Chapter Eight

1–6. The mercy of the king of Israel toward the Shunammite woman for the sake of Elisha. 7–15. The prophet Elisha in Damascus predicts to Hazael the kingship and foretells the death of Ben-Hadad. 16–24. The 5th king of Judah, Joram. 25–29. The 6th king of Judah, Ahaziah.

2 Kings 8:1. And Elisha said to the woman whose son he had raised to life, “Go away, you and your household, and settle somewhere else for a while, because the Lord has called for a famine, and it will come upon this land for seven years. 2 Kings 8:2. And the woman arose and did according to the word of the man of God; and she went, she and her household, and dwelt in the land of the Philistines seven years. 2 Kings 8:3. At the end of seven years the woman returned from the land of the Philistines and came to appeal to the king about her house and her field. 2 Kings 8:4. Now the king was talking with Gehazi, the servant of the man of God, saying, “Tell me, please, all the great things that Elisha has done. 2 Kings 8:5. And just as he was telling the king how he had restored to life someone who was dead, the woman whose son he had raised to life came to appeal to the king for her house and her field. And Gehazi said, “My lord, O king, this is the woman, and this is her son whom Elisha raised to life. 2 Kings 8:6. And when the king asked the woman, she told him. And the king appointed an official for her, saying, “Restore to her all that was hers, and all the income from her field from the day she left the land until now. The seven-year famine predicted by the prophet Elisha was the same as that mentioned in (2 Kgs 4:39). Soon after the prophet raised to life the son of the Shunammite woman (2 Kgs 4:35-37), he predicts to her the coming of the seven-year famine, advising her to depart with her family to one of the neighboring countries (as the family of Elimelech once did (Ruth 1:1) and following). “This word gives ground for suspecting that the Israelites were punished by famine. And if the famine were general upon the land, he would not have sent her to another place. From this it is clear that by this punishment sent from God the Israelites were instructed, living wickedly as they did after such provision for them,” (Blessed Theodoret, question 22). The Shunammite chooses the neighboring land of the Philistines, which bordered on Israel and was distinguished by its fertility, where she remained with her family during the time of famine. Returning, she found her house and field in the hands of others: either confiscated into the king’s estates (cf. 1 Kgs 21:15) or seized by a private person – contrary to the spirit of Moses’ law and ancient practice (Ruth 1:4). The Shunammite with her petition for the return of her property appeals to the king, who at that time was conversing with Gehazi about the wonders of the prophet Elisha. (From the fact that in verse 4 Gehazi is called the servant of Elisha and, being healthy, converses with the king, while after a certain transgression following the healing of Naaman he was smitten with leprosy, (2 Kgs 5:27) and certainly as a result of his transgression and disease could no longer remain the servant of the prophet, many interpreters place the conversation of the king with Gehazi described here at a time before the healing of Naaman; but for lepers it was not excluded that they could converse with people (Matt 8:2; Luke 17:12, and others). Gehazi could speak with the king while already leprous; moreover, the rearrangement of events proposed by this conjecture introduces even greater confusion into the history of the prophet Elisha, which without this presents chronological uncertainty). In the wonders of Elisha, Gehazi names to the king the chief wonder—the raising to life of the son of the Shunammite—all the more since she herself then came to the king, and he fulfills her petition—not without the influence of the charm of the prophet’s person and the fresh impression of the memory of his wonders.

