2 Kings 6:24-7:2

²⁴ Some time later King Ben-hadad of Aram mustered his entire army; he marched against Samaria and laid siege to it. ²⁵ As the siege continued, famine in Samaria became so great that a donkey’s head was sold for eighty shekels of silver and one-fourth of a kab of dove’s dung for five shekels of silver. ²⁶ Now as the king of Israel was walking on the city wall, a woman cried out to him, “Help, my lord king!” ²⁷ He said, “If the LORD does not help you, where would my help come from? From the threshing floor or from the winepress?” ²⁸ But then the king asked her, “What is your complaint?” She answered, “This woman said to me, ‘Give up your son; we will eat him today, and we will eat my son tomorrow.’ ²⁹ So we cooked my son and ate him. The next day I said to her, ‘Give up your son, and we will eat him.’ But she has hidden her son.” ³⁰ When the king heard the words of the woman he tore his clothes—now since he was walking on the city wall, the people could see that he had sackcloth on his body underneath ³¹ and he said, “So may God do to me and more, if the head of Elisha son of Shaphat stays on his shoulders today.” ³² So he dispatched a man from his presence.
  Now Elisha was sitting in his house, and the elders were sitting with him. Before the messenger arrived, Elisha said to the elders, “Are you aware that this murderer has sent someone to take off my head? When the messenger comes, see that you shut the door and hold it closed against him. Is not the sound of his master’s feet behind him?” ³³ While he was still speaking with them, the king came down to him and said, “This trouble is from the LORD! Why should I hope in the LORD any longer?”

7¹ But Elisha said, “Hear the word of the LORD: Thus says the Lord: Tomorrow about this time a measure of choice meal shall be sold for a shekel and two measures of barley for a shekel, at the gate of Samaria.” ² Then the captain on whose hand the king leaned said to the man of God, “Even if the LORD were to make windows in the sky, could such a thing happen?” But he said, “You shall see it with your own eyes, but you shall not eat from it.”

The final seven verses of chapter six are connected to the story that continues through the seventh chapter of 2 Kings. The verses and chapters were added at a later point, and the chapter division highlights the prophecy of Elisha by bookending the seventh chapter, but the narrative which evokes the word of the LORD begins at verse twenty-four. One of the Aramean kings named Ben-hadad[1] lays siege to Samaria creating the severe crisis of the story.

Siege warfare works by denying the encircled city the resources it needs to survive while the surrounding army has access to food from the land and if necessary, brought in from the besieging country. The first to feel the impact of the food shortages are the poor and the vulnerable as the cost of the food necessary to survive climbs as the supply dwindles. In our story the cost of once unpalatable foods has reached a point unreachable to all but the wealthiest households. The ‘dove’s dung’ has a couple possible interpretations. It may be the droppings from birds who are able to eat from the grain fields that the population no longer has access to, and this may form a disgusting but necessary source of nutrition for the captured population. Some translations like the NEB and NJPS follow a linguistic trail to translate this as the “seeds of the (false) carob” which is a plant of limited nutritional value. However one translates the ‘dove’s dung,’ the situation in the city has become desperate to the point where hunger is creating an inhumane situation.

The woman at the wall who calls upon the king of Israel for help is met with a pious sounding answer, “If the LORD does not help you, where would my help come from.” To me this resonates like the empty ‘thoughts and prayers’ of a politician who has no interest in resolving the crisis of the individual who comes to them for help. Yet, in Israel there is a tradition of people coming to their kings to judge difficult and life changing matters and the kings of Israel are supposed to be guardians of the vulnerable. This story resonates with Solomon’s judging between the two women fighting over a child in 1 Kings 3: 16-28, but in this story of famine now the women are fighting over children to be eaten in their starvation. The situation echoes the darkest warnings against disobedience in Deuteronomy 28: 52-57:

⁵² It shall besiege you in all your towns until your high and fortified walls, in which you trusted, come down throughout your land; it shall besiege you in all your towns throughout the land that the LORD your God has given you. ⁵³ In the desperate straits to which the enemy siege reduces you, you will eat the fruit of your womb, the flesh of your own sons and daughters whom the LORD your God has given you. ⁵⁴ Even the most refined and gentle of men among you will begrudge food to his own brother, to the wife whom he embraces, and to the last of his remaining children, ⁵⁵ giving to none of them any of the flesh of his children whom he is eating, because nothing else remains to him, in the desperate straits to which the enemy siege will reduce you in all your towns. ⁵⁶ She who is the most refined and gentle among you, so gentle and refined that she does not venture to set the sole of her foot on the ground, will begrudge food to the husband whom she embraces, to her own son, and to her own daughter, ⁵⁷ begrudging even the afterbirth that comes out from between her thighs, and the children that she bears, because she is eating them in secret for lack of anything else, in the desperate straits to which the enemy siege will reduce you in your towns.

