Providence and Punishment, 2 Kings 6:24

Providence and Punishment, 2 Kings 6:24 - 7:20

Theme
If the LORD made windows in heaven, might we trust Him more?
Time: About 850 to 845 BC.
Personalities
King of Israel: Jehoram, son of Ahab.
King of Syria: Benhadad II
Geography
Samaria, capital of the Northern Kingdom of Israel, was located on a hilltop connected to the main North-South mountain trade route across Palestine. The hilltop is about 20 acres in size and 300 feet above the local terrain. The city’s water supply was about a mile away, so cisterns were used to store water. This enabled the city to withstand every attack until it fell to the Assyrian forces of Sargon II in 721 BC, after a siege of three years. The city’s population may have been between 20,000 and 30,000 at this time.
As the capital of a kingdom astride strategic trade routes, Samaria was wealthy. The main structure of the city was the “Ivory House” built by Ahab and referred to in I Kings 22:39 and Amos 3:15. Archeological finds of artifacts made of ivory, lapis lazuli, and inlaid with gold attest to Samaria’s wealth during these times. Samaria was well fortified with at least two and perhaps three walls that ringed the city. The inner wall was built of stone and was 5 feet thick.
Background
Benhadad II‘s fourth and final campaign against the Northern Kingdom was a siege of Samaria. To withstand sieges in ancient days, great pains were taken to supply the inhabitants with water and food. A famous example of this was Hezekiah’s conduit that supplied Jerusalem by channeling the waters from the Gihon spring to the Pool of Siloam. Due to such preparations, sieges commonly lasted years. The longest recorded siege of antiquity was that of Ashdod by the Egyptians lasting 29 years.
God’s judgement is executed upon His disobedient people

2 Kings 6:24-29
And it came to pass after this, that Benhadad king of Syria gathered all his host, and went up, and besieged Samaria. And there was a great famine in Samaria: and, behold, they besieged it, until an ass’s head was sold for fourscore pieces of silver, and the fourth part of a cab of dove’s dung for five pieces of silver. And as the king of Israel was passing by upon the wall, there cried a woman unto him, saying, Help, my lord, O king. And he said, If the LORD do not help thee, whence shall I help thee? out of the barnfloor, or out of the winepress? And the king said unto her, What aileth thee? And she answered, This woman said unto me, Give thy son, that we may eat him to day, and we will eat my son to morrow. So we boiled my son, and did eat him: and I said unto her on the next day, Give thy son, that we may eat him: and she hath hid her son.
This is exactly the curse that the LORD had spoken of in Deuteronomy 28:15, 53-58: "But it shall come to pass, if thou wilt not hearken unto the voice of the LORD thy God, to observe to do all his commandments and his statutes which I command thee this day; that all these curses shall come upon thee, and overtake thee: And thou shalt eat the fruit of thine own body, the flesh of thy sons and of thy daughters, which the LORD thy God hath given thee, in the siege, and in the straitness, wherewith thine enemies shall distress thee: So that the man that is tender among you, and very delicate, his eye shall be evil toward his brother, and toward the wife of his bosom, and toward the remnant of his children which he shall leave: So that he will not give to any of them of the flesh of his children whom he shall eat: because he hath nothing left him in the siege, and in the straitness, wherewith thine enemies shall distress thee in all thy gates. The tender and delicate woman among you, which would not adventure to set the sole of her foot upon the ground for delicateness and tenderness, her eye shall be evil toward the husband of her bosom, and toward her son, and toward her daughter, And toward her young one that cometh out from between her feet, and toward her children which she shall bear: for she shall eat them for want of all things secretly in the siege and straitness, wherewith thine enemy shall distress thee in thy gates. If thou wilt not observe to do all the words of this law that are written in this book, that thou mayest fear this glorious and fearful name, THE LORD THY GOD;" (Also, refer to Leviticus 26:29)
2 Kings 6:30
And it came to pass, when the king heard the words of the woman, that he rent his clothes; and he passed by upon the wall, and the people looked, and, behold, he had sackcloth within upon his flesh.
As terrible as this account is, The fate of the unsaved will be far worse than the citizens of Samaria during this siege. While this woman appealed to a man for help, who was unable to help her and admitted this fact to be so, sinners, in much more dire straits, have fled to God who is able to save from all destruction, as He has told us in His Word.
Recently, a company that I contracted with made certain statements regarding their expectation of earnings. When these expectations did not come to pass, a suit was instituted against that company. Yet, some claim to turn wine into blood and bread into flesh and on this basis lead their followers into an expectation of forgiveness of sin and eternal bliss. Can these followers justify their hope any more than the petitioning mother to King Jehoram? Even the wicked son of Ahab had it right when he asked, “If the LORD do not help thee, whence shall I help thee?”
2 Kings 6:31
Then he said, God do so and more also to me, if the head of Elisha the son of Shaphat shall stand on him this day.
The king laid the blame on the only person in a right relationship with God, Elisha. It is likely that Elisha had counseled Jehoram to repent and hold the city, and the LORD would deliver it. In this, Elisha was passing on the word of the LORD to Jehoram. As a result, Jehoram was wearing a sackcloth garment as a sign of his being willing to make an outward show of earning God’s favor, but this verse reveals the true state of his heart.
This kind of attention is not uncommon to believers: another Jewish leader in a later time, Caiaphas, placed the punishment of the people of God upon the only truly righteous man, our Lord Jesus Christ. John 11:49-52 says: "And one of them, named Caiaphas, being the high priest that same year, said unto them, Ye know nothing at all, Nor consider that it is expedient for us, that one man should die for the people, and that the whole nation perish not. And this spake he not of himself: but being high priest that year, he prophesied that Jesus should die for that nation; And not for that nation only, but that also he should gather together in one the children of God that were scattered abroad."
God's promise to deliver His people

