2 Kingschapter 7
20 verses · Jeremiah, by tradition · 6th century BC · History
Then Elisha said, “Hear the word of the LORD! This is what the LORD says: ‘About this time tomorrow at the gate of Samaria, a seah of fine flour will sell for a shekel, and two seahs of barley will sell for a shekel.’”
Introduction
Jeremiah, by tradition, History, 2 Kings Overview.
This chapter finishes the siege account begun in the chapter before it and turns on a single promise given in market prices. Its first hearers knew the city gate as the place grain was weighed and sold, and they knew why men with skin disease lived outside it. Listen for a mocking officer, and for the way the narrator matches his end to the word he mocked. Listen also for four outcasts deciding what to do with news too good to keep. The rescue comes without an Israelite soldier lifting a weapon. The chapter shows the prophetic word kept to the day.
Context
- Who
- Israelites who had watched a city gate become a marketplace of famine prices
- What
- An account of the siege of Samaria lifted in one night and found out by four outcasts, as Elisha had said.
- Where
- The gate of Samaria and the abandoned Aramean camp outside it.
- When
- The siege of Samaria under Joram of Israel, about 845 BC.
- Why
- To show that the word of the LORD is kept exactly, and that good news is meant to be told.
Historical context
The four men with skin disease sit at the entrance of the gate because the Law required them to live outside the community, and in a siege that put them in the worst possible position, outside the wall with the enemy and cut off from whatever food was still inside. Their reasoning is stated plainly: staying means starving, going means maybe dying, so they walk toward the enemy camp at dusk.
Show the rest of the historical context, 3 more paragraphs
The gate itself is the setting for both halves of the chapter. City gates were roofed structures with chambers where elders sat, business was done, and grain was measured and priced. The prophecy is given in market terms, a measure of fine flour for a shekel and two of barley for a shekel, which is the language of an ordinary trading day, and that is what makes it unbelievable to men who had just been quoting the price of a donkey's head.
The Arameans hear the sound of chariots and a great army and conclude that Israel has hired the Hittite and Egyptian kings. That was a realistic fear, since small kingdoms did hire outside powers and a night alarm in a camp was notoriously hard to control. They leave tents, horses and donkeys standing and run for the Jordan, and the road is littered with clothing and equipment thrown down in flight, a detail that reads as a rout.
The officer on whose hand the king leaned held a real court post, a personal aide close enough to the king to support his arm in public. His mocking remark about windows in heaven and his death in the crush of the crowd at the gate are told twice, at the start and the end, because the narrator wants the fulfilment matched to the word.
Significance
The four outcasts say the sentence that carries the chapter: this day is a day of good news, and we are keeping silent. Men with nothing, holding the only good news in the country, decide it has to be told.
Show the rest of the significance, 1 more paragraph
For the first hearers the point beneath it was that God can lift a siege overnight and needs no army to do it. The city was saved by a sound, and the news was carried by the men it had pushed outside the wall.
This chapter in Jewish lifeWhat this chapter is in Jewish life and reading.
What is done
Part of this chapter is heard in the synagogue once a year, beside the portion that carries the Torah's law for the cleansing of a person with a skin disease. The reading begins at the four men with the disease who sit at the gate of the city and runs to the end of the chapter, and it belongs to both rites. The card above prints the portion and the extent from the site's own reading table, so they are left unrepeated here.
The ground of the pairing is stated by the classical commentary itself rather than left to a reader to guess, which makes this the clearest of the three uses in this book. Rashi explains why the four men were sitting at the entrance of the gate by citing the law in the portion's own neighbourhood, that a person with the disease lives alone with his dwelling outside the camp, at Leviticus 13:46 (Rashi on II Kings 7:3:2). The portion read that morning gives the law, and the Haftarah shows four men living under it who become the first to find that the siege has lifted. A congregation hearing the two together hears the law and then hears what four men excluded by it did with the news they found.
