2 Kings 5:7

that he rent his clothes Sometimes the act was a sign of grief as in 2 Kings 2:12 above and Genesis 37:29; sometimes as here, of horror and alarm. Cf. also 2 Kings 18:36; Ezra 9:3; Jeremiah 36:24.

to kill and to make alive The disease of leprosy was incurable, and so the request that it should be cured was such as the author of life alone could grant. Cf. for the language Deuteronomy 32:39, -I, even I, am he, and there is no god with me, I kill and I make alive". So also in Hannah's song (1 Samuel 2:6). This is a power that belongs to God only.

doth send unto me The knowledge of Elisha's mighty acts must have been less before the mind of the king than of his subjects, or he would not have failed to see that the request might be granted by God through his prophet. -Himself with the two other kings had been eyewitnesses of what Elisha could do, yet now the calves of Dan and Bethel have so often taken up his heart that there is no room for the memory of Elisha. Whom he sued to in his extremity, now his prosperity hath forgotten. Carnal hearts when need drives them can think of God and his prophet: when their turn is served, can as utterly forget them as if they were not" (Bp Hall).

he seeketh a quarrel against me The verb, in this form and sense, only occurs here, but the cognate noun in the sense of -an occasion of quarrel" is found Judges 14:4. Hence the R.V. has put -occasion" on the margin. It is only the one who feels his superiority that ventures on seeking a quarrel, and from the timid words of Jehoram we may conclude that he thought the Syrians more than a match for him; as was only natural, since they had defeated his father at Ramoth-Gilead not long before. He dreaded a renewal of such a conflict.