2 Kings 6:1-33

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 fire (2 Kings 6:17). His blinded adversaries were led to Samaria, and Elisha ordered them not to be destroyed, but to be treated with kindness. Throughout the long war between Syria and Israel similar acts of chivalrous courtesy are manifested (cf. Ahab's sparing Ben-hadad as his brother, 1 Kings 20, and Naaman the Syrian's conduct throughout 2 Kings 6:5).