How it is read
The corpus keeps nine notes on this chapter, the fewest of any chapter of 1 to 13 except chapter 13 itself, all of them Rashi in the Metsudah Tanach translation of Lakewood, New Jersey, under a CC-BY licence. The identification of the four men is the first and the heaviest. Rashi names them as Gehazi and his sons, citing the tractate Sanhedrin, and the Metsudah footnote adds Malbim's observation that these four were the only people then suffering from the disease, because Elisha had healed every other Israelite who had it (Rashi on II Kings 7:3:1). On that reading the men who carry the good news into the starving city are the household the prophet's curse fell on two chapters earlier, and the deliverance of Samaria arrives in the hands of the one man in the book who was judged for greed. The second note on the same verse grounds their place at the gate in the Torah's law of living outside the camp, at Leviticus 13:46 (Rashi on II Kings 7:3:2).
The lifting of the siege is read as a thing done to the hearing of the Syrians. Rashi glosses the sound of chariots and horses as a sound it seemed to them they were hearing (Rashi on II Kings 7:6:1), which keeps the miracle in the perception of the besiegers. The men's change of mind at the plunder Rashi reads in terms of liability. They will be held guilty by the throne if they keep the news to themselves (Rashi on II Kings 7:9:1), so the tradition reads their return as an act done under the fear of the king rather than as an act of conscience. On the abandoned camp he notices that the tents stood as they were, full as they had been at the beginning, with nothing taken out of them (Rashi on II Kings 7:10:1).
The king's suspicion and the sending of the scouts are read in short glosses. Rashi explains the Syrian plan the king imagines by the hunger of the city, that the besieged long to go out to the loot and the food, with the Metsudah footnote giving Metzudat David's fuller account, that the enemy reckoned starving men would leave the city without first looking for an ambush (Rashi on II Kings 7:12:1). The horses proposed for the errand he identifies as those within the city that had survived the famine (Rashi on II Kings 7:13:1), and the things thrown away along the road he explains by the speed of the flight (Rashi on II Kings 7:15:1). The death of the officer at the gate carries the chapter's last kept note, and the footnote gives Malbim's reading of how the prophecy came about. The officer had scoffed at Elisha the day before, the king set him to guard the gate against looting, which would have kept the price of grain above what the prophet had named, and he was trampled at the gate by the people and died, so that the word stood (Rashi on II Kings 7:17:1).
Fifteen further notes stand on this chapter with no English text in the corpus and are cited here unquoted, which is the largest linked set in this half of the book after chapter 13. They are Radak on II Kings 7:2:1, 7:4:1, 7:6:1, 7:7:1, 7:11:1, 7:14:1 and 7:18:1, Metzudat David on II Kings 7:1:1, 7:2:1, 7:4:1, 7:19:1 and 7:20:1, and Malbim on II Kings 7:1:1, 7:5:1 and 7:16:1. Elisha's promise of grain at the gate, which the chapter opens on and closes by fulfilling, carries linked notes of Metzudat David and Malbim and no kept text, so the classical commentary on the promise itself has to be followed out through those links.
What the rabbis say
The corpus carries twenty-three rabbinic locators on this chapter, fourteen Midrash and nine Talmud, and the text of none, so each is cited and linked here rather than quoted. This is the smallest count in the range, and it is weighted heavily toward the Talmud and toward the four men. The prophet's promise draws Ein Yaakov, Sanhedrin 11:1, Midrash Lekach Tov, Exodus 11:3:1, Midrash Sekhel Tov, Shemot 11:4:1 and Sanhedrin 90a:19, and the officer's scoffing answer draws Ein Yaakov (Glick Edition), Sanhedrin 11:3. Two of those five sit in the chapter of Sanhedrin that treats the resurrection of the dead, which is where the tradition takes up a prophecy whose fulfilment a man is told he will see and not eat of.
