2 Kings 8:1-11

1 Elisha had told the woman whose son he had brought back to life, “Take your family and move to some other place, for the LORD has called for a famine on Israel that will last for seven years.”

2 So the woman did as the man of God instructed. She took her family and settled in the land of the Philistines for seven years.

3 After the famine ended she returned from the land of the Philistines, and she went to see the king about getting back her house and land.

4 As she came in, the king was talking with Gehazi, the servant of the man of God. The king had just said, “Tell me some stories about the great things Elisha has done.”

5 And Gehazi was telling the king about the time Elisha had brought a boy back to life. At that very moment, the mother of the boy walked in to make her appeal to the king about her house and land. “Look, my lord the king!” Gehazi exclaimed. “Here is the woman now, and this is her son—the very one Elisha brought back to life!”

6 “Is this true?” the king asked her. And she told him the story. So he directed one of his officials to see that everything she had lost was restored to her, including the value of any crops that had been harvested during her absence.

7 Elisha went to Damascus, the capital of Aram, where King Ben-hadad lay sick. When someone told the king that the man of God had come,

8 the king said to Hazael, “Take a gift to the man of God. Then tell him to ask the LORD, ‘Will I recover from this illness?’”

9 So Hazael loaded down forty camels with the finest products of Damascus as a gift for Elisha. He went to him and said, “Your servant Ben-hadad, the king of Aram, has sent me to ask, ‘Will I recover from this illness?’”

10 And Elisha replied, “Go and tell him, ‘You will surely recover.’ But actually the LORD has shown me that he will surely die!”

11 Elisha stared at Hazael with a fixed gaze until Hazael became uneasy. Then the man of God started weeping.

2 Kings 8:1-11 Meaning and Commentary

INTRODUCTION TO 2 KINGS 8

This chapter gives an account of some advice Elisha had formerly given to the Shunammite woman, and of the success of it, 2Ki 8:1-6 and of the sickness of the king of Syria, who sent to Elisha, then being at Damascus, by Hazael, to know whether he should recover; by whom a message was returned, and Hazael was told by the prophet he should be king of Syria, and exercise great cruelty in Israel, 2Ki 8:7-15 and of the bad reign of Jehoram, son of Jehoshaphat, over Judah, 2Ki 8:16-24 and of the reign of his son Ahaziah, 2Ki 8:25-29.

Footnotes

• [a]. Hebrew He stared at him.
• [b]. The meaning of the Hebrew is uncertain.