2 Kings 8

Chap. VIII. Ver. 1-29. The inheritance of the Shunammite restored. Ben-hadad falls sick, and is murdered by Hazael, who succeeds him.—This chapter is partly retrospective, and leads us back to the history of the Shunammite, whom, it seems, the prophet had advised to leave the land of Israel during the seven years’ famine in the reign of Ahab. She accordingly sojourned among the Philistines till the famine ceased: and having, during that time, been deprived of her inheritance, on her return she petitions the king of Israel that it might be restored. Providentially, at this time, the king of Israel happened to be in conversation with Gehazi, whom his master had dismissed for improper conduct towards Naaman, and he has the curiosity to inquire what this man knew respecting the miracles [lier] of his master: while he is naming the restoration to life of the Shunammite’s son, both she and her son come into the royal presence with their peti= tion; and Gehazi points to them in confirmation of his narrative—‘“ Behold, the woman and her son!”

From this seemingly accidental circumstance her petition is granted without difficulty. Elisha now visits Damascus; and Ben-hadad having fallen sick, and hearing of his being in the neighbourhood, sends Hazael, one of his officers, to inquire whether he should recover. The prophet sends this answer—‘“ Certainly thou mayest recover from this disease: howbeit (adds he) the Lord hath showed me that he shall surely die.” This must have seemed a very mysterious, and even contradictory reply: it was, however, strictly correct; his disorder was not mortal, nor did he die of it; but he did not at the moment explain the mystery. He fixed his eyes, however, on Hazael till he blushed, and the prophet himself wept.

‘‘ Why weepest thou, my lord?” said Hazael; ‘‘ Because I know, [God he,] the evil that thou wilt do to the children of Israel,’ and the cruelties thou wilt commit upon them. Hazael himself is shocked at the idea: he contemplated nothing of the kind. “Is thy servant a dog, that he should do this great evil?” Alas! he knew not what was in his heart. “No man, (says Bishop Taylor,) is discerned to be vicious so soon as he is so; for vices have their infancy and their childhood, and it cannot be expected that in a child’s age there should be the vice of a man; that were as monstrous as if he wore a beard in his cradle. We do not believe that a serpent’s sting does just then grow, when he strikes us in a vital part; the venom of the little spear was there when first it began to creep from its little shell.”

‘The Lord hath showed me, (said Elisha,) that thou shalt be king over Syria;” or rather, “hath showed thee to me, king of Syria.” In the glass of prophetic vision he had been favoured with a prospective view of his conduct, and shrunk from it with horror. ‘ Hazael goes home to his master, and relates what he thought proper of the conversation. ‘‘He told me that thou shouldest surely recover.” But his mind resolved the latter part of the prediction, that he should be “king over Syria.” The glimpse of a throne, though distant, had intoxicated him. To be a king!—And why not now? might he say. ‘ His wish was father to that thought.’ Behold, on the morrow he suffocates his master with a wet cloth, and reigns in his stead.

(See note on ver. 15.) A wet cloth hath stopped the mouth of his sovereign, but, “O Hazael, thou shalt not thus easily stop the mouth of thy conscience. That shalt call thee traitor, even in a chair of state, and shall check all thy royal triumphs with—’ Thou hast founded thy throne in blood ? ”—Bishop The sacred history now adverts to the circumstances of Judah and of Israel. Jehoram (or Joram) son of Jehosha-

Notes on the verses

Ver. 12 Gone out of the camp to hide.—(This was a very natural conclusion; and, in the History of the Revolt of Ali Bey, we have an account of a stratagem very similar to that supposed to have been practised by the Syrians. The Pasha of Damascus having approached the sea of Tiberias, found Sheik Daher encamped there: but the Sheik, deferring the engagement till the next morning, during the night divided his army into three parts, and left the camp with great fires blazing, all sorts of provisions, and a large quantity of spirituous liquors. In the middle of the night the pasha, thinking to surprise the Sheik, marched in silence to the camp, which, to his astonishment, he found entirely abandoned; and imagining the sheik had fled with so much precipitation that he could not carry off his baggage and stores, he stopped in the camp to refresh his soldiers.

They soon fell to plunder, and drunk so freely of the liquors, that, overcome with the fatigue of the day’s march, and the fumes of the spirits, they ere long sunk into profound repose. At that time, two sheiks who were watching the enemy, came silently to the camp, and being rejoined by Daher, they all rushed into the camp, and fell upon the sleeping foe, 8000 of whom they butchered on the spot; and the pasha, with the remainder, escaped with much difficulty to Damascus, leaving all their baggage in the hands of the victorious. Ver. 13. They are as the multitude of Israel, i. e. consumed with famine.— Behold they are as all the multitude of Israel, [which are left in it: behold they are even as all the multitude of Israel,] which are consumed,”

&c. Dr. Kennicott considers the words between brackets, as repeated by the errors of a transcriber; and remarks, that they are omitted in the LXX. and Syriac versions, and in forty of his and De Rossi’s MSS. Chap. VIII. Ver. 4. King talked with Gehazi.—{As it appears not likely that the king would hold conversation with a leprous man; or that, knowing Gehazi had been dismissed with the highest disgrace from the prophet’s service, he would talk with him concerning his late master; some have supposed that this happened before the cleansing of Naaman. But it agrees better with the chronology to consider it as having taken place after that event; the king, probably, having an insatiable curiosity to know the private history of a man who had done such astonishing things.