The four men at the gate draw six locators, the heaviest run in the chapter, and they are Ein Yaakov (Glick Edition), Sanhedrin 11:107, Ein Yaakov (Glick Edition), Sotah 9:10, Ein Yaakov, Sotah 9:9, Jerusalem Talmud Sanhedrin 10:2:25, Sanhedrin 107b:11 and Sotah 47a:8. Three of those are the same tractates and chapters that carry the tradition about Gehazi in chapters 5 and 6, so the identification the kept note above makes is supported across the corpus rather than resting on one line. Their deliberation about whether to go over to the Syrians draws seven more, Avodah Zarah 27b:4, Bava Kamma 60b:6, Bava Kamma 60b:7, Ein Yaakov (Glick Edition), Avodah Zarah 2:3, Ein Yaakov (Glick Edition), Bava Kama 6:2, Ein Yaakov, Avodah Zarah 2:7 and Ein Yaakov, Bava Kamma 6:3. Those sit in the law of dealing with idolaters and in the law of damage and of saving a life at a risk, which is how the tradition files the choice four dying men make at a gate.
The sound the Syrians heard draws Midrash Tanchuma, Vaera 16:3 and Otzar Midrashim, Midrash Minayin 1:17. The men's word that this is a day of good news draws Sotah 48b:11. The things cast away in the flight draw Midrash Sekhel Tov, Shemot 12:11:5, which expounds the haste of the exodus from Egypt. The trampling of the officer at the gate draws Sanhedrin 90b:1, which returns the chapter to the same tractate it opened in. 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: The site's reading table, src/lib/hebraic/readings.ts, the Metzora entry and its haftarah field, printed in this lane through haftarahUsesForChapter and hasSynagogueReading; Rashi, Rashi on II Kings 7:3:1 to 7:17:1, nine notes, the Metsudah Tanach series, Lakewood, N.J, CC-BY; Radak, Radak on II Kings 7:2:1, 7:4:1, 7:6:1, 7:7:1, 7:11:1, 7:14:1 and 7:18:1, cited by ref because the corpus carries no English text; Metzudat David, Metzudat David on II Kings 7:1:1, 7:2:1, 7:4:1, 7:19:1 and 7:20:1, cited by ref because the corpus carries no English text; and reported inside the Metsudah footnote at 7:12:1; Malbim, Malbim on II Kings 7:1:1, 7:5:1 and 7:16:1, cited by ref because the corpus carries no English text; and reported inside the Metsudah footnotes at 7:3:1 and 7:17:1; The Sefaria corpus, scripts/data/sources/sefaria/2-kings/7.json, the 23 rabbinic locators of this chapter, 14 Midrash and 9 Talmud.
The heads below are this chapter's scenes. The numbered points under each are its verses.
Fine flour for a shekel tomorrow: and a captain who scoffs
2 Kings 7:1-2
a seah of fine flour will sell for a shekel: Elisha sets tomorrow's prices, “a seah of fine flour will sell for a shekel, and two seahs of barley will sell for a shekel”. The officer scoffs, and Elisha answers that he will see it “but you will not eat any of it”.
2 Kings 7:1
“The division between the chapters is most awkward here. Elisha, in this verse, replies to the king’s challenge in 2Ki 6:33 - that his God, Yahweh, will give deliverance in the space of a day. On the morrow, by the same time in the day, the famine will have ceased, and food will be even cheaper than usual. A measure of fine flour - literally, “a seah of fine flour;” about a peck and a half. For a shekel - About 2 shillings 8 12 d. Two measures of burley - Or, “two seahs of barley;” about three pecks.”
2 more voices on this verseWhat preachers and commentators have said about this verse, in their own words.
2 Kings 7:1
“The consequence of that shall be great plenty. This would, in time, follow of course, but that corn should be thus cheap in so short a time was quite beyond what could be thought of. Though the king of Israel had just now threatened Elisha's life, God promises to save his life and the life of his people; for where sin abounded grace doth much more abound.”
Matthew Henry · Commentary on the Whole Bible (1707-1721)puritan
2 Kings 7:1
“Hear ye the word of the Lord--This prediction, though uttered first to the assembled elders, was intimated to the king's messengers, who reported it to Jehoram (2Ki 7:18).”