2 Kings 6:32-33
But Elisha sat in his house, and the elders sat with him; and the king sent a man from before him: but ere the messenger came to him, he said to the elders, See ye how this son of a murderer hath sent to take away mine head? look, when the messenger cometh, shut the door, and hold him fast at the door: is not the sound of his master’s feet behind him? 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?
Jehoram changed his mind after sending a messenger to dispatch Elisha and rushed after him, changing his mind. Elisha, apprised of the situation by God, had his visitors hold the door until Jehoram arrived. Proof of Jehoram’s heart state is Elisha’s reference to him as a “son of a murderer”.
Jehoram, at the end of verse 33, still held a weak hope and asked Elisha if it is worth while to hold out any longer. Elisha tolls him:
2 Kings 7:1-2
Then Elisha said, Hear ye the word of the LORD; Thus saith the LORD, To morrow about this time shall a measure of fine flour be sold for a shekel, and two measures of barley for a shekel, in the gate of Samaria. Then a lord on whose hand the king leaned answered the man of God, and said, Behold, if the LORD would make windows in heaven, might this thing be? And he said, Behold, thou shalt see it with thine eyes, but shalt not eat thereof.
Did Jehoram’s chamberlain have justification for doubting Elisha? He had surely heard of Naaman's healing, seen the Syrian army lead into the gates of Samaria, and seen the miraculous deliverance of Israel, Judah, and Edom from the desert and from Moab mentioned in 2 Kings 3. He had heard Elisha pass the divine intelligence of Syrian moves on to Jehoram. His sarcastic comment indicated a knowledge of, and is perhaps an allusion to God’s breaking up the deep at the time of Noah’s flood (Genesis 7:11) and the blessing of manna during Israel’s wanderings in the wilderness.
Despite having witnessed the deliverance and grace of God at work many times, he still refused to believe, belittling the man of God and his message.
Do not Christians doubt God's power and sovereignty? Do not Christians take matters in their own hands and seek to chart their own course in life? What is the reason, then, that Christians are saved and this man perished? Simply this: All sinners do not and cannot believe God for salvation, and are all rebels against Him. The only way a person can truly believe God is when God enables that person to believe. In this, there is no reason for any believer to boast of his own works (Ephesians 2:8-9).
The justice and mercy of God applied

