7
📚Then Elisha said, “Hear the word of the LORD! Thus says the LORD: Tomorrow about this time a measure of fine flour will be sold for a shekel and two measures 📖 of barley for a shekel 📖, in the gate of Samaria”.
2 📚Then an officer on whose hand the king was leaning answered the man of God and said, “Look, even if the LORD made windows in heaven, could this thing be?”
And he said, “Look, you will see it with your eyes, but will not eat 📖 of it”.
3 📚And there were four men with leprosy 📖 at the entrance of the gate 📖, and they said to one another, “Why should we sit here until we die? 4 📚If we say, We will go into the city, then the famine is in the city, and we will die there. And if we still sit here, we will die also. Therefore, come now and let’s go over to the camp of the Syrians. If they save us alive, we will live; and if they kill us, we will but die”.
5 📚And they rose at twilight to go to the camp of the Syrians, and when they arrived at the outskirts of the Syrian camp, there was no one there. 6 📚For the Lord had caused 📖 the army of the Syrians to hear a sound of chariots 📖 and a sound of horses, the sound of a large army. And they said to one another, “Look, the king of Israel has hired against us the kings of the Hittites and the kings of the Egyptians, to attack us”. 7 📚Therefore they arose and fled at twilight, and left their tents and their horses and their donkeys, the camp just as it was, and fled for their life.
8 📚And when these lepers came to the outskirts of the camp, they went into one tent, and ate and drank, and carried silver and gold and clothes from there and went and hid it, and came back, and entered another tent, and carried things from there also, and went and hid them.
9 📚Then they said to one another, “We are not behaving well 📖. Today is a day of good news, and we are keeping silent. If we wait till morning light, some punishment will come on us. Therefore come now, let’s go and tell the king’s household”.
10 📚So they came and called to the gatekeepers of the city and told them, saying, “We went to the camp of the Syrians, and, see, there was no one there, not a human sound, but horses tied up and donkeys tied up, and the tents as they were”. 11 And the gatekeeper called out, and they reported it inside the king’s house.
12 📚And the king arose in the night and said to his servants, “I will now tell you what the Syrians are doing to us. They know that we are hungry, so they have gone out of the camp to hide themselves in the field, saying, ‘When they come out of the city, we will capture them alive, and get into the city.’ ”
7:12 The king did not believe Elisha’s word in v 1.⚜
13 📚And one of his servants answered and said, “Please let some men take five of the horses that remain, which are left in the city. Look, they may become like all the multitude of Israel who are left in it; yes, I say, they may become just like the whole multitude of the Israelites who have perished. But let us send them and see”.
14 So they took two chariot horses, and the king sent them after the army of the Syrians, saying, “Go and see”. 15 📚And they went after them to the Jordan, and saw the whole road was full of clothes and articles which the Syrians had thrown away in their haste. And the messengers returned and told the king. 16 📚And the people went out and plundered the tents of the Syrians. So a measure of fine flour was sold for a shekel, and two measures of barley for a shekel, in accordance with the word of the LORD.
7:16 Verse 1. To fulfill His word God put a strong army to flight. God would move heaven and earth, if He needed, to do what He said.⚜
17 📚And the king appointed the officer on whose hand he leaned to have charge of the gate; and the people trampled on him in the gate, and he died, as the man of God had said, who spoke when the king came down to him. 18 📚And it happened just as the man of God had spoken to the king, saying, “There will be two measures of barley for a shekel and a measure of fine flour for a shekel, tomorrow about this time in the gate of Samaria”. 19 📚And that officer had answered the man of God and said, “Now, look, even if the LORD made windows in heaven, might such a thing be?” And he had said, “Look, you will see it with your eyes, but will not eat of it”.
7:17-19 Verse 2; Isa 44:26.⚜
20 📚And so it happened to him; for the people trampled on him in the gate, and he died.