2 Kings 8:7. And Elisha came to Damascus, and Ben-Hadad, the king of Syria, was sick. And it was told him, saying, “The man of God has come here. 2 Kings 8:8. And the king said to Hazael, “Take a gift in your hand, and go to meet the man of God, and inquire of the Lord through him, saying, ‘Will I recover from this illness?’ 2 Kings 8:9. And Hazael went to meet him, and took a gift with him—all the finest things of Damascus, carried by forty camels—and came and stood before him, and said, “Your son Ben-Hadad, king of Syria, has sent me to you, asking, ‘Will I recover from this illness?’ 2 Kings 8:10. And Elisha said to him, “Go, say to him, ‘You will surely recover’; however, the Lord has shown me that he will indeed die. 2 Kings 8:11. And Elisha fixed his gaze upon him, and remained silent until Hazael was ashamed; and the man of God wept. 2 Kings 8:12. And Hazael said, “Why does my lord weep?” And he said, “Because I know the evil you will do to the children of Israel: you will burn their strongholds, and you will kill their young men with the sword, and dash their children in pieces, and rip open their pregnant women. 2 Kings 8:13. And Hazael said, “What is your servant, a dead dog, that he should do this great thing?” And Elisha said, “The Lord has shown me that you will be king of Syria. 2 Kings 8:14. And he departed from Elisha and came to his master. And he said to him, “What did Elisha say to you?” And he said, “He told me that you will surely recover. 2 Kings 8:15. But the next day he took the bedcover, dipped it in water, and spread it over his face, and he died. And Hazael reigned in his place. The prophet Elisha, mindful of the command of God that the prophet Elijah was supposed to carry out on Mount Horeb—to anoint a certain Hazael as king of Syria (1 Kgs 19:15) – a command that was not executed by the prophet Elijah himself and was probably handed on by him to Elisha, set out for Damascus at a time when Ben-Hadad was ill (as a result of the unsuccessful outcome of the siege of Samaria, (2 Kgs 7), as Josephus notes. Antiquities of the Jews 9:4, 6). Learning of the arrival of the respected prophet, Ben-Hadad sends a certain Hazael to meet him (according to Josephus: “the trusted one of the servants”) with a question about the outcome of the illness and certainly with a prayer for its favorable outcome; according to Eastern custom, such an embassy necessarily had to bring gifts to the prophet (cf. 1 Sam 9:7; 1 Kgs 14:3), arranged with Eastern splendor and arrogance and spread across forty camels. “The prophet who came to Hazael predicted both his kingship and the death of the one who sent him, though he commanded him not to report the death of Ben-Hadad, so that in despair he might not end his life” (Blessed Theodoret, question 23). The Hebrew text of verse 10 in the written form (“Ketib”) has the negation “lo,” so that the sense becomes: and say (to Ben-Hadad): you will not recover; but in the reading (“Keri”) and in many manuscripts “lo” is taken as the pronoun “to him” (“say to him: he will recover”). The cause of the prophet’s indirect answer is satisfactorily indicated by Blessed Theodoret, and likewise, in agreement with him, by Josephus. The reign of Hazael was to bring in the future (cf. (2 Kgs 10:32) and others; (2 Kgs 13:3-4)) great misfortunes upon the kingdom of Israel, such as were customary in ancient times during devastating wars (verse 12, cf. Isa 13:15 and others; Hos 10:14; Amos 1:13; Nah 3:10 and others; Ps 136:9), and the prophet grieves deeply and weeps over the misfortunes awaiting his homeland from the hand of Hazael. As a messenger of God’s will, the prophet Elisha does not hide from Hazael this ruinous activity for Israel that Hazael will undertake in the future, nor does he hide the impending death of Ben-Hadad and the subsequent kingship of Hazael (verse 13), although he knew that Hazael would attain the throne over the corpse of his master (verse 15): the prophet (as earlier 2 Kgs 3:19), merely predicts future facts, not in the least obliging Hazael to act criminally. The false humility of Hazael (verse 13; cf. 1 Sam 24:15; 2 Sam 16:9) did not prevent him from murdering the sick Ben-Hadad (verse 15, according to Josephus, he strangled him, which does not entirely agree with the Biblical text), after which he became king of Damascus (cf. Blessed Theodoret, question 24).