Jamieson, Fausset & Brown · Commentary Critical and Explanatory on the Whole Bible (1871)reformed
the officer on whose arm: The officer holds the office of shalish, which Adam Clarke counts among the highest in the state. Clarke reads Elisha's answer as a prediction of death only. Matthew Henry, following Bishop Patrick, reads it as the portion of unbelief, like Israel seeing Canaan and never entering.
2 Kings 7:2
“Then a lord - שליש shalish. This word, as a name of office, occurs often, and seems to point out one of the highest offices in the state. So unlikely was this prediction to be fulfilled, that he thought God must pour out wheat and barley from heaven before it could have a literal accomplishment. But shalt not eat thereof - This was a mere prediction of his death, but not as a judgment for his unbelief; any person in his circumstances might have spoken as he did.”
Adam Clarke · Commentary on the Bible (1810-1826)evangelical
1 more voice on this verse
2 Kings 7:2
“The murmuring Israelites saw Canaan, but could not enter in because of unbelief. Such (says bishop Patrick) will be the portion of those that believe not the promise of eternal life; they shall see it at a distance--Abraham afar off, but shall never taste of it; for they forfeit the benefit of the promise if they cannot find in their heart to take God's word.”
Matthew Henry · Commentary on the Whole Bible (1707-1721)puritan
Four lepers find an empty camp and stop hoarding
2 Kings 7:3-4
four men with leprosy at the entrance of the city gate: Four men with leprosy sit outside the gate, where the Law set such men apart at Leviticus 13:46, and hunger makes them reason aloud. They weigh three roads: stay and die, enter the starving city and die there, or go over to the Aramean camp.
2 Kings 7:3
“The position of the lepers is in accordance with the Law of Moses (marginal references); and shows that the Law was still observed to some extent in the kingdom of Israel.”
if we sit here: Albert Barnes notes that the lepers' place outside the gate follows the Law of Moses. Barnes takes it as a sign that the Law was still kept in some measure in the northern kingdom. The famine had reached even the men the Law set apart.
2 Kings 7:4
“OUTSIDE the gates of Samaria, at the time mentioned in our text, you might have seen four miserable beings, gaunt and thin, with that sharpness of eye and visage which is always the effect of protracted hunger. They were lepers, suffering from a loathsome disease and emaciated by starvation. They held, as it were, a miniature council of war, and the result of their deliberations was that they said to one another, "Why do we stay here to die?”
Charles Spurgeon · written before 1892 · The Metropolitan Tabernacle Pulpit, Sermon No. 2894: “The Sinner's Only Alternative” (lightly modernized text, CCEL edition)Particular Baptist
2 Kings 7:5-7
they arose at twilight and went to the camp of the Arameans: The text gives the cause, “the Lord had caused the Arameans to hear the sound of chariots, horses, and a great army”. Elisha's servant saw a real host of fire at 6:17, and here the enemy hears an army that was never there.
2 Kings 7:5
“The twilight - The evening twilight (see 2Ki 7:9). The uttermost part of the camp - The extreme boundary of the camp toward the city, not its furthest or most distant portion. Compare 2Ki 7:8.”
the sound of chariots, horses: Matthew Henry observes that God can make men who refuse to fear Him tremble at the shaking of a leaf. The army that had starved Samaria broke at a sound. The LORD sent the sound, and the Arameans supplied the army.
2 Kings 7:6
“It is a matter of no importance whether we say that the miracle by which God now performed deliverance for Samaria consisted in a mere illusion of the sense of hearing (compare 2Ki 6:19-20); or whether there was any objective reality in the sound (compare the marginal references). The king of Israel hath hired - The swords of mercenaries had been employed by the nations bordering on Palestine as early as the time of David 2Sa 10:6; 1Ch 19:6-7. Hence, the supposition of the Syrians was far from improbable.”
2 more voices on this verse
2 Kings 7:6
“For the Lord had made the host of the Syrians to hear a noise of chariots, and a noise of horses, even the noise of a great host,....”
