 And he said, Go and spy where he is, that I may send and fetch him.”
Matthew Henry · Commentary on the Whole Bible (1707-1721)puritan
They that are with us are more: horses and chariots of fire
2 Kings 6:13-14
The king of Aram sends to find one man and learns that “Elisha is in Dothan”, a town north of Samaria. He sends “horses, chariots, and a great army”, which surround the city by night for a single unarmed prophet. A king who cannot out-hear Elisha tries to out-number him.
2 Kings 6:13
“And he said, go, and spy where he is, that I may send and fetch him,.... But how could he expect to take him, who could give the king of Israel such intelligence of his designs against him, that he might escape his snares? and it was told him, saying, behold, he is in Dothan; a city in the tribe of Manasseh, not far from Shechem; see Gen 37:17.”
1 more voice on this verse
2 Kings 6:13
“Dothan - See the marginal reference note. It was at no great distance from Shechem. Its ancient name still attaches to a Tel or hill of a marked character (compare 2Ki 6:17), from the foot of which arises a copious fountain.”
surrounded the city: The city they surrounded was Dothan, which John Gill places in Manasseh near Shechem, the Dothan of Genesis 37:17. Albert Barnes notes that its name still clings to a marked hill with a strong spring at its foot. The army closed on it by night.
2 Kings 6:14
“Therefore sent he thither horses and chariots, and a great host,.... To terrify the inhabitants from attempting to defend the prophet, but deliver him up at once: and they came by night; that they might come upon them unawares, and their design not be discovered, so as to have timely help from Samaria, which was not far off: and compassed the city about; that the prophet might not make his escape out of it.”
2 more voices on this verse
2 Kings 6:14
“He sent thither horses - It is strange he did not think that he who could penetrate his secrets with respect to the Israelitish army, could inform himself of all his machinations against his own life.”
Adam Clarke · Commentary on the Bible (1810-1826)evangelical
2 Kings 6:14
“Naaman could tell him that Elisha dwelt not in any strong-hold, nor was attended with any guards, nor had any such great interest in the people that he needed to fear a tumult among them; what occasion then was there for this great force?”
Matthew Henry · Commentary on the Whole Bible (1707-1721)puritan
2 Kings 6:15-17
went out early in the morning: Elisha's servant wakes to an army around the city and asks what they are to do. Elisha prays, “O LORD, please open his eyes that he may see”. The servant sees “horses and chariots of fire all around Elisha”, the fire that parted Elijah from Elisha at 2:11.
2 Kings 6:15
“This was a new servant, who had only been with him since Gehazi's dismissal and consequently had little or no experience of his master's powers. His faith was easily shaken by so unexpected an alarm.”
Jamieson, Fausset & Brown · Commentary Critical and Explanatory on the Whole Bible (1871)reformed
Jamieson, Fausset and Brown take this servant to be a new man, taken on after Gehazi's dismissal and untried in his master's powers. Albert Barnes notes that the servant lacked Elisha's faith. Elisha answers his fear with a count of two armies.
2 Kings 6:16
“They that be with us ... - Elisha gave utterance to the conviction of all God’s saints when the world persecutes them (compare marginal references). God - they know - is on their side; they need “not fear what flesh can do unto them.” His angels - an innumerable host - are ever guarding those who love Him.”
3 more voices on this verse
2 Kings 6:16
“And he answered, fear not, for they that be with us are more than they that be with them. Meaning the legions of angels that encamped around them.”
2 Kings 6:16
“But, as many delight in warfare, which is the most glorious, to bring a battle to an end by the strength of a great army or by merits before God alone? Elisha rested in one place while the king of Syria waged a great war against the people of our ancestors, and was adding to its terrors by various treacherous plans and was endeavoring to catch them in an ambush.”
Ambrose of Milan · written before 397 · On the Duties of the Clergy 3.1.5patristic
2 Kings 6:16
“For they that be with us are more, etc. - What astonishing intercourse had this man with heaven! It seems the whole heavenly host had it in commission to help him.”
Adam Clarke · Commentary on the Bible (1810-1826)evangelical
please open his eyes: Albert Barnes takes the prayer as a request that the servant be shown the angelic host Elisha knew was there. Jamieson, Fausset and Brown cite Psalm 34:7. John Wesley notes that Elijah called down fire to consume his persecutors, and that Elisha's fire was meant to melt his.
