2 Kings 6:19

_AND ELISHA SAID UNTO THEM, THIS IS NOT THE WAY, NEITHER IS THIS THE CITY: FOLLOW ME, AND I WILL BRING YOU TO THE MAN WHOM YE SEEK. BUT HE LED THEM TO SAMARIA._ This is not the way, neither is this the city. This is considered by some as a falsehood or equivocation, like the falsehood of Abraham to Abimelech and Pharaoh, of Isaac to Pharaoh, of Rebekah and Jacob to Isaac, and many of the patriarchs. But the statement is so far true, that, as he had now left the place of his residence, they would not have got him by that road. But the ambiguity of his language was purposely framed to deceive them; and yet the deception must be viewed in the light of a stratagem, which has always been deemed lawful in war. HE LED THEM TO SAMARIA. When they were arrived in the midst of the capital, their eyes, at Elisha's request, were opened, and they then became aware of their defenseless condition, for...

13-23 What Elisha said to his servant is spoken to all the faithful servants of God, when without are fightings, and within are fears. Fear not, with that fear which has torment and amazement; for they that are with us, to protect us, are more than they that are against us, to destroy us. The eyes of his body were open, and with them he saw the danger. Lord, open the eyes of our faith, that with them we may see thy protecting hand. The clearer sight we have of the sovereignty and power of Heaven, the less we shall fear the troubles of earth. Satan, the god of this world, blinds men's eyes, and so deludes them unto their own ruin; but when God enlightens their eyes, they see themselves in the midst of their enemies, captives to Satan, and in danger of hell, though, before, they thought their condition good. When Elisha had the Syrians at his mercy, he made it appear that he was influence...

Verse 2 Kings 6:19. _I WILL BRING YOU TO THE MAN WHOM YE SEEK._] And he did so; he was their guide to Samaria, and showed himself to them fully in that city....

EXPOSITION VERSE 1-7:20 FURTHER MIRACLES WROUGHT BY ELISHA. The historian relates first a (comparatively) private miracle wrought by Elisha in the vicinity of Jericho, for the benefit of one of the "sons of the prophets" (2 Kings 7:1). He then tells us briefly of a series of public miracles which brought Elisha into much note and prominence. War, it appears, had again broken out in a pronounced form between Israel and Syria, Syria being the aggressor. The Syrian monarch prepared traps for his adversary, encamping in places where he hoped to take him at a disadvantage. But Elisha frustrated these plans, by addressing warnings to the King of Israel, and pointing out to him the various positions occupied ...

AND ELISHA SAID UNTO THEM, THIS IS NOT THE WAY, NEITHER IS THIS THE CITY,.... Which is an answer to some questions of the Syrians; as, whether this was the way to find the prophet Elisha, and this the city in which he was to be found? and he answers most truly, though ambiguously, that the way they were in, and in which should they proceed, was not the way, nor this the city, in which he was to be found, because he was come out of it, and was going to Samaria: FOLLOW ME, AND I WILL BRING YOU TO THE MAN WHOM YE SEEK; as he did: but he led them to Samaria: whither he was going, they being still under that sort of blindness with which they were smitten; otherwise they would have known the country better than to have been led thither....

2 Kings 6:1. _And the sons of the prophets said unto Elisha, Behold now, the place where we dwell with thee is too strait for us._ It seems to have been a habit of the prophets to gather about them companies of young men whom they instructed in the holy Scripture and in the truths of revelation. Many of these young men became prophets themselves and were the instructors of the people. Elisha, then, was the President of a College for young men who were being trained for the sacred ministry of God. They had grown so numerous that they were cramped in their lodging and they said, «The place is too strait for us. Let us go, we pray thee, unto Jordan, and take thence every man a beam, and let us make us fit place there, where we may dwell.» They were ready to work to build their own lodging; they do not appear to have gone into debt for it, and to have saddled themselves and the institutio

5. ELISHA AND THE SYRIANS CHAPTER 6 _ 1. The lost axe-head recovered (2 Kings 6:1)_ 2. Elisha makes known Ben-hadad's plans (2 Kings 6:8) 3. Elisha's arrest planned (2 Kings 6:13) 4. The blinded Syrians led to Samaria (2 Kings 6:18) 5. Samaria besieged (2 Kings 6:24) 6. The king's wrath against Elisha (2 Kings 6:31) It has been truly said that the miracle of the swimming axe-head reveals the condescension of

AN AXEHEAD SWIMS. ELISHA AND THE SYRIANS AT DOTHAN. In several minor miracles Elisha is always represented as working them not by his word, but by some expedient. Thus he heals the miscarrying waters by salt, and the pot by meal, and recovers the axehead by casting a stick into the water. The prophet appears in the second narrative as the moving spirit in the Syrian war. Whenever the king of Syria devised an ambush (2 Kings 6:8, with a slight alteration of reading), Elisha revealed the secret. Elisha was at Dothan (2 Kings 6:13), a city standing on a hill about 10 miles N. of Samaria, on the caravan road from Egypt to Damascus (Genesis 37:17, p. 30). Elisha was defended, as we are finely told, by horses and chariots of f

I WILL BRING. So he did. BUT. And; or. So. HE LED THEM TO SAMARIA: where they found the man they sought: i.e. Elisha himself....

_This_is _not the way, neither_is _this the city_ i.e. the way to Elisha, and the city where you shall find him. _I will bring you to the man whom ye seek_ But you shall find him in a place where you shall not be able to arrest him. Thus does Elisha use the glamour, or hallucination, under which these men were cast, to secure his own safety. _But_[R.V. AND] _he led them to Samaria_ That there he might make himself known unto them; and they, still under the influence which had been supernaturally cast over them, followed him without alarm till they were within the walls of the strongly fortified royal city....