2 Kings 7:6
“The Lord had made the - Syrians to hear a noise - This threw them into confusion; they imagined that they were about to be attacked by powerful auxiliaries, which the king of Israel had hired against them.”
Adam Clarke · Commentary on the Bible (1810-1826)evangelical
run for their lives: Matthew Henry notes that Samaria was delivered at twilight and did not know it. The city lay starving inside its walls while a full camp stood empty outside. Four lepers would be the first to find out.
2 Kings 7:7
“Those that will not fear God he can make to fear at the shaking of a leaf. How the Syrians' flight was discovered by four leprous men. Samaria was delivered, and did not know it.”
Matthew Henry · Commentary on the Whole Bible (1707-1721)puritan
2 Kings 7:8-9
they went into a tent to eat and drink: The lepers go from tent to tent, hiding silver, gold and clothing, until they judge themselves, “We are not doing what is right”. They see that “Today is a day of good news”, and that silence until morning would be sin. They go to tell the king's household.
our sin will overtake us: The lepers fear that punishment will find them if they keep the news until morning light. Matthew Henry credits four lepers with finding the flight. They take it first to the guard at the gate, whom Albert Barnes identifies at verse 10 as the body of men keeping watch there.
2 Kings 7:9
“You are not surprised to find that, when those four lepers outside the gate of Samaria had made the great discovery that the Syrian camp was deserted, they first satisfied their own hunger and thirst. And quite right, too. Who would do otherwise? It is true that they were bound to go and tell other hungry ones, but they could do that with all the louder voice and they were the more sure of the truth they had to tell when they had first refreshed themselves.”
1 more voice on this verse
2 Kings 7:9
“The lepers began to think that if they kept this important matter secret during the whole night for their own private advantage, when the morning came they would be found out, accused, and punished (see margin).”
2 Kings 7:10-12
called out to the gatekeepers of the city: Word passes in quick steps: the lepers call to the gatekeepers, the gatekeepers shout it, and the king's household hears it within. The king's first thought is a trap, that the Arameans “have left the camp to hide in the field” to take the city.
2 Kings 7:10
“They called unto the porter ... and told them - The word “porter” is used like our “guard” and the meaning here is, not that the lepers called to any particular individual, but that they roused the body of men who were keeping guard at one of the gates.”
The gatekeepers shouted the news: Albert Barnes explains the gatekeeper of verse 10 as a guard, the body of men keeping watch at one of the gates. Those men carried the cry inward to the palace. Matthew Henry notes that the king himself had heard none of the noise that drove the Arameans away.
2 Kings 7:11
“And he called the porters,.... The porter of the city called to the porters of the king's palace: and they told it to the king's house within; to some of his domestic servants within the palace, and they reported it to the king.”
1 more voice on this verse
2 Kings 7:11
“13 And one of his servants answered and said, Let some take, I pray thee, five of the horses that remain, which are left in the city, (behold, they are as all the multitude of Israel that are left in it: behold, I say, they are even as all the multitude of the Israelites that are consumed:) and let us send and see.”
Matthew Henry · Commentary on the Whole Bible (1707-1721)puritan
The gate is trampled and the word comes true
to hide in the field: Matthew Henry notes neither the king nor his attendants had heard the noise that frightened the Arameans, so he knew no cause for their flight. Henry adds that a guilty conscience fears the worst and breeds suspicion. The king reads an empty camp as an ambush.
2 Kings 7:12
“He knew no reason the Syrians had to fly, for it does not appear that he or any of this attendants heard the noise of the chariots which the Syrians were frightened at. Let not those who, like him, are unstable in all their ways, think to receive any thing from God; nay, a guilty conscience fears the worst and makes men suspicious.”