2 Kings 6:17
“Elisha prayed, and said, Lord, I pray thee, open his eyes, that he may see--The invisible guard of angels that encompass and defend us (Ps 34:7). The opening of the eyes, which Elisha prayed for, were those of the Spirit, not of the body--the eye of faith sees the reality of the divine presence and protection where all is vacancy or darkness to the ordinary eye.”
Jamieson, Fausset & Brown · Commentary Critical and Explanatory on the Whole Bible (1871)reformed
1 more voice on this verse
2 Kings 6:17
“Open his eyes that he may see - Elisha’s servant lacked the faith of his master. Elisha therefore prays that he may be given a vision of the spiritual world, and see, as if with the bodily eye, the angelic host (marginal references) which he himself knows to be present.”
2 Kings 6:18-20
Elisha prays a second time, now for blindness, and the army follows where he leads. He tells them, “This is not the way, and this is not the city”, and walks the whole host into Samaria. The men who surrounded Dothan by night find themselves inside the enemy capital.
2 Kings 6:18
“Smite this people - with blindness - Confound their sight so that they may not know what they see, and so mistake one place for another.”
Adam Clarke · Commentary on the Bible (1810-1826)evangelical
1 more voice on this verse
2 Kings 6:18
“9 For this twofold judgment Christ came into this world, that those who see not might see, and that those who see might be made blind ( John ix. 39 ), a savour of life to some, of death to others.”
Matthew Henry · Commentary on the Whole Bible (1707-1721)puritan
he led them to Samaria: Elisha walks the blinded army into Samaria, the capital of the king they had come to fight. Jamieson, Fausset and Brown note that these men came into Israel's power by the providence of God, and no sword took them. That fact governs their treatment at verse 22.
2 Kings 6:19
“This was humane advice; it was contrary to the usage of war to put war captives to death in cold blood, even when taken by the point of the sword, much more those whom the miraculous power and providence of God had unexpectedly placed at his disposal.”
Jamieson, Fausset & Brown · Commentary Critical and Explanatory on the Whole Bible (1871)reformed
they were in Samaria: Jamieson, Fausset and Brown note these soldiers came into the king's hands by the miraculous power and providence of God, unexpectedly and without a fight. The prayer that opened the servant's eyes at verse 17 now opens theirs. They find themselves captives.
2 Kings 6:20
“And it came to pass, when they were come into Samaria, that Elisha said, Lord, open the eyes of these men, that they may see,....”
1 more voice on this verse
2 Kings 6:20
“Open the eyes of these men - Take away their confusion of vision, that they may discern things as they are, and distinguish where they are.”
Adam Clarke · Commentary on the Bible (1810-1826)evangelical
2 Kings 6:21-23
The king of Israel calls Elisha “My father”, and asks leave to kill the captives. Elisha answers, “Would you kill those you have captured with your own sword or bow?”. A feast replaces an execution, and “the Aramean raiders did not come into the land of Israel again”.
2 Kings 6:21
“My father - A term of respect used by Jehoram in his joy at seeing an army of Syrians delivered up to him by the prophet. That the king’s character was not changed appears from 2Ki 6:31-32. Shall I smite them? shall I smite them? - The repetition of the words mean, “Shall I utterly smite them?” Compare similar repetitions with similar meanings in Gen 22:17; Luk 22:15.”
Set food and water before them: John Wesley calls the meal an act of singular piety and charity toward enemies, and also of prudence, meant to soften Aramean hearts toward Israel. Adam Clarke adds that sending the men home fed showed the king had no fear of their master. The captives go home fed.
2 Kings 6:22
“Whom thou hast taken captive - Those who in open battle either lay down their arms, or are surrounded, and have their retreat cut off, are entitled to their lives, much more those who are thus providentially put into thy hand, without having been in actual hostility against thee. Give them meat and drink, and send them home to their master, and let them thus know that thou fearest him not, and art incapable of doing an ungenerous or unmanly action.”
