2 Kings 6:2

_LET US GO, WE PRAY THEE, UNTO JORDAN, AND TAKE THENCE EVERY MAN A BEAM, AND LET US MAKE US A PLACE THERE, WHERE WE MAY DWELL. AND HE ANSWERED, GO YE._ Let us go ... unto Jordan - whose wooded banks would furnish plenty of timber....

1-7 There is that pleasantness in the converse of servants of God, which can make those who listen to them forget the pain and the weariness of labour. Even the sons of the prophets must not be unwilling to labour. Let no man think an honest employment a burden or a disgrace. And labour of the head, is as hard, and very often harder, than labour with the hands. We ought to be careful of that which is borrowed, as of our own, because we must do as we would be done by. This man was so respecting the axe-head. And to those who have an honest mind, the sorest grievance of poverty is, not so much their own want and disgrace, as being rendered unable to pay just debts. But the Lord cares for his people in their smallest concerns. And God's grace can thus raise the stony iron heart, which is sunk into the mud of this world, and raise up affections, naturally earthly....

Verse 2 Kings 6:2. _EVERY MAN A BEAM_] They made a sort of _log-houses_ with their own hands....

TAKE EVERY MAN A BEAM - Trees were rare in most parts of Palestine, but plentiful in the Jordan Valley. Jericho was known in early times as “the city of palms” Deuteronomy 34:3; Judges 1:16....

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 ...

LET US GO, WE PRAY THEE, UNTO JORDAN,.... Which, according to Josephus a, was fifty furlongs, or upwards of six miles, distant from Gilgal: AND TAKE THENCE EVERY MAN A BEAM; by cutting down the trees that grew there; for Mr. Maundrell says b, the banks of Jordan are beset with bushes and trees, which are an harbour for wild beasts; and another traveller c observes, that it is shadowed on both sides with poplars, alders, c. and who speaks of their cutting down boughs from the trees when there: AND LET US MAKE US A PLACE THERE WHERE WE MAY DWELL: near the banks of Jordan, which they might choose for the seclusion and pleasantness of the situation, or because Elijah was taken up to heaven near it, as Abarbinel thinks from whence it appears that these scholars were far from living an idle life; for they were not only trained up in useful learning, but were employed in trades and manufactur...

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

_take thence every man a beam_ The Jordan valley was well timbered. We see from this, as from previous passages, that these men did for themselves such work as they required. Here they are ready to be their own carpenters. Naturally such a body would neither wish for, nor be able to erect, anything but a building of the simplest sort. _make us a place there_ They propose to provide entirely new quarters in a new spot in the valley of the Jordan....