Matthew Henry · Commentary on the Whole Bible (1707-1721)puritan
2 Kings 7:13-15
take five of the horses that remain in the city: A servant proposes a small test, to send “five of the horses that remain in the city”. The scouts follow the road, and “the whole way was littered with the clothing and equipment the Arameans had thrown off in haste”. The king sees the proof before he risks an army.
two chariots with horses: Matthew Henry reads the moment through Deuteronomy 32, where the LORD relents toward His servants once He sees their strength is gone. Samaria had come to that point. The king's command was brief: Go and see.
as far as the Jordan: Albert Barnes traces the likely line of flight along the great road from Samaria to Damascus, through Geba, En-gannim, Beth-shean and Aphek. That road crosses the Jordan at the Jisr Mejamia, about thirty-five miles northeast of Samaria. The scouts followed the litter the whole way.
2 Kings 7:15
“The Syrians had fled probably by the great road which led from Samaria to Damascus through Geba, En-gannim, Beth-shean, and Aphek. It crosses the Jordan at the Jisr Mejamia, about thirty-five miles northeast of Samaria.”
the people went out and plundered the camp of the Arameans: The market answers Elisha's word exactly: “a seah of fine flour sold for a shekel, and two seahs of barley sold for a shekel”. The text names “according to the word of the LORD”, the formula Kings uses whenever a word and its outcome are set side by side.
2 Kings 7:16
“God's promise may be safely relied on, for no word of his shall fall to the ground. The death of the unbelieving courtier, that questioned the truth of Elisha's word. Divine threatenings will as surely be accomplished as divine promises.”
Matthew Henry · Commentary on the Whole Bible (1707-1721)puritan
Thou shalt see it, but shalt not eat thereof
2 Kings 7:17-20
the officer on whose arm he leaned: The king sets the scoffing officer over the gate, and the hungry crowd tramples him there on its way to the food. He sees the plenty with his own eyes and eats none of it, “just as the man of God had foretold”.
2 Kings 7:17
“And the people trode upon him - This officer being appointed by the king to have the command of the gate, the people rushing out to get spoil, and in to carry it to their houses, he was borne down by the multitude and trodden to death. This also was foreseen by the spirit of prophecy. The literal and exact fulfillment of such predictions must have acquired the prophet a great deal of credit in Israel.”
Adam Clarke · Commentary on the Bible (1810-1826)evangelical
2 more voices on this verse
2 Kings 7:17
“When he was about to fill his belly God cast the fury of his wrath upon him ( Job xx. 23 ) and it came between the cup and the lip. Justly are those thus tantalized with the world's promises that think themselves tantalized with the promises of God.”
Matthew Henry · Commentary on the Whole Bible (1707-1721)puritan
2 Kings 7:17
“The news spread like lightning through the city, and was followed, as was natural, by a popular rush to the Syrian camp. To keep order at the gate, the king ordered his minister to keep guard; but the impetuosity of the famishing people could not be resisted. The lord was trodden to death, and Elisha's prophecy in all respects accomplished.”
Jamieson, Fausset & Brown · Commentary Critical and Explanatory on the Whole Bible (1871)reformed
just as the man of God: John Gill explains the repetition of verses 1 and 2 here as a way to mark how exactly the prophecy was kept. Matthew Henry adds that God never promises an end without knowing where to find the means. The means here was an empty Aramean camp.
2 Kings 7:18
“And it came to pass, as the man of God had spoken to the king, saying,.... As in 2Ki 7:1, and what he said to the king there, and to the lord, in 2Ki 7:2, are repeated in this and the next verse, that it might be observed how exactly the prophecies were fulfilled.”
1 more voice on this verse
2 Kings 7:18
“When Israel said, Can God furnish a table? the Lord heard it and was wroth. Infinite wisdom will not be limited by our folly. God never promises the end without knowing where to provide the means.”
Matthew Henry · Commentary on the Whole Bible (1707-1721)puritan
windows in heaven: Matthew Henry sets the officer's question beside Israel's in the wilderness, when the people asked whether God could spread a table. Henry adds that God's wisdom is not bound by human folly. The officer could imagine no way but windows in heaven.
