An Axe Head Floats
2 Kings 6The sons of the prophets said to Elisha, “Look, the place where we live and meet with you is too small for us. Please let us go to the Jordan where each of us can take a beam, and we can make a place for us there where we may live.”
He answered, “Go, y’all!”
Then one said, “Please be willing to go with your servants.”
He answered, “I will go.” So he went with them. When they came to the Jordan, they began cutting down trees. But as one was cutting down a tree, the axe head fell into the water. So he cried out and said, “Alas, my master! For it was borrowed.”
The man of God asked, “Where did it fall?” When he showed him the place, Elisha cut a stick, threw it in there, and made the iron float. He said, “Take it.” So he reached out his hand and took it.
The Arameans and the Chariots of Fire
Now the king of Syria was at war against Israel. He took counsel with his servants, saying, “My camp will be in such and such a place.”
The man of God sent to the king of Israel, saying, “Beware that you not pass this place, for the Syrians are coming down there.” So the king of Israel sent word to the place that he warned him to guard. the man of God did this, not just once or twice, but many times. The king of Syria’s heart was very troubled about this. He called his servants, and said to them, “Y’all tell me! Which of us is informing the king of Israel?”
One of his servants said, “No one, my lord king. The prophet Elisha prophet who is in Israel, tells the king of Israel the words that you speak in your bedroom.”
He said, “Y’all go and see where he is, so that I may send men to take him.”
He was told, “He is in Dothan.”
Therefore he sent horses, chariots, and a great army there. They came by night and surrounded the city. When the servant of the man of God had risen early and gone out, an army with horses and chariots had surrounded the city. His servant said to him, “Alas, my master! What should we do?”
He answered, “Don’t be afraid, for those who are with us are more than those who are with them.” Elisha prayed, and said, “YHWH, please open his eyes to see.” YHWH opened the young man’s eyes, and he saw that the mountain was full of horses and chariots of fire around Elisha. When they came down to him, Elisha prayed to YHWH, and said, “Please strike this people with blindness.”
He struck them with blindness according to Elisha’s word.
Elisha said to them, “This is not the road, and this is not the city. Y’all follow me, and I will bring y’all to the man you’re looking for.” He led them to Samaria. When they had come into Samaria, Elisha said, “YHWH, open these men’s eyes, that they may see.”
YHWH opened their eyes, and they saw that they were in the middle of Samaria.
The king of Israel said to Elisha, when he saw them, “My father, should I kill them? Should I kill them?”
He answered, “You must not strike them. Would you strike those whom you have taken captive with your sword and with your bow? Set bread and water before them, that they may eat and drink, then go to their master.”
He prepared a great feast for them. After they ate and drank, he sent them away and they went to their master. So the bands of Syria stopped raiding the land of Israel.
Syria Besieges Samaria
After this, Benhadad king of Syria gathered all his army, and went up and besieged Samaria. There was a great famine in Samaria. They besieged it so long that a donkey’s head was sold for eighty pieces of silver, and the fourth part of a kab+6:25 A kab was about 2 liters, so a fourth of a kab would be about 500 milliliters or about a pint of dove’s dung for five pieces of silver. As the king of Israel was passing by on the wall, a woman cried to him, saying, “Help, my lord, O king!”
He said, “If YHWH doesn’t help you, where could I get help for you? From of the threshing floor, or from the wine press?” Then the king asked her, “What is your problem?”
She answered, “This woman said to me, ‘Give your son, that we may eat him today, and we will eat my son tomorrow.’ So we boiled my son and ate him; and I said to her on the next day, ‘Give up your son, that we may eat him;’ and she has hidden her son.”
When the king heard the words of the woman, he tore his clothes. Now he was passing by on the wall, and the people looked, and they saw that he had sackcloth underneath on his body. Then he said, “May God deal with me, and even more so, if the head of Elisha the son of Shaphat stays on him today.”
Now Elisha was sitting in his house, and the elders were sitting with him. Then the king sent a man ahead of him, but before the messenger came to him, Elisha said to the elders, “Do y’all see how this son of a murderer has sent someone to take away my head? Look, when the messenger comes, y’all must shut the door, and hold* the door shut against him. Isn’t the sound of his master’s feet behind him?”
He was still talking with them, when the messenger came down to him and he said, “Look, this evil is from YHWH. Why should I wait for YHWH any longer?”