The woman’s situation in this siege echoes the narration of the later siege of Jerusalem by Babylon in Ezekiel 5:10 and Lamentations 2:20 and 4:10. It is a world where the bond between mother and child has been broken by hunger and people lose their humanity in the horror of the siege. The king who has been sheltered from the worst aspects of the deprivation of the siege is horrified by the woman’s situation and yet still claims no power to alleviate her condition. The stores of grain and wine even for the king are likely depleted and we learn that he is wearing sackcloth, a sign of mourning and repentance, under his clothes which he tears on hearing the woman’s story. In response he rashly declares that he will kill Elisha.

Elisha may be the target of the king’s rage as the representative of the LORD who the king of Israel blames for this unbroken siege, or he may simply be a scapegoat in the king’s powerlessness. Elisha did in the previous chapter deliver into Samaria an Aramean army who he instructed the king to feed and allow them to depart in peace. The peace which Elisha brokered did not endure and the king of Israel may blame the prophet for the situation. It is also possible that the king feels that the prophet, who has provided food miraculously, has not performed a miracle to provide food for the suffering city. If this unnamed king of Israel is Jehoram, as the order of the stories implies, there is a long animosity between the Omri dynasty that Jehoram is a member of and Elijah as well as Elisha. It is possible that the king has never approached the prophet until this point in the siege although it is worth noting that the elders are with the prophet during this scene.

The story becomes a bit confused in verses 32-33 where a messenger arrives and later the king. Mordechai Cogan and Hayim Tadmor point to Josephus’ reconstruction of the events as being as sensible as any:

“But you,” (Elisha) said, “when the man arrives who has been given this order be on guard as he is about to enter, and press him back against the door and hold him there, for the king will follow him and come to me, having changed his mind.” So, when the man came who had been sent by the king to make away with Elisha, they did as he had ordered. But Joram, repenting of his wrath against the prophet and fearing that the man who had been ordered to kill him might already be doing so, hastened to prevent the murder and even save the prophet. Antiquities ix, 69-70. (Cogan, 1988, pp. 80-81)

Despite the king’s earlier murderous words, the king, the prophet, and the elders all share in hearing the word of the LORD that Elisha receives declaring that the crisis will end suddenly in roughly twenty-four hours. The immediate availability of cheap food prophesied is unbelievable to the captain of the king, and Elisha adds a final note that this captain will see the prophecy fulfilled but be unable to partake in it.

2 Kings 7:3-20

  ³ Now there were four men with a defiling skin disease outside the city gate who said to one another, “Why should we sit here until we die? ⁴ If we say, ‘Let us enter the city,’ the famine is in the city, and we shall die there, but if we sit here, we shall also die. Therefore, let us desert to the Aramean camp; if they spare our lives, we shall live, and if they kill us, we shall but die.” ⁵ So they arose at twilight to go to the Aramean camp, but when they came to the edge of the Aramean camp there was no one there at all. ⁶ For the Lord had caused the Aramean army to hear the sound of chariots and of horses, the sound of a great army, so that they said to one another, “The king of Israel has hired the kings of the Hittites and the kings of Egypt to fight against us.” ⁷ So they fled away in the twilight and abandoned their tents, their horses, and their donkeys, leaving the camp just as it was, and fled for their lives. ⁸ When these diseased men had come to the edge of the camp, they went into a tent, ate and drank, carried off silver, gold, and clothing, and went and hid them. Then they came back, entered another tent, carried off things from it and went and hid them.
  ⁹ Then they said to one another, “What we are doing is wrong. This is a day of good news; if we are silent and wait until the morning light, we will be found guilty; therefore let us go and tell the king’s household.” ¹⁰ So they came and called to the gatekeepers of the city and told them, “We went to the Aramean camp, but there was no one to be seen or heard there, nothing but the horses tied, the donkeys tied, and the tents as they were.” ¹¹ Then the gatekeepers called out and proclaimed it to the king’s household. ¹² The king got up in the night and said to his servants, “I will tell you what the Arameans have prepared against us. They know that we are starving, so they left the camp to hide themselves in the open country, thinking, ‘When they come out of the city, we shall take them alive and get into the city.’ ” ¹³ One of his servants said, “Let some men take five of the remaining horses, since those left here will suffer the fate of the whole multitude of Israel that have perished already; let us send and find out.” ¹⁴ So they took two mounted men, and the king sent them after the Aramean army, saying, “Go and find out.” ¹⁵ So they went after them as far as the Jordan; the whole way was littered with garments and equipment that the Arameans had thrown away in their haste. So the messengers returned and told the king.
  ¹⁶ Then the people went out and plundered the camp of the Arameans. So a measure of choice meal was sold for a shekel and two measures of barley for a shekel, according to the word of the LORD. ¹⁷ Now the king had appointed the captain on whose hand he leaned to have charge of the gate; the people trampled him to death in the gate, just as the man of God had said when the king came down to him. ¹⁸ For when the man of God had said to the king, “Two measures of barley shall be sold for a shekel and a measure of choice meal for a shekel, about this time tomorrow in the gate of Samaria,” ¹⁹ the captain had answered the man of God, “Even if the LORD were to make windows in the sky, could such a thing happen?” And he had answered, “You shall see it with your own eyes, but you shall not eat from it.” ²⁰ It did indeed happen to him; the people trampled him to death in the gate.

