Verse-by-Verse Commentary
The Book of 2 Kings
Chapter 7: This Day Is a Day of Good Tidings
At the height of the famine, Elisha promises food in abundance by tomorrow, and a scoffing officer says it cannot be, and is told he will see it but not eat it. That night God routs the Syrian army with a phantom noise, and four starving lepers stumble on the abandoned camp. Ashamed to keep the good news to themselves, they carry word of deliverance to the dying city, and every word of the LORD comes true.
About This Commentary
This is a verse-by-verse study of 2 Kings chapter 7. For each section you will find the KJV text, the Hebrew words that sharpen the meaning, plain explanation, and a Gospel Focus. Every Scripture quotation is from the King James Version.
Tomorrow About This Time (2 Kings 7:1-2)
Elisha promises abundance by tomorrow, and a scoffing officer is told he will see it but not eat it.
If the LORD Would Make Windows in Heaven
"Then Elisha said, Hear ye the word of the LORD; Thus saith the LORD, To morrow about this time shall a measure of fine flour be sold for a shekel, and two measures of barley for a shekel, in the gate of Samaria. Then a lord on whose hand the king leaned answered the man of God, and said, Behold, if the LORD would make windows in heaven, might this thing be? And he said, Behold, thou shalt see it with thine eyes, but shalt not eat thereof."
Word Study
"if the LORD would make windows in heaven," the language of unbelief. Against the black despair that closed chapter 6, "what should I wait for the LORD any longer?", Elisha answers with a word of astonishing hope: "Hear ye the word of the LORD." Within twenty-four hours the famine-priced markets would collapse to normal, cheap prices, an impossible reversal. But the king's chief officer, "a lord on whose hand the king leaned," scoffs: "if the LORD would make windows in heaven, might this thing be?" His words echo, in mockery, the very language of blessing (Malachi 3:10, "the windows of heaven"), but with unbelief: even if God opened heaven, he says, it could not happen. This is the sin of limiting God, "they... limited the Holy One of Israel" (Psalm 78:41); "is any thing too hard for the LORD?" (Genesis 18:14). His unbelief was not innocent doubt but contempt for God's promise, and it drew a solemn sentence: "thou shalt see it with thine eyes, but shalt not eat thereof." He would witness the deliverance but not share in it, cut off from the blessing by his own unbelief. It is a sobering warning: unbelief may see God's goodness and yet be shut out of it. "They could not enter in because of unbelief" (Hebrews 3:19). God's promise stood, and so did the judgment on the man who mocked it.
Explanation
In answer to the despair of the besieged city, Elisha declared the word of the LORD: by the same time the next day, food would be sold cheaply in the gate of Samaria, a stunning promise of sudden relief. The king's chief attendant scoffed, saying that even if God opened windows in heaven such a thing could not happen. Elisha replied that he would see the fulfillment with his own eyes but would not eat any of it, a sentence of judgment on his unbelief. Thus the chapter opens with a promise of deliverance and a warning to those who despise the word of God.
Gospel Focus
Into the deepest despair God speaks a word of hope, and often the greater the darkness, the nearer the dawn. But the promise met a scoffer, and his unbelief is a warning. He limited God, "if the LORD would make windows in heaven, might this thing be?", as if the Almighty were bound by human calculations. Beware of measuring God's promises by your own reason; "is any thing too hard for the LORD?" His sentence is the most sobering part: "thou shalt see it with thine eyes, but shalt not eat thereof." It is possible to witness the blessing of God and never taste it, to see others enter into grace while unbelief shuts you out. So a whole generation "could not enter in because of unbelief." The gospel promise of abundant salvation stands sure; the only thing that can bar you from it is your own refusal to believe. Do not scoff at the word of the LORD. Take Him at His word, believe His impossible-sounding promise, and you will not merely see the feast, you will sit down and eat.
The Four Lepers (2 Kings 7:3-11)
Four starving lepers find the Syrian camp abandoned and resolve to share the good news.
We Do Not Well: This Day Is a Day of Good Tidings
"And there were four leprous men at the entering in of the gate: and they said one to another, Why sit we here until we die? If we say, We will enter into the city, then the famine is in the city, and we shall die there: and if we sit still here, we die also. Now therefore come, and let us fall unto the host of the Syrians: if they save us alive, we shall live; and if they kill us, we shall but die. And they rose up in the twilight, to go unto the camp of the Syrians: and when they were come to the uttermost part of the camp of Syria, behold, there was no man there. For the Lord had made the host of the Syrians to hear a noise of chariots, and a noise of horses, even the noise of a great host: and they said one to another, Lo, the king of Israel hath hired against us the kings of the Hittites, and the kings of the Egyptians, to come upon us. Wherefore they arose and fled in the twilight, and left their tents, and their horses, and their asses, even the camp as it was, and fled for their life. And when these lepers came to the uttermost part of the camp, they went into one tent, and did eat and drink, and carried thence silver, and gold, and raiment, and went and hid it; and came again, and entered into another tent, and carried thence also, and went and hid it. Then they said one to another, We do not well: this day is a day of good tidings, and we hold our peace: if we tarry till the morning light, some mischief will come upon us: now therefore come, that we may go and tell the king's household. So they came and called unto the porter of the city: and they told them, saying, We came to the camp of the Syrians, and, behold, there was no man there, neither voice of man, but horses tied, and asses tied, and the tents as they were. And he called the porters; and they told it to the king's house within."
