HelpFinder Bible - Flipbook - Page 703
2 KING S 7
page 333
and let him see!” The Lord opened the young
man’s eyes, and when he looked up, he saw that
the hillside around Elisha was filled with horses
and chariots of fire.
18 As the Ar amean army advanced toward
him, Elisha prayed, “O Lord, please make them
blind.” So the Lord struck them with blindness
as Elisha had asked.
19 Then Elisha went out and told them, “You
have come the wrong way! This isn’t the right
city! Follow me, and I will take you to the man
you are looking for.” And he led them to the city
of Samaria.
20 As soon as they had entered Samaria, Elisha prayed, “O Lord, now open their eyes and
let them see.” So the Lord opened their eyes,
and they discovered that they were in the
middle of Samaria.
21 When the king of Israel saw them, he
shouted to Elisha, “My father, should I kill
them? Should I kill them?”
22 “Of course not!” Elisha replied. “Do we kill
prisoners of war? Give them food and drink and
send them home again to their master.”
23 So the king made a great feast for them and
then sent them home to their master. After that,
the Aramean raiders stayed away from the land
of Israel.
Ben-Hadad Besieges Samaria
24 Some time later, however, King Ben-hadad of
Aram mustered his entire army and besieged Samaria. 25 As a result, there was a great famine in
the city. The siege lasted so long that a donkey’s
head sold for eighty pieces of silver, and a cup of
dove’s dung sold for five pieces* of silver.
26 One day as the king of Israel was walking
along the wall of the city, a woman called to
him, “Please help me, my lord the king!”
27 He answered, “If the Lord doesn’t help
you, what can I do? I have neither food from
the threshing floor nor wine from the press to
give you.” 28 But then the king asked, “What is
the matter?”
She replied, “This woman said to me: ‘Come
on, let’s eat your son today, then we will eat my
son tomorrow.’ 29 So we cooked my son and ate
him. Then the next day I said to her, ‘Kill your son
so we can eat him,’ but she has hidden her son.”
30 When the king heard this, he tore his
clothes in despair. And as the king walked
along the wall, the people could see that he was
wearing burlap under his robe next to his skin.
6:25 Hebrew sold for 80 [shekels] [2 pounds or 0.9 kilograms]
of silver, and 1 ⁄4 of a cab [0.3 liters] of dove’s dung sold for
5 [shekels] [2 ounces or 57 grams]. Dove’s dung may be a variety
of wild vegetable. 6:33 Hebrew he. 7:1a Hebrew 1 seah
[7.3 liters] of choice flour will cost 1 shekel [0.4 ounces or
11 grams]; also in 7:16, 18. 7:1b Hebrew 2 seahs [14.6 liters]
of barley grain will cost 1 shekel [0.4 ounces or 11 grams]; also
in 7:16, 18. 7:3 Or with a contagious skin disease. The Hebrew
word used here and throughout this passage can describe
various skin diseases. 7:6 Possibly and the people of Muzur,
a district near Cilicia.
31 “May
God strike me and even kill me if I don’t
separate Elisha’s head from his shoulders this
very day,” the king vowed.
32 Elisha was sitting in his house with the elders of Israel when the king sent a messenger to
summon him. But before the messenger arrived,
Elisha said to the elders, “A murderer has sent
a man to cut off my head. When he arrives, shut
the door and keep him out. We will soon hear
his master’s steps following him.”
33 While Elisha was still saying this, the messenger arrived. And the king* said, “All this misery is from the Lord! Why should I wait for the
Lord any longer?”
7
Elisha replied, “Listen to this message from
the Lord! This is what the Lord says: By
this time tomorrow in the markets of Samaria,
six quarts of choice flour will cost only one piece
of silver,* and twelve quarts of barley grain will
cost only one piece of silver.*”
2 The officer assisting the king said to the man
of God, “That couldn’t happen even if the Lord
opened the windows of heaven!”
But Elisha replied, “You will see it happen
with your own eyes, but you won’t be able to
eat any of it!”
Outcasts Visit the Enemy Camp
3 Now there were four men with leprosy* sitting
at the entrance of the city gates. “Why should
we sit here waiting to die?” they asked each
other. 4 “We will starve if we stay here, but with
the famine in the city, we will starve if we go
back there. So we might as well go out and surrender to the Aramean army. If they let us live,
so much the better. But if they kill us, we would
have died anyway.”
5 So at twilight they set out for the camp of the
Arameans. But when they came to the edge of
the camp, no one was there! 6 For the Lord had
caused the Aramean army to hear the clatter of
speeding chariots and the galloping of horses
and the sounds of a great army approaching.
“The king of Israel has hired the Hittites and
Egyptians* to attack us!” they cried to one another. 7 So they panicked and ran into the night,
abandoning their tents, horses, donkeys, and
everything else, as they fled for their lives.
8 When the men with leprosy arrived at the
edge of the camp, they went into one tent after
another, eating and drinking wine; and they
carried off silver and gold and clothing and hid
it. 9 Finally, they said to each other, “This is not
right. This is a day of good news, and we aren’t
sharing it with anyone! If we wait until morning, some calamity will certainly fall upon us.
Come on, let’s go back and tell the people at the
palace.”
10 So they went back to the city and told the
gatekeepers what had happened. “We went out