2 Kings 6

1 the sons of the prophets. No doubt at Jericho, in the college nearest to the Jordan.

6 the iron did swim. Rather, “he made the iron to swim” (R.V.). The “stick” cast in was the sign of the miracle which was wrought by the power of God. God cares for the smaller troubles and apparently trivial details of life. The story also shows the poverty of the “sons of the prophets,” and the simplicity of their habits.

13 that I may . . . fetch him. The king of Syria strangely failed to perceive that the God of Israel could disclose this plan to His prophet as easily as the others, and could as well protect him against it.

Dothan. See Gen. xxxvii. 17.

17 and he saw. This was, doubtless, a real and supernatural though spiritual manifestation, revealing God’s protecting power.

19. This is not the way. Elisha’s words must be condemned or approved by the same rule as any other stratagem by which an enemy is deceived.

20 they were in the midst of Samaria. This would show the Syrians that they could effect nothing against a prophet of the Eternal.

22 wouldest thou smite, etc.? The sense is, If you would spare those whom you have taken prisoners in battle, much more ought you to spare those whom you have not so taken. From a political point of view, this treatment of them was eminently wise, as the event showed.

23 came no more. The inroad of marauding bands ceased for some considerable time.

25 an ass’s head. The ass was an unclean animal; but necessity acknowledges no law. Plutarch mentions that an extravagant price was paid for this same article by the soldiers of Artaxerxes.

dove’s dung. That such revolting food has been eaten in famine may be seen in Josephus’s Wars of the Jews, v. 13. But the meaning of the words is very doubtful. Bochart says that the Arabs give this name to a kind of pulse or pea, which was very common in Judæa, and which was preserved by being parched and dried. Linnaeus supposes that it was a plant called the Star of Bethlehem. A “cab,” or “kab,” R.V., a measure nowhere else mentioned, being the sixth part of a seah, or about two quarts of our measure, so that the amount here mentioned was about a pint.

27. If the Lord do not help thee, etc. Or (as R.V. marg.), “Nay, let Jehovah help thee,” etc.

29 boiled my son. This and other miseries had been foretold by Moses as the consequences of apostasy (Deut. xxviii. 53-57). Similar things happened during the sieges of Jerusalem by Nebuchadnezzar (see Lam. iv. 10; Ezek. v. 10) and by the Romans (Josephus’s Jewish Wars, vi. 3, 4).

30 sackcloth. i.e., in token of humiliation and repentance.

31 if the head of Elisha, etc. Because the king thought that Elisha had brought on this calamity, or that he did not exercise his power to remove it. He may, too, have advised the king not to surrender the city, promising deliverance if he would penitently “wait for the Lord” (33).

32 this son of a murderer. Jehoram, both by birth and disposition, was a genuine son of Ahab, the murderer of the prophets and of the innocent Naboth.

hold him fast at the door. R.V., “hold the door fast against him.”

the sound of his master’s feet behind him. The language of Elisha makes it appear probable that the king followed close upon his messenger, and that the unbelieving inquiry in the next verse was addressed by him to the prophet, to which the words of Elisha in the first verse of vii. are the direct answer: see also vii. 17.