The resolution to the crisis begins in the desperation of four men who are unclean and left outside the city. As mentioned above it is the vulnerable, and these four men with an affliction traditionally translated as leprosy would be vulnerable as they are excluded outside the city’s protective walls. In a situation where staying where they are would lead to death and entering the city would lead to death, they make the choice to surrender to the Arameans because the worst they can do is kill them. This decision to give up to the besieging forces sets in motion the deliverance of Samaria.

I have mixed feelings about the NRSVue decision throughout these texts to translate what is traditionally rendered ‘leprosy’ as a ‘defiling skin disease’ or ‘skin disease.’ On the one hand, what we now categorize as leprosy or Hansen’s disease is probably not what is referred to throughout the bible. But I wonder if the more generic skin disease disconnects the average reader from the severity of this diagnosis in the ancient world of Judaism. It is telling that Leviticus thirteen and fourteen are dedicated to the identification, the exclusion of the infected individuals from the community, and the necessary examination to allow their re-inclusion if the skin disorder clears up. These lepers are ‘unclean’ and unable to participate in the life of the community. Yet these outsiders will provide deliverance for the people trapped inside the city.

Before the four men approach the camp, the Arameans flee in panic because they hear the sound of horses and chariots approaching and fear that the king of Israel has paid Egypt and the Hittites to come and break the siege for them. The horses and chariots echo the appearance of the ‘horses and chariots of Israel’ in the previous story (2 Kings 6:15) and now instead of opening the eyes of the servant the LORD in a different manner opens the ears of the Arameans. The panic of the Arameans in the story is enough that they abandon not only their encampment but also their horses and donkey and leave a trail of discarded items in the path of their retreat. There are resources and wealth to feed and equip an army surrounding the city, much of the food likely taken from Israel’s fields, and there waiting to be discovered by the starving city.

The Jewish sages identified the four men with Gehazi and his sons (Israel, 2019, p. 129) which makes sense with this story being between Gehazi having Naaman’s leprosy cling to him and his family (2 Kings 5:27) and Gehazi’s reemergence talking with the king in the upcoming chapter (2 Kings 8: 4-5). This identification while interesting is not necessary for the story as these four men proceed to the camp, find it empty, ate and drank, pillaged some of the wealth they found, and eventually notify the gatekeepers of the situation. These men excluded as outsiders because of their skin condition still consider themselves a part of the people and have an obligation to those suffering inside the city. They appeal through the gatekeeper to the king’s household.

The king initially views this report from the four men as a trap set by the Aramean army to draw him out, but eventually one of his servants convinces the king to send out scouts with horses to examine the situation, lest the remaining horses perish with the people inside the city. Once the messengers return to the king it sets in motion the availability of food promised by the prophecy of Elisha as well as the death of the captain of the king. As mentioned in the previous section, the current chapter divisions highlight the words of Elisha at the beginning and ending of the chapter to demonstrate their fulfillment. A siege which reduced men and women to inhuman actions is now ended by four men whose humanity is compromised by the unclean disease carried on their skin. The God of Israel’s unseen host is now heard by the Aramean causing them to abandon their siege and to provide the food the city needs. The prophet once blamed by the king for the situation inside the city has now accurately predicted the cities deliverance by the LORD the God of Israel.

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[1] Mordechai Cogan and Hayim Tadmor note there are at least two and possibly three kings name Ben-Hadad,  whose name means the son of (the God) Hadad, “At least two, if not three persons by this name are known: Ben-hadad, contemporary of Baasha (1 Kgs 15:18); Ben-hadad, foe of Abab (1 Kgs 20: 1; he is identical with ^mAdad-idri of Assyrian inscriptions…and Ben-hadad, son of Hazael (2 Kgs 13:3).” (Cogan, 1988, p. 78)