1 Now the fellow prophets said to Elisha, “See, the place where we are gathered has become too small for us.
2 Let us go to the Jordan, and let each of us get a log to build a shed where we can gather.” Elisha answered, “Go.”
3 Then one of them said to him, “Why do you not come along with us?”
4 So Elisha went with them. And when they arrived at the Jordan, they began to cut down the trees.
5 But as one of them was cutting a tree, his axehead fell into the river, and he exclaimed, “O my master, the iron piece that you have lent me!” The man of God asked him,
6 “Where did it fall?” And he showed Elisha the place. Elisha cut off a stick, threw it in there, and the iron piece floated.
7 Elisha said, “Get it.” The man reached out his hand and took it.
Elisha captures an armed band of Arameans
8 At that time when the king of Aram was raiding Israel, he consulted with his officials, and told them, “Let us attack that people.”
9 But the man of God sent a message to the king of Israel, “Guard this place for the Arameans shall go there.”
10 So the king of Israel sent men to the place indicated by the man of God, and they kept watch there. And this happened several times.
11 The king of Aram was worried because of these things, so he called his officials and told them, “Go and find out who is revealing our plans to the king of Israel.”
12 One of his officials said, “None of us has betrayed you, my king, but Elisha, the prophet who is in Israel, makes known to his king even the words you say in your bed room.”
13 The king answered them, “Go then and find out where he lives, that I may send people to arrest him.” When they told him that Elisha was in Dothan,
14 he sent chariots, horses and strong troops who arrived there by night and surrounded the city.
15 On the following day, when the servant of the man of God rose early in the morning, he went out and saw the Arameans surrounding the city with their chariots and horses. He said to Elisha, “O my master, what shall we do?”
16 He answered, “Do not fear, for those who are with us are more than those who are with them.”
17 Eli sha prayed and said, “Yahweh, open his eyes that he may see.” Yahweh opened the eyes of the servant, and he saw the hill full of horses and chariots of fire around Elisha.
18 As the Arameans came down to him, Elisha again prayed to Yahweh, “Blind them.” So Yahweh made them unable to see as Elisha had asked.
19 Elisha told them, “This is not the way nor is this the city. Follow me and I shall bring you to the man whom you seek.” And he led them to Samaria.
20 When they had entered Samaria, Elisha said, “Yahweh open their eyes that they may see,” and they saw they were in Sa maria.
21 When the king of Israel saw them, he said to Elisha, “My father, should I kill them?”
22 He answered, “If you do not kill those whom you have captured with your sword and your bow, how can you kill these men? Give them bread and water so they may eat and drink, and let them return to their master.”
23 So the king served them a grand banquet, and they ate and drank. Then he sent them away to their master. From that day on, the troops of Aram did not return any more to invade the territories of Israel.
Famine and the liberation of Samaria
24 Afterwards Ben-hadad, the king of Aram, gathered together all his troops and went to lay siege to Sa maria.
25 There was great famine in Samaria; so great was the misery that the head of an ass was sold for eighty pieces of silver, and a half-liter of chickpeas for five pieces of silver.
26 The king of Israel was walking by upon the wall when a woman cried out to him, “Save me, my lord King!”
27 The king answered, “In what way can I help you? If Yahweh does not give you bread, where shall I get it?
28 What is the matter?” She answered, “That woman told me: give up your son that we may eat him today, and then we will eat my son tomorrow.
29 So we cooked my son and ate him. But on the next day, when I said to her: Take your son that we may eat him, she had hidden him.”
30 When the king heard the words of the woman, he tore his clothes. He was upon the wall, and the people saw that he was wearing sackcloth under his tunic.
31 The king swore: “May the Lord punish me, if the head of Elisha, the son of Shaphat, re mains on his shoulders today.” And the king sent a guard to Elisha’s house.
32 Elisha was seated in his house and the elders were sitting with him. Before the messenger’s arrival, Elisha said to them, “Do you not know that this murderer has ordered someone to cut my head off? Well then, when the messenger comes, shut the door and do not let him in. Behind him, I hear the sound of his master’s footsteps.”
33 He was still talking to them, when the king arrived. The king said, “If all this evil comes from Yahweh, why should I still trust him?”
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Comments 2 Kings, Chapter 6
• 6.8 We single out this narrative adorned by legends, which shows Elisha’s intervention in the life of the nation. Elisha received the mission to change the king of Israel who was responsible for the religious infidelity of his people, as well as the king of Aram. Joram and Ben-hadad mentioned here will shortly be murdered.
The prophets of Israel are messengers entrusted by God with the salvation of Israel, and this salvation does not only mean that our souls go to heaven as many people believe, but rather that the entire life of a people must bring them to greater awareness and responsibility. The people of Israel could not mature (and neither can people now) without a long experience of violence, injustice and lies as well as a way of covering these things.
Give them bread and water (v. 22) – a prophetic gesture: overcome evil through good.
Open his eyes… Blind them (vv.17, 18, 20). These words show the contrast between those who see the situation as God does and those who get lost in their own wisdom. How much time we waste, how often we are paralyzed by our own fears, instead of taking risks and proceed, in the trust that God cannot fail!
May the Lord punish me, if the head of Elisha, the son of Shaphat, remains on his shoulders today (v. 31). The king’s words tell us that Elisha had encouraged resistance to the Arameans while the leaders did not dare do so. If the prophets who in their time witnessed the justice of God were not afraid of assuming responsibility in national problems, why should Christians, God’s prophets today, be absent from the political life of their time?