Adam Clarke · Commentary on the Bible (1810-1826)evangelical
1 more voice on this verse
2 Kings 6:22
“Set bread - Give them meat and drink, which may refresh and strengthen them for their journey. This was an action of singular piety and charity, in doing good to their enemies, which was much to the honour of the true religion; and of no less prudence, that hereby the hearts of the Syrians might be mollified towards the Israelites.”
John Wesley · Explanatory Notes upon the Old Testament (1765)evangelical
prepared a great feast: Elisha asked for food and water, and the king gave a great feast, which Albert Barnes reads as Jehoram keeping the spirit of the order. Barnes links the raiders to the bands of 5:2 that took the girl who served Naaman's wife. Barnes credits either the miracle or the kindness.
2 Kings 6:23
“Jehoram did not merely follow the letter of the prophet’s direction, but understood its spirit and acted accordingly. The plundering bands which had been in the habit of ravaging the territory 2Ki 5:2 ceased their incursions in consequence either of the miracle, or of the kind treatment which Elisha had recommended.”
Famine so deep a mother eats her son
2 Kings 6:24-25
assembled his entire army: Ben-hadad returns with “his entire army” and lays a full siege on Samaria. A donkey fetches “eighty shekels of silver” for its head, and “a quarter cab of dove’s dung sold for five shekels of silver”. Many readers take the dung for a cheap seed pod or husk.
2 Kings 6:24
“Ben-hadad - He whom Ahab wickedly spared, now comes to requite his kindness, and to fulfil that Divine prediction. Ben- hadad was a name very frequent among the kings of Syria, if not common to them all.”
John Wesley · Explanatory Notes upon the Old Testament (1765)evangelical
a quarter cab: Albert Barnes notes that the cab appears nowhere else in Scripture, and the rabbis counted it the smallest dry measure, a sixth of a seah. A quarter cab came to about a pint. John Wesley supposed the siege came so suddenly that the city had no time to store food.
2 Kings 6:25
“Famine in Samaria - Probably the siege was so sudden, that they had no time to lay in provisions. Pieces - Supposed to be shekels; and the common shekel being valued at fifteen pence of English money, this amounts to five pounds.”
John Wesley · Explanatory Notes upon the Old Testament (1765)evangelical
1 more voice on this verse
2 Kings 6:25
“As the donkey was “unclean,” it would not be eaten except in the last resort; and its head would be its worst and cheapest part. Cab - This measure is not mentioned elsewhere in Scripture. According to the rabbinical writers it was the smallest of all the dry measures in use among the Jews, being the sixth part of a seah, which was the third part of an ephah. If it was about equal to two of our quarts, the “fourth part of a cab” would be about a pint.”
2 Kings 6:26-27
a woman cried out to him: A woman appeals to the king, “Help me, my lord the king!” He answers that if the LORD does not help her, he has no help to give. The threshing floor and the winepress he names are where grain and wine come from, and the siege has emptied both.
2 Kings 6:26
“The walls of fortified towns had a broad space at the top, protected toward the exterior by battlements, along which the bulk of the defenders were disposed, and from which they hurled their missiles and shot their arrows. The king seems to have been going his rounds, to inspect the state of the garrison and the defenses.”
Albert Barnes keeps the rendering of the text and notes that some translate the opening as Nay, let the LORD help you. John Wesley reads the question as a king asking whether she wanted grain or wine he lacked. Wesley adds that no creature can help where God does not.
2 Kings 6:27
“If the Lord do not help - The translation in the text is decidedly better than the marginal rendering. Some prefer to render - “Nay ... let Jehovah help thee. Whence, shall I help thee?” Out of the barnfloor ... - The king means that both were empty - that he had no longer any food in store; and therefore could not help the woman. Compare Hos 9:2.”
1 more voice on this verse
2 Kings 6:27
“Whence shall I help thee - Dost thou ask of me corn or wine, which I want for myself? If God does not, I cannot help thee. Creatures are helpless things without God.”
John Wesley · Explanatory Notes upon the Old Testament (1765)evangelical
2 Kings 6:28-29
The king hears of two mothers who agreed to eat their sons in turn, and the second hid her son when her turn came. Deuteronomy 28:53-57 named this horror as the last curse on a besieged and disobedient people. The chapter reports that curse falling inside the walls without comment.