As to the circumstance of Gehazi’s disease, he might overlook that, and converse with him, keeping at a reasonable distance, as nothing but actual contact could defile. |—Bagster. Ver. 9. Present with him.— Forty camels’ burden of the good things of Syria, must be considered, not merely in the light of a present on this occasion, but as some compensation for his former attempt against him, ch. vi. 13, 14; and perhaps also in acknowledgment of his conduct towards his troops, in preserving their lives; ver. 22, 23. Ver. 10. Thou mayest recover.—Hebrew, ‘‘ Living, thou mayest live » +.._ Dying he shall die.” Our common Hebrew text, however, has the negative in the first clause also; but our English version, like all the ancient versions, follows the reading, called Keri, which we have no doubt is right.

Ver. 11. Until he was ashamed.—Not the prophet, but Hazael; and when his countenance fell, the prophet wept. Ver. 12. Rip up, &c.—This horrible cruelty has been too often practised, in order to destroy the fruit of the womb, and might be resorted to by this sanguinary wretch. See (2 Kings 10:32-33). and compare (Amos 1:3). See also (Amos 1:13). Hosea xiii. 16. (2 Kings 15:16). = [fiery trials]. Ver. 15. A thick cloth.—{There is a considerable degree of ambiguity in this passage. The pronoun he is generally referred to Hazael; but Dr. Geddes and others are decidedly of opinion, that we should understand by it Ben-hadad; who, encouraged by the favourable answer of Elisha, as reported by Hazael, adopts a violent remedy to allay the heat of his fever, and puts over his face the Keveer, or fly-net, (see note on (1 Samuel 19:5)) as in water, which suddenly checked the perspiration and occasioned his death. |—Bagster. Ver.16. In the fifth year, &c.—This verse seems very confused. Scott thus explains it: “Jehoram, the son of Jehoshaphat, began to reign with his father before the death of Ahab; so that Ahaziah, the son of Ahab, died in the 2d year of his reign, or in the 18th of Jehoshaphat. About five years after, he seems to have been more solemnly admitted to the exercise of the royal authority, within two years of his father’s death. This took place when Jehoram was thirty-two years old, and from that time he reigned eight years, though he reigned only five or six as sole king, after the death of his father.

But the parenthesis (Jehoshaphat being king of Judah) is wanting in some MSS. and ancient versions. Ver. 21. Zair.—[Zair] is supposed by Calmet, and others, to be the same as Seir, the country of Seir the Horite, inhabited by the Edomites or Idumeans. Probably the former was a dialectical pronunciation of the latter. }—Bagster. 4 The prophet having done his message fleeth. 11 Jehu, being made king by the soldiers, killeth Joram in the field of Naboth. 27 Ahaziah is slain at Gur, and buried at Jerusalem. 30 Proud Jezebel is thrown down out of a window, and eaten by dogs. ND Elisha the * prophet called one of the children of the prophets, and said unto him, Gird up thy loins, and take this box of oil in thy hand, and go to *Ramoth-gilead: 2 And when thou comest thither, look out there Jehu the son of Jehoshaphat the son of Nimshi, and go in, and make him arise up from among “his brethren, and carry him to an ‘inner chamber; 3 Then ‘ take the box of ¢ oil, and pour 7¢ on his head, and say, Thus saith the Lord, I have anointed thee king over Israel.

Then open the door, and flee, and tarry not. 4 J So the young man, even the young man the prophet, went to Ramoth-gilead. 5 And when he came, behold, the captains of the host were sitting; and he said, I have an errand to thee, O captain. And Jehu said, Unto which of all us? And he said, To thee, O captain. phat, now wholly succeeds his father, and being freed from the salutary restraint of his authority, walks in the way of wicked Ahab, whose daughter, Athaliah, he had married, and of Jezebel her wicked mother. The time, however, was not yet come for Judah ‘to be abandoned to its enemies; but its power and consequence is considerably reduced by the total revolt of Edom, which had been subdued by David; and also of Libnah, (a city of Judah,) ‘because he (Jehoram) had forsaken the Lord God of his fathers.”’ ((2 Chronicles 21:8-11).) | Jehoram king of Judah, was succeeded by Ahaziah, his youngest son, all his other sons having been slain by some Arabian marauders. ((2 Chronicles 21:17).) His reign was short and inglorious; for going with Joram (or Jehoram) king of Israel to war with Hazael now king of Syria, he was mortally wounded, and died after the reign of one year only. We should remark, however, that as the revolt of Edom was a punishment to Judah, it was also a fulfilment of ancient prophecy, that after Edom (or Esau) had been long subjected to his brother Jacob, (that is, in his posterity,) he should throw off the yoke, and be again independent. (Genesis 27:40). Thus, as in the complicated machinery of the moderns, the same Ver.

26. Two and twenty years old.—{In the parallel passage of Chronicles, it is said, “forty and two years old was Ahaziah when he began to reign,” but this is evidently a mistake: as it makes the son two years older than his own father! For, his father began to reign when he was thirty-two years old, and reigned eight years, and so died, being forty years old. See ver. 17.]—B.