2 Kings 7:19
“ONE WISE man may deliver a whole city; one good man may be the means of safety to a thousand others. The holy ones are “the salt of the earth,” the means of the preservation of the wicked. Without the godly as a conserve, the race would be utterly destroyed. In the city of Samaria there was one righteous man—Elisha, the servant of the Lord. Piety was altogether extinct in the court. The king was a sinner of the blackest dye, his iniquity was glaring and infamous.”
1 more voice on this verse
2 Kings 7:19
“And that lord answered the man of God, and said,.... As in 2Ki 7:2. and he said; that is, Elisha, as in the same place.”
trampled him in the gateway: John Wesley reads the officer's death as the weight God puts on distrust of His power, His providence and His promise. The king had set him over the gate at verse 17. He died there in the crush.
2 Kings 7:20
“And so it fell out, &c. - See how heinously God resents our distrust of his power, providence and promise! Whenever God promises the end, he knows where to provide the means.”
John Wesley · Explanatory Notes upon the Old Testament (1765)evangelical
How this psalm is built
The form: An oracle and its fulfilment reported as a matched pair, with the word and the scoff repeated word for word before the outcome is told, as 7 classes it.
The patterns in this chapter
| Device | What it does | Where to see it |
|---|---|---|
| You will see it with your own eyes, but you will not eat | The prophecy and the officer's scoff are given at 7:1 and 7:2 and repeated almost word for word at 7:18 and 7:19 before the death is reported at 7:20. This site's published exposition note on 7:1 to 7:2 records that the reader is told it twice before the execution, and the note on 7:17 to 7:20 records that the narrator lets the reader watch the sentence land a second time.Adam Clarke and Matthew Henry, with Jamieson, Fausset and Brown and John Wesley, Commentary on the Bible, 1832, Commentary on the Whole Bible, 1710, Commentary Critical and Explanatory on the Whole Bible, 1871, and Explanatory Notes upon the Old Testament, 1765, on 2 Kings 7:1 to 7:2 and 7:17 to 7:20, as this site's published exposition notes on those verses report them. | 2 Kings 7:2, 2 Kings 7:19, 2 Kings 7:20 |
| According to the word of the LORD | The formula closes the fulfilment at 7:16 and the account at 7:20. This site's published exposition note on 7:16 records that the text names its own standard for truth in these words, the same formula Kings uses whenever a spoken word and its outcome are set side by side for the reader to compare.John Gill and Matthew Henry, Exposition of the Old Testament, 1748 to 1763, and Commentary on the Whole Bible, 1710, on 2 Kings 7:16, as this site's published exposition note on that verse reports them. | 2 Kings 7:16, 2 Kings 7:20 |
| If we say we will enter the city | The four men set out three courses and weigh each the same way at 7:4: stay and die, enter the city and die there, or go to the Syrians where death is only a possibility. This site's published exposition note on 7:3 to 7:4 records that it is arithmetic rather than courage that moves them, and that the text lets their calculation stand as reasoning any starving man could follow.Albert Barnes and Matthew Henry, Notes on the Old Testament, 1832 to 1869, and Commentary on the Whole Bible, 1710, on 2 Kings 7:3 to 7:4, as this site's published exposition note on those verses reports them. | 2 Kings 7:4 |
| An army heard and never assembled | The text names the cause at 7:6, that the LORD made the Syrians hear a noise of chariots and horses, and their own guess turns it into hired armies of the Hittites and of Egypt. This site's published exposition note on 7:5 to 7:7 sets the scene against 6:17, where Elisha's servant saw a mountain full of real horses and chariots of fire, and states that the same God stands behind both the seen host and the imagined one.Adam Clarke and Keil and Delitzsch, Commentary on the Bible, 1832, and The Books of the Kings, 1872, on 2 Kings 7:5 to 7:7, as this site's published exposition note on those verses reports them. | 2 Kings 7:6, 2 Kings 6:17 |
| The gate, from famine prices to trampling | The gate holds both ends of the account. The four men sit at its entrance at 7:3 because the law placed them there, and the officer set over it at 7:17 is trampled by the crowd going out through it. This site's published head context row for the chapter records that city gates were roofed structures with chambers where elders sat, business was done, and grain was measured and priced, which is why the prophecy is given in market terms.Jamieson, Fausset and Brown and John Wesley, Commentary Critical and Explanatory on the Whole Bible, 1871, and Explanatory Notes upon the Old Testament, 1765, on 2 Kings 7:17 to 7:20, as this site's published exposition note on those verses reports them. | 2 Kings 7:3, 2 Kings 7:17, 2 Kings 7:1 |
The word and its keeping
11 more paragraphs on the patterns
This chapter is one of the cleanest demonstrations in the book of the pattern the published study guide calls the prophetic word as the book's engine. The guide lists 7:16 to 7:20 among the references for it, and the theme is stated as what a prophet says, happens.