2 Kings 6:28
“The king had assumed that the cry of the woman was for food. Her manner indicated that it was not so. He therefore proceeded to inquire what she wanted of him. This woman - Both women, it would seem, were present; and the aggrieved one pointed to the other.”
Albert Barnes counts this as the first fulfilment of the siege curse, with a second at Lamentations 4:10 and a third when Titus besieged Jerusalem. John Gill leaves open why the second mother hid her son. She meant either to save him or to eat him alone.
2 Kings 6:29
“So we boiled my son, and did eat him,.... Thus what was predicted, by way of threatening, began to be accomplished, Deu 28:53; see Gill on Deu 28:53, and of which there were other instances of a like kind at the siege of Jerusalem, both by Nebuchadnezzar and Vespasian: and I said unto her on the next day; after her child had been wholly ate up: give thy son, that we may eat him; according to agreement: and she hath hid her son; either to save him alive, or to eat him herself alone.”
1 more voice on this verse
2 Kings 6:29
“The prophecy alluded to in the marginal references was now fulfilled, probably for the first time. It had a second accomplishment when Jerusalem was besieged by Nebuchadnezzar Lam 4:10, and a third in the final siege of the same city by Titus.”
he tore his clothes: The king tears his royal robe in public grief, and underneath it the people see sackcloth already worn against his own skin. The hidden sackcloth says the king already knew the city's condition was covenant judgment even while he kept looking for someone else to blame.
2 Kings 6:30
“Sackcloth - Jehoram hoped perhaps to avert Yahweh’s anger, as his father had done 1Ki 21:29. But there was no spirit of self-humiliation, or of true pentitence in his heart 2Ki 5:7. See the next verse.”
2 Kings 6:31-33
The king swears that Elisha's head will not stay “on his shoulders through this day”, blaming the prophet for the siege. The chapter closes on the king's words, “This calamity is from the LORD”, laying the famine at God's door while he seeks the prophet's death.
2 Kings 6:31
“God do so ... - Jehoram uses almost the very words of his wicked mother, when she sought the life of Elijah (marginal reference). The head of Elisha - Beheading was not an ordinary Jewish punishment. The Law did not sanction it. But in Assyria, Babylonia, and generally through the East, it was the most conmon form of capital punishment. It is not quite clear why Elisha was to be punished. Perhaps Jehoram argued from his other miracles that he could give deliverance from the present peril, if he liked.”
1 more voice on this verse
2 Kings 6:31
“What had Elisha done? his head is the most innocent and valuable in all Israel, and yet that must be devoted, and made an anathema. Thus in the days of the persecuting emperors, when the empire groaned under any extraordinary calamity, the fault was laid on the Christians, and they were doomed to destruction. Christianos ad leones--Away with the Christians to the lions.”
Matthew Henry · Commentary on the Whole Bible (1707-1721)puritan
the elders were sitting with him: Jamieson, Fausset and Brown take the gathering of elders to be a meeting for prayer. Adam Clarke traces the charge of murder to the king's father, Ahab, who had Naboth killed. Matthew Henry reserves such words for a prophet.
2 Kings 6:32
“This son of a murderer - Jehoram, the son of Ahab and Jezebel. But Ahab is called a murderer because of the murder of Naboth. Shut the door - He was obliged to make use of this method for his personal safety, as the king was highly incensed. The sound of his master’s feet behind him? - That is, King Jehoram is following his messenger, that he may see him take off my head.”
Adam Clarke · Commentary on the Bible (1810-1826)evangelical
2 more voices on this verse
2 Kings 6:32
“The same spirit of prophecy that enabled Elisha to tell him what was done at a distance authorized him to call the king the son of a murderer, which, unless we could produce such an extraordinary commission, it is not for us to initiate; far be it from us to despise dominion and to speak evil of dignities.”
Matthew Henry · Commentary on the Whole Bible (1707-1721)puritan
2 Kings 6:32
“A meeting, probably a prayer-meeting, of those was held in the house where he lodged, for he had none of his own (1Ki 19:20, 21); and them he not only apprised of the king's design against himself, but disclosed to them the proof of a premeditated deliverance.”