2 Kings 8:16. In the fifth year of Joram son of Ahab, king of Israel, Jehoram, son of Jehoshaphat, king of Judah, became king. 2 Kings 8:17. He was thirty-two years old when he became king, and he reigned eight years in Jerusalem. 2 Kings 8:18. And he walked in the way of the kings of Israel, just as the house of Ahab had done, for a daughter of Ahab was his wife; and he did what was evil in the sight of the Lord. 2 Kings 8:19. But the Lord was not willing to destroy Judah, for the sake of his servant David, because he had promised to give him a lamp among his descendants forever. 2 Kings 8:20. In his days Edom broke away from under the rule of Judah, and they set up a king for themselves. 2 Kings 8:21. And Joram went to Zair with all his chariots, and he rose up at night and attacked the Edomites who had surrounded him and the commanders of the chariots; but his army fled to their tents. 2 Kings 8:22. Thus Edom broke away from the rule of Judah to this day. At that time Libnah also rebelled. 2 Kings 8:23. The rest of the acts of Joram and all that he did—are they not written in the Book of the Chronicles of the Kings of Judah? 2 Kings 8:24. And Joram rested with his fathers and was buried with his fathers in the city of David. And Ahaziah his son reigned in his place. Concerning the reign of Joram, the 5th king of Judah, the parallel narrative (2 Chr 21:1) contains, besides what is indicated in the given section (2 Kgs 8:16-24), three new details: a) the accusatory letter of the prophet Elijah to Joram (2 Kgs 8:12-15); b) an invasion of Judah by Philistines and Arabians in the time of Joram, who seized his property and his children as captives (verses 16–17) and c) a severe illness of Joram lasting two years, and his burial outside the royal tombs (verses 18–21). Concerning the year of Joram’s becoming king (verses 16–17), see the commentary to (2 Kgs 1:17). His wickedness (verse 18) was the result of the influence of his relative, the ruling house of Israel: he was the son-in-law of Ahab and Jezebel (2 Chr 18:1), married to their daughter Athaliah. Only the faithfulness of the Lord to his covenant with David (2 Sam 7:12; cf. 1 Kgs 11:36) preserved this unworthy offspring of his line. From external matters, an account is given here of Joram’s unsuccessful campaign against Edom (verses 20–22; 2 Chr 21:8-10), where during his reign a king appeared, clearly self-governing, not a viceroy of the Judahite king, as had been before (1 Kgs 22:48; 2 Kgs 3:9 and following); according to Josephus (Antiquities of the Jews 9:5, 1, “the Edomites killed the previous king, who was a vassal of Joram’s father, and chose a king for themselves according to their own will”; the attack on Zair – probably an Edomite city (in the LXX and Slavic: Sior, cf. Onomasticon 625, 626) undertaken by Joram and the defeat of the Edomites did not bring benefit, and together with the defection of Edom (cf. Ps 3:7), the city of Libnah also rebelled – an ancient Canaanite city (Josh 10:22) that fell to the tribe of Judah (Josh 15:42) after the present attack once again returned to the Judahite kingdom (2 Kgs 19:8; Isa 37:8; cf. Onomasticon 634). In the defection of Edom from Judah, Blessed Theodoret sees (question 25) the fulfillment of Jacob’s prophecy to Esau: “And it shall come to pass... that you will break his yoke from off your neck.” (Gen 27:40)

2 Kings 8:25. In the twelfth year of Joram son of Ahab, king of Israel, Ahaziah son of Joram, king of Judah, became king. 2 Kings 8:26. Ahaziah was twenty-two years old when he became king, and he reigned one year in Jerusalem. His mother’s name was Athaliah, daughter of Omri, king of Israel. 2 Kings 8:27. And he walked in the way of the house of Ahab, and did what was evil in the sight of the Lord, like the house of Ahab, because he was related to the house of Ahab. 2 Kings 8:28. And he went with Joram son of Ahab to war against Hazael king of Syria at Ramoth Gilead; and the Syrians wounded Joram. 2 Kings 8:29. And King Joram returned to be healed in Jezreel from the wounds that the Syrians had inflicted on him at Ramah when he fought against Hazael king of Syria. And Ahaziah son of Joram, king of Judah, came down to see Joram son of Ahab in Jezreel, because he was sick. The one-year reign of the 6th king of Judah, Ahaziah, son of Joram (cf. 2 Chr 22:1-9), was as wicked as the reign of his father, and under the same influence: of Ahaziah’s mother, Athaliah, named here (verse 29) as the daughter of Omri (rather than Ahab): Omri was the founder of the dynasty that brought so much harm not only to Israel but to Judah as well. Following the example of his grandfather Jehoshaphat (1 Kgs 22:1), who took part in the disastrous campaign against Ramoth Gilead conquered by the Syrians, Ahaziah also participated in a similar campaign of Joram of Israel against the same city. Ramoth was recovered by the Israelites (2 Kgs 9:2), but Joram of Israel was wounded and was healed in Jezreel, where Ahaziah of Judah also went to visit his relative (verse 29; 2 Kgs 9:15), but there together with Joram (2 Kgs 9:24) he met his death from the hand of Jehu (2 Kgs 9:27).