The narrator builds the proof into the shape of the telling. This site's published exposition note on 7:1 to 7:2 records that the gap between word and fulfilment here is a single day, and sets the pattern beside the man of God who named Josiah three centuries before his birth at 1 Kings 13:2, a word spoken plainly and then kept to the letter. The note on 7:17 to 7:20 records the two halves of the officer's sentence landing separately, that he sees the plenty with his own eyes exactly as told and eats none of it exactly as told, and that Kings closes the account the way it opened it, as the man of God had said.
This site's published exposition note on 7:16 marks what the formula is for: according to the word of the LORD is the standard Kings uses whenever a spoken word and its outcome are set side by side for the reader to compare. A student who wants to test the book's own claim has a controlled case here, since the word is dated to a day and the outcome is reported against it.
The two hosts, seen and heard
The pairing across chapters 6 and 7 is the site's own reading and it is worth keeping. At 6:17 a servant is given sight of a mountain full of horses and chariots of fire that were there all along. At 7:6 an army hears chariots and horses that were never assembled. This site's published exposition note on 7:5 to 7:7 states that the same God stands behind both the seen host and the imagined one, so the two chapters answer each other rather than repeating.
This site's published head context row for the chapter records what made the Syrian conclusion a realistic fear rather than a foolish one: small kingdoms did hire outside powers, and a night alarm in a camp was notoriously hard to control. The flight itself is described the way a rout looks, tents, horses and donkeys left standing and the road littered with what was thrown down.
What the chapter has been preached from
The verse at 7:9 has carried a sermon of its own. This site's published exposition note on 7:8 to 7:9 records that Charles Spurgeon preached it by name in Sermon No. 1996, Public Testimony, a Debt to God and Man, reading it as a debt owed once deliverance has been tasted, that a man who has found good news has no right to keep it to himself. The note records the lepers' own verdict in their own words, that this is a day of good news and they are holding their peace, and that they correct themselves before the night is out.
This site's published head context row for the chapter states the same thing from the first hearers' side, that men with nothing, holding the only good news in the country, decide it has to be told.
What the chapter does not claim
The text gives no mechanism for the noise at 7:6 beyond naming the LORD as its cause, and this row states none. The site's published study guide handles the comparable case at 19:35 by naming the text's own agency and marking any proposed natural mechanism as a mediating-cause hypothesis rather than a competing account. The same restraint applies here, where the narrative reports what the Syrians heard and what they concluded from it and stops.
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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 note on 6:24 to 6:25, which opens the formal siege that this chapter ends; This site's published exposition of 2 Kings 7, The published notes on 7:1 to 7:2 and on 7:17 to 7:20, which record that the sentence is given twice before its execution is reported and that the narrator lets the reader watch it land a second time and This site's published study guide to 2 Kings, src/components/book/guides/2-kings/Book2KingsGuide.tsx, the themes table, which lists 7:16 to 7:20 among the references for the prophetic word as the book's engine.
The exposition
Adam Clarke, Commentary on the Bible; Albert Barnes; Charles Spurgeon, The Metropolitan Tabernacle Pulpit, Sermon No. 1996, Public Testimony, a Debt to God and Man; 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; Keil, The Books of the Kings and Matthew Henry, Commentary on the Whole Bible.