Jamieson, Fausset & Brown · Commentary Critical and Explanatory on the Whole Bible (1871)reformed
the messenger came down to him: Albert Barnes records a proposal to read king for messenger, as the two Hebrew words look nearly alike. Others hold that a phrase naming the king following him dropped out of the text. John Wesley takes the calamity to be the famine, sent by the LORD as judge.
2 Kings 6:33
“The messenger - It has been proposed to change “messenger” into “king,” the two words being in Hebrew nearly alike, and the speech with which the chapter ends being considered only suitable in the mouth of the king, whose presence is indicated in 2Ki 7:2, 2Ki 7:17. Others think that the words “and the king after him” have fallen out of the text. Came down - The messenger came down from off the wall to the level of the streets.”
1 more voice on this verse
2 Kings 6:33
“This evil - This dreadful famine, which is now so extreme, that women are forced to eat their own children. The Lord - Hath inflicted it, and (for ought I see) he will not remove it. All penal evil is of the Lord, as the first cause and sovereign judge.”
John Wesley · Explanatory Notes upon the Old Testament (1765)evangelical
How this psalm is built
The form: Three narrative units of descending mercy, an errand, a captured army spared, and a siege in which the covenant curse arrives, as 6 classes it.
The patterns in this chapter
| Device | What it does | Where to see it |
|---|---|---|
| Three prayers, and what each asks for | Elisha prays three times in the middle of the chapter and never once for deliverance. At 6:17 he asks for sight, at 6:18 for blindness, and at 6:20 for sight again. This site's published exposition note on 6:15 to 6:17 marks the first, that he prays not for deliverance but for sight, and the note on 6:18 to 6:20 records the second and third and the march into Samaria between them.Keil and Delitzsch, with Matthew Henry and John Gill, The Books of the Kings, 1872, Commentary on the Whole Bible, 1710, and Exposition of the Old Testament, 1748 to 1763, on 2 Kings 6:15 to 6:20, as this site's published exposition notes on those verses report them. | 2 Kings 6:17, 2 Kings 6:18, 2 Kings 6:20 |
| Horses and chariots of fire | The words that named Elijah's departure at 2:11 return at 6:17 for the army standing guard around Dothan. This site's published exposition note on 6:15 to 6:17 states that these are their only other occurrence in Scripture, so the phrase belongs to the beginning of Elisha's ministry and to its deepest danger and to nothing else.Keil and Delitzsch and Matthew Henry, The Books of the Kings, 1872, and Commentary on the Whole Bible, 1710, on 2 Kings 6:15 to 6:17, as this site's published exposition note on those verses reports them. | 2 Kings 2:11, 2 Kings 6:17 |
| My father | The king of Israel calls Elisha father at 6:21 when he asks leave to kill the captured army, the same word Elisha called Elijah at 2:12. This site's published exposition note on 6:21 to 6:23 marks the echo. The same king swears at 6:31 to have Elisha's head before the day ends and names him son of a murderer rather than prophet, so the two forms of address stand ten verses apart.Matthew Henry and Albert Barnes, with Keil and Delitzsch, Commentary on the Whole Bible, 1710, Notes on the Old Testament, 1832 to 1869, and The Books of the Kings, 1872, on 2 Kings 6:21 to 6:23 and 6:31 to 6:33, as this site's published exposition notes on those verses report them. | 2 Kings 6:21, 2 Kings 6:31, 2 Kings 2:12 |
| The prices of a siege | The famine is priced rather than described. A donkey's head sells for eighty pieces of silver and a small measure of dove's dung for five. This site's published exposition note on 6:24 to 6:25 records that the donkey is an unclean animal not normally eaten, that dove's dung is likely a cheap seed husk by most readings rather than the substance itself, and that whatever the exact commodity the prices mark a siege economy with nothing better left to sell.John Gill and Adam Clarke, Exposition of the Old Testament, 1748 to 1763, and Commentary on the Bible, 1832, on 2 Kings 6:24 to 6:25, as this site's published exposition note on those verses reports them. | 2 Kings 6:25 |
The covenant curse, arriving on schedule
12 more paragraphs on the patterns
This is the chapter where the book's central argument becomes visible before chapter 17 states it. This site's published exposition note on 6:28 to 6:29 records that Deuteronomy had named this exact horror as the covenant's last curse on a besieged and disobedient people, and that the chapter neither softens the scene nor explains it away but reports the curse of Deuteronomy 28 arriving inside the city's own walls.
