2 Kings 6:33

_AND WHILE HE YET TALKED WITH THEM, BEHOLD, THE MESSENGER CAME DOWN UNTO HIM: AND HE SAID, BEHOLD, THIS EVIL IS OF THE LORD; WHAT SHOULD I WAIT FOR THE LORD ANY LONGER?_ While he yet talked with them, behold, the messenger. [The Septuagint has: _ ANGELOS_ (G32), as if they understood a second messenger had come, bearing the utterance with which the chapter ends.] That utterance is apparently a response to an exhortation of the prophet to wait the Lord's way and time of deliverance; and the import of the king's answer is, that while he could not but acknowledge this evil, so heavily scourging the land, was from the Lord, he thought the condition of the kingdom was beyond remedy desperate, since mothers were appeasing the pangs of hunger with the flesh of their own children....

24-33 Learn to value plenty, and to be thankful for it; see how contemptible money is, when in time of famine it is so freely parted with for any thing that is eatable! The language of Jehoram to the woman may be the language of despair. See the word of God fulfilled; among the threatenings of God's judgments upon Israel for their sins, this was one, that they should eat the flesh of their own children, Deuteronomy 28:53-5. The truth and the awful justice of God were displayed in this horrible transaction. Alas! what miseries sin has brought upon the world! But the foolishness of man perverts his way, and then his heart frets against the Lord. The king swears the death of Elisha. Wicked men will blame any one as the cause of their troubles, rather than themselves, and will not leave their sins. If rending the clothes, without a broken and contrite heart, would avail, if wearing sackcl...

Verse 2 Kings 6:33. _BEHOLD, THIS EVIL_ IS _OF THE LORD_] It is difficult to know whether it be the _prophet_, the _messenger_, or the _king_, that says these words. It might be the answer of the _prophet_ from within to the messenger who was without, and who sought for admission, and gave his reason; to whom Elisha might have replied: "I am not the cause of these calamities; they are from the Lord; I have been praying for their removal; but why should I pray to the Lord any longer, for the time of your deliverance is at hand?" And _then Elisha said_, - see the 2 Kings 7, where the removal of the calamity is foretold in the most explicit manner; and indeed the chapter is unhappily divided from this. The seventh chapter should have begun with...

THE MESSENGER - It has been proposed to change “messenger” into “king,” the two words being in Hebrew nearly alike, and the speech with which the chapter ends being considered only suitable in the mouth of the king, whose presence is indicated in 2 Kings 7:2, 2 Kings 7:17. Others think that the words “and the king after him” have fallen out of the text. CAME DOWN - The messenger came down from off the wall to the level of the streets. BEHOLD THIS EVIL ... - Jehoram bursts into the prophet’s presence with a justification of the sentence 2 Kings 6:31 he has pronounced against him. “Behold this evil - this siege wit

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 WHILE HE YET TALKED WITH THEM,.... Elisha with the elders: BEHOLD, THE MESSENGER CAME DOWN UNTO HIM; sent by the king: AND HE SAID; either the messenger in the king's name, or rather the king, who was at his heels, and came to the door before the messenger was let in, who was detained; and therefore it is most probable the king went in first; for that was the intention of Elisha in holding the messenger, not to save his own life, but that the king, who was following, might hear what he had to say; and whom he advised to wait for the Lord, and his appearance, for deliverance: in answer to which he said, BEHOLD, THIS EVIL IS OF THE LORD, WHAT SHOULD I WAIT FOR THE LORD ANY LONGER? this calamity is from him, and he is determined upon the ruin of my people, and there is no hope; this he said as despairing, and so resolving to hold out the siege no longer....

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

MESSENGER. Hebrew. _hammal'ak,_ without the. _aleph_ ('a), as in Septuagint and Syriac. In 1 Samuel 11:4 the case is reversed. The _Massorah_ informs us that the _aleph_ was wrongly inserted, making it read messengers instead of "kings". The king must have followed on his heels, for Elisha addresses him directly in 2 Kings 7:1; 2 Kings 7:2. Compare 2 Kings 7:17. WHAT... ?. why? Figure of speech _Erotesis._ App-6. These are the words of the king....

_while he yet talked with them_ He had hardly explained his knowledge and his wish before action became necessary. The messenger arrived, and we must understand that the king also arrived immediately afterwards, and so the execution of Elisha was stayed, and Jehoram was shewn to be in some degree penitent for his hasty threat. _and he said_ The words which follow must be the words of the king. He has reached Elisha's house and countermanded his first order. Now his thought is of what shall be done next. The people are at the direst extremity, and God, who has allowed this evil to come upon the nation, gives His prophet no message of relief. In this conviction he is of the mind that Samaria shall be surrendered. Hence his language, -This evil is of the Lord" and He allows it to continue, -why should I wait for the Lord any longer?...