FEATURED STUDY | January 28, 2026 | A Study on Chapters 7 of the Book of 2 Kings
Famine in Besieged Samaria
Although Michele has declared our house off limits for my furniture making activities, I sometimes attempt to circumvent this boycott. We have a utility room that is accessible only from outside the house and I have found it to be the perfect painting booth. I do my best to hide the evidence by using a fan to exhaust the fumes to the outdoors but my crimes are usually discovered. It seems that Michele is blessed with olfactory senses so acute that she can detect even the slightest hint of unauthorized substances. I, on the other hand have been around such odors for so long that I have become desensitized to their smell. In our study of the final part of chapter 6 and chapter 7 of 2nd Kings, we see that spiritual conditions in Samaria had deteriorated to the point that previously unimaginable sins were commonplace.
Sometime after the events of the first 23 verses of chapter 6, Ben-Hadad sent his entire army to lay siege to Samaria. Apparently, the good will created by the mercy shown to the Aramean soldiers had lost its effect and Ben-Hadad renewed his war against Israel. Because there were no supplies allowed to enter the city, there was a famine and food was so scarce that a donkey’s head sold for eighty shekels of silver and a small quantity of dove’s dung containing seeds sold for 5 shekels. By that time the siege may have lasted several months.
Joram, the king of Israel was trapped in Samaria like his subjects. One day as he was walking along the wall of the city, a woman called out to him asking for help. He replied that if God did not help her, he could not but nevertheless he asked what her complaint was. Her answer was shocking even to a man as evil as Joram. The woman had made a pact with another woman that they would each sacrifice their children so they would have meals. The woman had kept her end of the wicked bargain but the other woman hid her son. Upon hearing the woman Joram tore his robes. His anguish was not because he felt responsible for the condition of the city, instead he blamed Elisha. He must have thought that Elisha had either asked God to punish Samaria or failed to ask God to save them.
He resolved to have Elisha executed that same day and went to Elisha’s house himself. He said “This disaster is from the Lord. Why should I wait for the Lord any longer?” In his twisted mind he reasoned that killing Elisha could somehow stop the famine or he thought that threatening Elisha would spur him to appeal to God for their deliverance. Elisha declared that the famine would end the next day and that flour and barley could readily be bought. An officer accompanying Joram scoffed at Elisha, implying that what Elisha prophesied would only happen if God sent manna down which was unlikely. Elisha replied that God would indeed provide but that the officer would not survive to enjoy the benefit.
At the beginning of chapter 7, we discover how God brought about the end of the famine in Samaria. There were 4 lepers who were at the city gate and they decided to go to the Arameans to surrender (it is Jewish tradition that the lepers were Gehazi and his sons but there is nothing in the Bible to support that). When they reached the Aramean camp, they found it deserted. Just as God had previously used their sense of sight, God used the Aramean’s sense of hearing to make them hear nonexistent sounds of a great army advancing on them. They thought that Israel had hired the Egyptians and Hittites to attack them so they fled, leaving all their supplies in the camp.
The lepers ate and drank then went into 2 tents and took gold, silver and clothes and hid their loot. They began to feel guilty for keeping everything to themselves so they went to the gate of the city to tell what they had found. The purity of their motives was tainted by the fear that they would be discovered as daylight revealed the deserted camp.
When the news was reported to King Joram, he suspected that it was a ruse to lure them out of the city so the gates would be open and the Arameans could enter. He sent out some men who came back and confirmed what the lepers had reported. The things Elisha prophesied came true; flour and barley were in abundance and the officer who doubted that God would provide was trampled by the crowd rushing to get the food.
Joram blamed Elisha for the conditions in Samaria but it was due to his wickedness that Israel had fallen so far. Under his leadership (see Prov. 29:18), the nation had turned away from God resulting in the cannibalism predicted by Moses (see Deut. 28:53-57). The 2 women were symptomatic of how the Israelites had become so desensitized to sin that one of them was outraged that the other woman failed to honor an agreement while she considered eating a child to be acceptable behavior.
The lepers had sound logic. They knew that remaining at the gate meant death from starvation. They were not allowed in the city and even if they were, there was no food. They chose between certain death and possible death at the hands of the Arameans. They had nothing to lose. Matthew Henry compared them to the prodigal son who decided that being a slave for his father was better than remaining where he was. The lepers also wanted to spread the good news that salvation was at hand. I’ll close with a quote of Charles Spurgeon “If the only result of our religion is the comfort of our poor little souls, if the beginning and the end of piety is contained within one’s self, why, it is a strange thing to be in connection with the unselfish Jesus, and to be the fruit of his gracious Spirit. Surely, Jesus did not come to save us that we might live unto ourselves. He came to save us from selfishness.”
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