The published study guide names the same thing as the book's theological centre of gravity at 17:7 to 17:23, exile read as Leviticus 26 and Deuteronomy 28 executing exactly as written. A student who meets that claim at chapter 17 will have seen it demonstrated here first.
What the surrounding nations show
This site's published parallels section carries the Succession Treaty of Esarhaddon, dated 672 BC, with copies found at Nimrud in 1955 and at Tell Tayinat in 2009. It is a suzerain's treaty binding vassals with an extended curse list for disloyalty, including siege, famine reaching cannibalism, disease, exile and a land stripped of its people, in an order close to the curse section of Deuteronomy 28.
The site states exactly why the parallel matters and how far it reaches. It matters for reading 2 Kings because the book narrates those curses arriving in that order, from the siege famine of 6:24 to 6:29 through to deportation. The treaty form was the common legal language of the age, and Israel's covenant used it to bind a nation to God rather than to an emperor. The site names Moshe Weinfeld, Deuteronomy and the Deuteronomic School, 1972, for the argument that the resemblance is close enough to be deliberate, and states in the same entry that the theological content on either side is not the same thing at all.
The king who knew and did not repent
The chapter gives its own evidence on this point rather than asserting it. This site's published exposition note on 6:30 records that when the king tears his robe the people see sackcloth already worn against his skin, a penitential garment put on before this one horror reached his ears, so he already knew the city's condition was covenant judgment while he kept looking for someone else to blame.
The note on 6:31 to 6:33 records where the blame falls: an oath to have Elisha's head, the prophet named son of a murderer, and the king's own last line, that this evil is of the LORD and he should wait for the LORD no longer. The note marks the contradiction inside it, that he lays the famine at God's door in the same breath in which he has laid the prophet's death at his own hand. This site's published head context row for the chapter states the lesson the first hearers were given, that recognizing God's hand and repenting are two different things.
The ratio, and what the servant was shown
Elisha's answer to his servant at 6:16 is a statement about numbers and the prayer that follows does not change the numbers. This site's published exposition note on 6:15 to 6:17 marks the order: Elisha states the ratio, then asks for sight rather than for rescue, and the unseen army had been standing guard the whole time the servant could see only the siege. The site's own head context row gives the sentence the first hearers were to hold onto in a siege, that those who are with us are more than those who are with them, and adds that the odds are never the whole picture.
Where the place stands
Dothan is a real site and its geography explains the tactics. This site's published head context row for the chapter records that Dothan sat on a mound above a main north-south trade route and was easy to surround, which is why a force of horses and chariots could ring it in a night.
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Sources for this chapter
The summary
Jamieson, Fausset & Brown, Commentary Critical and Explanatory; John Wesley, Notes on the Old Testament and Matthew Henry, Complete Commentary.
The form and classifications
This site's published exposition of 2 Kings 6, The published notes on 6:21 to 6:23 and on 6:24 to 6:25, which read the feast as buying Israel a season rather than permanence and mark the turn at the formal siege; This site's published parallels section for 2 Kings, src/components/book/dossier-content/2-kings.ts, the entry on the Succession Treaty of Esarhaddon, which states that the parallel matters for reading 2 Kings because the book narrates those curses arriving in that order, from the siege famine of 6:24 to 6:29 through to deportation and This site's published timeline for 2 Kings, src/components/book/dossier-content/2-kings.ts, the timeline entry titled The Elisha cycle, anchored at 2 Kings 6:17.
The exposition
Adam Clarke, Commentary on the Bible; Albert Barnes; F. W. Farrar, The Second Book of Kings (Expositor's Bible); Jamieson, Fausset & Brown, Commentary Critical and Explanatory on the Whole Bible; John Gill, Exposition of the Old Testament; John Wesley, Explanatory Notes upon the Old Testament; Justin Martyr, Dialogue with Trypho, Chapter LXXXVI; Keil, The Books of the Kings; Matthew Henry, Commentary on the Whole Bible and Tertullian, An Answer to the Jews, 13.