2 Kings 13:20

20 Elisha died and they buried him. Now the raiding parties of Moab came {in the spring}.

2 Kings 13:20 Meaning and Commentary

2 Kings 13:20

And Elisha died, and they buried him
In Samaria. Epiphanius says ^F14, in Sebastopolis of Samaria, Samaria itself was called Sebaste in later times; though the Jews say ^F15 he was buried in Mount Carmel, in the cave of Elijah; according to the Jewish chronology {p}, he died in the tenth year of Joash, and he prophesied more than sixty years; sixty six, as Abarbinel, since he began to prophesy in the nineteenth year of Jehoshaphat; and, according to Clemens ^F17 of Alexandria, when he was forty years of age; but it seems rather, as Kimchi observes, that he died in the beginning of the reign of Joash, and even before his father's death, when he was a partner with him in the throne, and before any salvation or deliverance from the Syrians was wrought:

and the bands of the Moabites invaded the land at the coming in of the
year;
at the spring of the year, when there was fruit on the earth, those troops of robbers came to plunder and spoil; several of the Jewish writers observe, that in the word for "coming", (h) is instead of (a) , and so may be rendered "in that year", in that selfsame year that Elisha died; and so read the Syriac, Arabic, and the Vulgate Latin versions.

---

FOOTNOTES:

F14 De Vitis Prophet. c. 6.
F15 Cippi Heb. p. 46.
F16 Seder Olam Rabba, c. 19.
F17 Stromat. l. 1. p. 326.

2 Kings 13:20 In-Context

18 Then he said, "Take the arrows," so he took [them]. He said to the king of Israel, "Strike the ground," so he struck three times and stopped.

19 [Yet] the man of God became angry against him and said, "For striking five or six times, then you would have defeated Aram until finishing [them], but now you will defeat Aram [only] three times."

20 Elisha died and they buried him. Now the raiding parties of Moab came {in the spring}.

21 And it happened that they [were] burying a man; suddenly they saw the marauding band, so they threw the man in the grave of Elisha. [As he] went [in], the man touched the bones of Elisha, and became alive and got up on his feet!

22 Hazael king of Aram oppressed Israel all the days of Jehoahaz.

Footnotes

• [a] Literally "coming year"