2 Kings 6:27

27 He answered, "If the LORD doesn't help you, how can I help you? I can't give you something from the threshing floor or the winepress."

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 The shortages caused by the blockade of Samaria became so severe that a donkey's head sold for two pounds of silver and a half-pint of dove manure for two ounces of silver.

26 As the king of Israel was walking on the city wall, a woman cried to him, "Help me, Your Majesty!"

27 He answered, "If the LORD doesn't help you, how can I help you? I can't give you something from the threshing floor or the winepress."

28 Then the king asked her, "What's the matter?" She answered, "This woman told me, 'Give up your son. Let's eat him today. We'll eat my son tomorrow.'

29 So we boiled my son and ate him. The next day I told her, 'Give up your son. We'll eat him,' but she hid her son."