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Story 12
Historical setting:
Time: Around 835 B.C.
Place: Samaria.
Persons: The king of Israel, Elisha, and some
lepers.
Scripture: II Kings 6:18 – 7:16
Benhadad forgot his oath not to bother Israel. A very few
years after the humiliation of having his soldiers turned
blind, he gathered all his troops together and went up to
Samaria, the capital city of Israel, to besiege it. For months
the Syrian army surrounded the city, foraging and marauding
the country, cutting off all incoming supplies. Outside the
city the armies of Syria were living in splendor and luxury;
within the walls the Israelites were dying of famine and
starvation. The once proud city was in deplorable condition.
The city was doomed.
Israel's King Jehoram was desperate. He took a walk around
the wall of the capital city, examining the result of the
siege. It was then that the real truth of how bad the
situation was, came to him. He learned, during his walk, that
the people were starving to the point that they were eating
their own children. This so astounded the king that he tore
his clothes, revealing the sackcloth he wore underneath. The
shallow, childish Jehoram thought, by wearing the rough
sackcloth, that he could appease God, and get back into His
favor. But underneath the sackcloth, lay a heart that was as
wicked as ever.
The king was sickened and furious by what he saw and heard.
"Imagine! Mothers eating their own children. That is
appalling! And it is all the fault of that prophet Elisha," he
cried. "What I won't do to him when I catch him! And may God
do even more to me, if I do not catch him. I am determined to
have the head of Elisha the son of Shaphat removed, before
this day is over!"
Elisha was sitting in his house talking with the leaders of
Israel when the king sent a messenger to his house with a
summons. But before he arrived at the door, Elisha said to the
leaders to whom he was talking: "A murderer has sent a man to
kill me. When he knocks, shut the door in his face and keep
him out. I know that his master, the king, is right on his
heels."
No sooner had Elisha finished saying this, than the
messenger arrived. And right behind him was the king with this
message. "It is the Lord who has brought
this trouble on us! Why should I wait any longer for the
Lord?" II Kings 6:33 (Living
Bible)
Elisha replied, "Now you listen to this. It is a
message from the Lord! 'By this time tomorrow in the markets
of Samaria, five quarts of fine flour will be sold for half an
ounce of silver, and ten quarts of barley grain will be only
half an ounce of silver.'"
"That's ridiculous!" scoffed the king's lord. "That
couldn't possibly happen, not even if the Lord were to open up
the windows of heaven and poured it down upon us."
Elisha answered: "Laugh if you like. It will happen. You
will see it, but you will not be able to partake of any of
it."
The Lepers' Feast
There were four despised lepers sitting at the gates of the
city of Samaria. They were as hungry as the rest of the
people. They began talking amongst themselves. "Why should we
sit here starving? We have a choice: sit here and starve; go
back into the city and starve; or go to the camp of the
Syrians and surrender. We risk the chance of being killed, but
what of it? We are going to die anyway."
So that evening the four of them slunk into the camp of the
Syrians. Cautiously they looked around. But no one was there!
Why? Where was everyone?
What happened was this: the Lord had caused the Syrian army
to hear a clatter, like the noise that speeding chariots and
galloping horses make, as if a great army were approaching.
The captain of the Syrian army panicked and word circulated
around the camp that the king of Israel had hired the Hittites
and the Egyptians to attack them. Before long the whole camp
of Syrians were terrorized and fled into the wilderness during
the night, leaving behind their tents, horses, donkeys and
everything else.
The lepers crept from one tent after another, expecting to
find the Syrians grouped somewhere in the camp. But there was
not a soul around. They couldn't believe their eyes.
Everywhere the tents had been vacated. Food was spread out,
ready for consumption. Hungrily, they ate. They drank. And
then they began carrying out silver and gold and clothing.
They hurried back to their caves with the loot, stashing it
away. Their stomachs full, back and forth from the camp to
their caves they went. But then it struck them. "We didn't
die! We are full! We have carried away enough money and
clothes to last a lifetime! This is not right. This is such
wonderful news that we shouldn't keep it all to ourselves. We
must not wait until the morning. Some terrible thing might
happen before then. We must go back and tell the people of the
palace about this."
So the four of them hurried back into the city and told the
gatekeepers at the palace what they had just discovered. "We
went into the camp of the Syrians to steal some food, but when
we got there, there was no one in the camp. The horses and the
donkeys were tied up and the tents were all in order, just
loaded with goodies."
The gatekeepers normally would have chased the despised
lepers away, but they were so hungry, and the tale of these
wretched men was so unbelievable, that they shouted out the
news for the entire palace to hear.
The king shot out of bed when he heard the news. "Oh yes, I
know the Syrians' tricks," he said. "They know that we are
starving, so they have left their camps and have hid in the
woods. They will wait until we leave the city to raid their
camps, then they will pounce on us and capture us and take
over the city."
One of the officers said, "Well, we had better check out
the lepers' report. How about if we send out scouts, with five
of our starving horses, to go to the camp of the Syrians to
see if the report is true? If the scouts die, so what! It
won't be any different than if they were to stay here and die
slowly. Because that's exactly what is going to happen to all
of us. We are dying of starvation."
So two chariots, pulled by the five horses were sent out to
see what had happened to the Syrians. They went all the way to
the Jordan River, following a trail of discarded clothing and
equipment, dropped by the escaping Assyrians in their frenzied
effort to escape their imagined pursuers. But nowhere could
the scouts find the Assyrians. The scouts returned to the
king, with their happy report.
All of Samaria broke loose. The people in the city rushed
out into the Syrian camp and plundered it. And Elisha's
prediction came true. "Five quarts of flour were sold for a
half an ounce of silver, and ten quarts of barley went for
half an ounce of silver."
The king appointed his officer to go out and control the
people, as they rushed around to satisfy their need for food.
And it was just as Elisha had said. The scoffing lord watched
the stampede of people scrambling after the cheap food, but he
watched from the ground where he lay, unable to get up because
of the hundreds of feet that were trampling him. As he was
dying, he regretted his scoffing, but it was too late to
retract his words.
Helen Dowd
Some of the information gleaned from "The
Chosen Word" copyright 1915 The John A. Hertel Co.)
Please read Story 13 Thirty
Years of Turmoil
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