2 Kings 6:27

27 And he said, "If the LORD will not help you, whence shall I help you? From the threshing floor, or from the wine press?"

2 Kings 6:27 Meaning and Commentary

2 Kings 6:27

And he said, if the Lord do not help thee, whence shall I help
thee?
&c.] Mistaking her meaning, as if she prayed him to relieve her hunger; the margin of our Bible is, "let not the Lord save thee"; and so some understand it as a wish that she might perish; and so Josephus {o}, that being wroth, he cursed her in the name of God:

out of the barn floor, or out of the winepress?
when neither of them afforded anything; no corn was to be had from the one, nor wine from the other, no, not for his own use, and therefore how could he help her out of either?

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FOOTNOTES:

F15 Ut supra. (Antiqu. l. 9. c. 4. sect. 4.)

2 Kings 6:27 In-Context

25 And there was a great famine in Sama'ria, as they besieged it, until an ass's head was sold for eighty shekels of silver, and the fourth part of a kab of dove's dung for five shekels of silver.

26 Now as the king of Israel was passing by upon the wall, a woman cried out to him, saying, "Help, my lord, O king!"

27 And he said, "If the LORD will not help you, whence shall I help you? From the threshing floor, or from the wine press?"

28 And the king asked her, "What is your trouble?" She answered, "This woman said to me, 'Give your son, that we may eat him today, and we will eat my son tomorrow.'

29 So we boiled my son, and ate him. And on the next day I said to her, 'Give your son, that we may eat him'; but she has hidden her son."