2 Kings 7:1-20 (CLICK HERE FOR BIBLE VERSES)
Hi GAMErs,
Today’s passage is 2 Kings 7:1-20. As usual, I encourage you to open your Bible and read the passage yourself first. See what you can glean with the Holy Spirit’s help. Then read the GAME sharing below. Let’s go!
2 Kings 7:1-20 (NIV)
1 Elisha said, “Hear the word of the LORD. This is what the LORD says: About this time tomorrow, a seah of flour will sell for a shekel and two seahs of barley for a shekel at the gate of Samaria.”
2 The officer on whose arm the king was leaning said to the man of God, “Look, even if the LORD should open the floodgates of the heavens, could this happen?” “You will see it with your own eyes,” answered Elisha, “but you will not eat any of it!”
3 Now there were four men with leprosy at the entrance of the city gate. They said to each other, “Why stay here until we die?
4 If we say, ‘We’ll go into the city’–the famine is there, and we will die. And if we stay here, we will die. So let’s go over to the camp of the Arameans and surrender. If they spare us, we live; if they kill us, then we die.”
5 At dusk they got up and went to the camp of the Arameans. When they reached the edge of the camp, not a man was there,
6 for the Lord had caused the Arameans to hear the sound of chariots and horses and a great army, so that they said to one another, “Look, the king of Israel has hired the Hittite and Egyptian kings to attack us!”
7 So they got up and fled in the dusk and abandoned their tents and their horses and donkeys. They left the camp as it was and ran for their lives.
8 The men who had leprosy reached the edge of the camp and entered one of the tents. They ate and drank, and carried away silver, gold and clothes, and went off and hid them. They returned and entered another tent and took some things from it and hid them also.
9 Then they said to each other, “We’re not doing right. This is a day of good news and we are keeping it to ourselves. If we wait until daylight, punishment will overtake us. Let’s go at once and report this to the royal palace.”
10 So they went and called out to the city gatekeepers and told them, “We went into the Aramean camp and not a man was there–not a sound of anyone–only tethered horses and donkeys, and the tents left just as they were.”
11 The gatekeepers shouted the news, and it was reported within the palace.
12 The king got up in the night and said to his officers, “I will tell you what the Arameans have done to us. They know we are starving; so they have left the camp to hide in the countryside, thinking, ‘They will surely come out, and then we will take them alive and get into the city.'”
13 One of his officers answered, “Have some men take five of the horses that are left in the city. Their plight will be like that of all the Israelites left here–yes, they will only be like all these Israelites who are doomed. So let us send them to find out what happened.”
14 So they selected two chariots with their horses, and the king sent them after the Aramean army. He commanded the drivers, “Go and find out what has happened.”
15 They followed them as far as the Jordan, and they found the whole road strewn with the clothing and equipment the Arameans had thrown away in their headlong flight. So the messengers returned and reported to the king.
16 Then the people went out and plundered the camp of the Arameans. So a seah of flour sold for a shekel, and two seahs of barley sold for a shekel, as the LORD had said.
17 Now the king had put the officer on whose arm he leaned in charge of the gate, and the people trampled him in the gateway, and he died, just as the man of God had foretold when the king came down to his house.
18 It happened as the man of God had said to the king: “About this time tomorrow, a seah of flour will sell for a shekel and two seahs of barley for a shekel at the gate of Samaria.”
19 The officer had said to the man of God, “Look, even if the LORD should open the floodgates of the heavens, could this happen?” The man of God had replied, “You will see it with your own eyes, but you will not eat any of it!”
20 And that is exactly what happened to him, for the people trampled him in the gateway, and he died.
On verses 1-20: Samaria is in the middle of siege and famine where food resources are increasingly scarce and expensive. Yet Elisha the prophet predicts that within 24 hours the finest flour and barley will be sold for extremely cheap (v1). An officer of King Joram does not believe it. In response to the officer’s unbelief, Elisha states that this officer will see it with his own eyes but will not eat any of it (v2). Meanwhile, four lepers stand at Samaria’s city gate and reason that they’ll die from starvation if they stay at the city gate or go into the city, so they might as well go to the Aramean camp and surrender, since the worst that could happen to them is that they die there too. When they reach the Aramean camp, they find that the Arameans have abandoned their camp. That’s because the Lord had caused the Arameans to hear the sound of a great army advancing against them, and so the Arameans flee in fear, leaving their camp vulnerable. The lepers enjoy the food and wealth that the Arameans have left behind before telling the Israelites. King Joram and the Israelites end up plundering the Aramean camp without having to raise a sword. The abundance of food supplies that the Israelites retrieved from the Aramean camp means that the finest flour and barley are sold at the extremely low prices that Elisha had predicted. So many Israelites flock to the Aramean camp that the officer who did not believe Elisha’s words is trampled at the city gate.
What can we learn from this?
1. Faith doesn’t need to be blind. Faith placing your trust in something or someone based on reason and evidence and drawing a conclusion from there. Faith is taking calculated risks that you believe are worth taking. That’s what the four lepers did when they went to the Aramean camp. That’s what Elisha did when he boldly predicted that food prices would drop. God’s kingdom and we His people advance when we move in the power of wise faith.
2. Unbelief is refusing to believe despite having good reason and evidence to believe. The officer who did not believe Elisha’s words undoubtedly heard and may even have seen the miracles that God had performed through Elisha to rescue Samaria from Aramean attack. Yet he still refused to believe Elisha’s words. The fact that he is trampled at the city gate suggests that when we act in unbelief toward God and God’s Word, we don’t get to enjoy the blessings that God otherwise would have reserved for us. Let’s not live in unbelief today, but let’s move forward with faith.
Father, thank You that Your Word is trustworthy and true. Thank You that it is worth putting our faith in You. May we not live in stubborn unbelief, but may we remember that the same God who raised Jesus Christ from the dead is with us today, and thus anything is possible for Him who believes. In Jesus’ name, AMEN!
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