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CHAPTER 13 : Siege of Samaria by the Syrians - Terrible
Straits and Tragedy in the City - The King sends to slay Elisha,
but arrests his Messenger - Announced Deliverance and
Judgment on the Unbelieving "Lord" - The Discovery by the
Four Lepers – Flight of the Syrians - Relief of Samaria - The
Unbelieving Trodden to Death in the Gate. (2 Kings 6:24-7:20.)
THE sacred narrative now resumes the record of public events in Israel, although still
in close connection with the ministry of Elisha, which at this crisis appears the primal
factor in the history of the northern kingdom. Remembering that it is written from the
prophetic standpoint, we do not here look for a strictly chronological arrangement of
events, but rather expect to find them grouped according to the one grand idea which
underlies this history.
It is impossible to determine what time may have intervened between the attempts
and the expedition described in the last chapter and the open warfare against
Samaria, the incidents of which we are about to relate. According to Josephus (Ant.
9:4, 4), it followed immediately - the narrative of those who had returned from
Samaria having convinced Ben-hadad that any secret attempts upon the king of Israel
were hopeless, and determined him to resort to open warfare, for which he deemed
his army sufficient.^233
However that may be, he was soon to experience how vain were all such attempts
when God was in defense of His people. And here the question naturally arises why
such Divine interpositions should have been made on behalf of Israel. The answer is
not difficult, and it will throw light upon the course of this history. Evidently, it was
a period of comparative indecision, before the final attitude of the nation towards
Jehovah was taken, and with it the ultimate fate of Israel decided. Active hostility to
the prophet as God's representative and to the worship of Jehovah had ceased, and
there were even tokens for good and of seeming return to the LORD. But, as events
soon showed, there was not any real repentance, and what to a superficial observer
might seem the beginning of a calm was only a lull before the storm. This interval of
indecision, or token of pending decision, must be taken into account. The presence of
the prophet in Israel meant the final call of God to Israel, and the possibility of
national repentance and forgiveness. Every special interposition, such as those we
have described, was an emphatic attestation of Elisha's mission, and hence of his
message; and every deliverance indicated how truly and easily God could help and
deliver His people, if only that were in them towards which the presence of the
prophet pointed. And the more minute and apparently unimportant the occasions for
such interposition and deliverance were, the more strikingly would all this appear. It
(^)