2 Kings 7:3-20
And there were four leprous men at the entering in of the gate: and they said one to another, Why sit we here until we die? If we say, We will enter into the city, then the famine is in the city, and we shall die there: and if we sit still here, we die also. Now therefore come, and let us fall unto the host of the Syrians: if they save us alive, we shall live; and if they kill us, we shall but die. And they rose up in the twilight, to go unto the camp of the Syrians: and when they were come to the uttermost part of the camp of Syria, behold, there was no man there. For the Lord had made the host of the Syrians to hear a noise of chariots, and a noise of horses, even the noise of a great host: and they said one to another, Lo, the king of Israel hath hired against us the kings of the Hittites, and the kings of the Egyptians, to come upon us. Wherefore they arose and fled in the twilight, and left their tents, and their horses, and their asses, even the camp as it was, and fled for their life. And when these lepers came to the uttermost part of the camp, they went into one tent, and did eat and drink, and carried thence silver, and gold, and raiment, and went and hid it; and came again, and entered into another tent, and carried thence also, and went and hid it. Then they said one to another, We do not well: this day is a day of good tidings, and we hold our peace: if we tarry till the morning light, some mischief will come upon us: now therefore come, that we may go and tell the king’s household. So they came and called unto the porter of the city: and they told them, saying, We came to the camp of the Syrians, and, behold, there was no man there, neither voice of man, but horses tied, and asses tied, and the tents as they were. And he called the porters; and they told it to the king’s house within. And the king arose in the night, and said unto his servants, I will now shew you what the Syrians have done to us. They know that we be hungry; therefore are they gone out of the camp to hide themselves in the field, saying, When they come out of the city, we shall catch them alive, and get into the city. And one of his servants answered and said, Let some take, I pray thee, five of the horses that remain, which are left in the city, (behold, they are as all the multitude of Israel that are left in it: behold, I say, they are even as all the multitude of the Israelites that are consumed:) and let us send and see. They took therefore two chariot horses; and the king sent after the host of the Syrians, saying, Go and see. And they went after them unto Jordan: and, lo, all the way was full of garments and vessels, which the Syrians had cast away in their haste. And the messengers returned, and told the king. And the people went out, and spoiled the tents of the Syrians. So a measure of fine flour was sold for a shekel, and two measures of barley for a shekel, according to the word of the LORD. And the king appointed the lord on whose hand he leaned to have the charge of the gate: and the people trode upon him in the gate, and he died, as the man of God had said, who spake when the king came down to him. And it came to pass as the man of God had spoken to the king, saying, Two measures of barley for a shekel, and a measure of fine flour for a shekel, shall be to morrow about this time in the gate of Samaria: And that lord answered the man of God, and said, Now, behold, if the LORD should make windows in heaven, might such a thing be? And he said, Behold, thou shalt see it with thine eyes, but shalt not eat thereof. And so it fell out unto him: for the people trode upon him in the gate, and he died.
Samaria was filled with sinful, Baal-worshipping citizens, mothers guilty of intfantcide and cannibalism, and a wicked king who would not tear down the blasphemous images that Jeroboam had set up at Bethel and Dan. All of these, in the end, tasted of the grace of God in His provision of food. Outside the city, even the lepers, who were so unclean that no one would have any contact with them, also ate their fill and obtained rich possessions by the hand of God. The only person who was unable to partake of God’s grace that day was the unbeliever, even though he was told of God’s salvation and even though he witnessed it.
The salvation of Samaria was brought to the city by God: no one worked for it: it was accomplished by God and God alone. The only ones who did not enjoy God’s salvation were the ones who did not believe. Rather than forcing men searching high and low and to work for their deliverance, God brought salvation to the gate, just as salvation was on the door posts of God’s people in Egypt during the Passover. There was no need to search for God’s grace; it was presented to the people He intended it for.
How God administered His Grace
The lepers, the most “unclean” in the eyes of man, had nothing to lose and considered themselves dead. They recognized themselves as unable to do anything to save themselves, and also realized that dependence on the “city of man” (Samaria) was not an option, as the hand of God already was clearly executing judgement upon it. They had nothing to add to their lives, nor hope in themselves, so they cast themselves on God's providence.
The lepers were the first to experience the grace of God. Their abandonment of all of their own works lead them to God’s grace before anyone else. Spurgeon says: “They were wisely put forth from Israel, but they were not put forth from Israel’s God.”
The lepers were the first to tell of God’s salvation to the city. Once grace had apprehended them, they were no longer content to seek their own welfare, but their nature was now to share their blessing with others.
Though the enemy had been defeated, no one could partake of salvation until God made provision for them to know of their deliverance. This is the place that Scripture records the lepers holding in God’s plan.
Jehoram then heard about God’s salvation. When skeptics view the salvation promised in the Gospel and its power, they often resort to reasoning, assigning their own motives to others and ignoring God! Note John 11:48 “If we let him thus alone, all men will believe on him: and the Romans shall come and take away both our place and nation.”
Just as Naaman’s servant, Nicodemus, and Gamaliel gave sound advice, Jehoram had a servant who counseled the king to see if God had bestowed His grace on Samaria, despite its great wickedness. Unlike the lepers, Jehoram was not suffering as an outcast unto death in recognition of his condition. Jehoram found that God had defeated the enemy and won salvation for the city without anyone’s help, just as Christ has defeated our enemy and won our salvation in a work that is wholly of Himself.
The townspeople also were able to partake of God’s provision. It is not recorded that any one of them were excluded from it except the nobleman, who did not believe.
Spurgeon tells the story of a group of men who were mining for gold to illustrate the nature of unbelief. Several believed that a mine held gold and continued to seek it; the rest did not believe that the mine held gold. If, Spurgeon asks, the miners then struck gold, would anyone consider it reasonable that those who did not believe would have a basis for expecting a share in the findings?
Those who believe and trust in the sovereign grace of God and the reality of God’s ability and willingness to keep His promise contained in Romans 8:28 must rely His grace to trust in His provision and encourage others to remember the grace of our Lord Jesus Christ.
Resources
Matthew Henry’s Commentary on the Whole Bible, Matthew Henry
Commentary on the Old Testament, Keil and Delitzsch
Articles: “Samaria”, “Jerusalem”, and “War, Warfare”, The Zondervon Pictorial Encyclopedia of the Bible, ed. by Merrill Tenney
Metropolitan Tabernacle Pulpit sermon # 3, “The Sin of Unbelief”, Charles H. Spurgeon
Metropolitan Tabernacle Pulpit sermon # 1238, “Beware of Unbelief”, Charles H. Spurgeon
Metropolitan Tabernacle Pulpit sermon # 1903, “Who Found It Out”, Charles H. Spurgeon
Metropolitan Tabernacle Pulpit sermon # 3162, “The Unfailing Help”, Charles H. Spurgeon
Article: “Short Meditations on Elisha”, The Serious Christian, Vol. 5, J. G. Bellett

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