Word Study
"this day is a day of good tidings," Hebrew yom besorah (יוֹם בְּשֹׂרָה), a day of good news, the same root as "gospel." God's deliverance comes through the unlikeliest people: four lepers, outcasts sitting at the gate, excluded from the city, with nothing to lose. Their reasoning is the logic of desperation turned to hope: "Why sit we here until we die?" To stay is death, to surrender may be life, so they go. Meanwhile God has already won the battle without a single Israelite soldier: "the Lord had made the host of the Syrians to hear a noise... of a great host," and the enemy fled in panic, leaving everything. The lepers feast and plunder, and then conscience strikes: "We do not well: this day is a day of good tidings (besorah), and we hold our peace." Here is one of Scripture's clearest pictures of the evangelist's duty. Starving people are dying in the city while these four sit on abundance and say nothing. To hoard good news in a world of dying men is to "do not well." The word besorah is the Old Testament equivalent of "gospel," good news; and the lepers' resolve, "come, that we may go and tell," is the missionary impulse. They were beggars who found bread, and could not keep silent. "How shall they hear without a preacher?" (Romans 10:14). The good news of a defeated enemy and an open feast is not to be kept; it is to be told.
Explanation
Four lepers, excluded from the city and facing starvation either way, decided to surrender to the Syrians, on the reasoning that they could only die. But when they reached the enemy camp at dusk, it was deserted: God had made the Syrians hear the sound of a vast approaching army, and they had fled in terror, abandoning everything. The lepers went from tent to tent, eating, drinking, and hiding away plunder. Then their consciences pricked them: this was a day of good news, and it was wrong to keep silent while the city starved. Fearing punishment if they delayed, they went back and reported to the city gatekeepers that the Syrian camp stood empty and abandoned. The news of deliverance began to spread.
Gospel Focus
"This day is a day of good tidings, and we hold our peace: we do not well." No verse better captures the calling of every believer. We were like those lepers, outcast, starving, under sentence of death, and we have stumbled upon a feast: the good news that the enemy is defeated and there is bread enough and to spare in Christ. And it would be wrong, "we do not well", to keep such news to ourselves while a dying world starves. The four lepers are the model evangelists: beggars telling other beggars where to find bread. They had no eloquence, no status, only good news and a conscience that would not let them stay silent. "Woe is unto me, if I preach not the gospel!" (1 Corinthians 9:16). Notice too how God won the victory: not by Israel's armies but by a sound only He could send. The battle was the LORD's, and the deliverance was pure grace, received, not earned. So our salvation is God's doing, and our part is simply to go and tell. If you have found the feast, do not do like the man who holds his peace. This is a day of good tidings. Go, and tell.
Deliverance and Judgment (2 Kings 7:12-20)
The city is saved and the markets fall, exactly as Elisha said, but the scoffing lord is trampled in the gate.
According to the Word of the LORD
"And the king arose in the night, and said unto his servants, I will now shew you what the Syrians have done to us. They know that we be hungry; therefore are they gone out of the camp to hide themselves in the field, saying, When they come out of the city, we shall catch them alive, and get into the city. And one of his servants answered and said, Let some take, I pray thee, five of the horses that remain, which are left in the city, (behold, they are as all the multitude of Israel that are left in it: behold, I say, they are even as all the multitude of the Israelites that are consumed:) and let us send and see. They took therefore two chariot horses; and the king sent after the host of the Syrians, saying, Go and see. And they went after them unto Jordan: and, lo, all the way was full of garments and vessels, which the Syrians had cast away in their haste. And the messengers returned, and told the king. And the people went out, and spoiled the tents of the Syrians. So a measure of fine flour was sold for a shekel, and two measures of barley for a shekel, according to the word of the LORD. And the king appointed the lord on whose hand he leaned to have the charge of the gate: and the people trode upon him in the gate, and he died, as the man of God had said, who spake when the king came down to him. And it came to pass as the man of God had spoken to the king, saying, Two measures of barley for a shekel, and a measure of fine flour for a shekel, shall be to morrow about this time in the gate of Samaria: And that lord answered the man of God, and said, Now, behold, if the LORD should make windows in heaven, might such a thing be? And he said, Behold, thou shalt see it with thine eyes, but shalt not eat thereof. And so it fell out unto him: for the people trode upon him in the gate, and he died."
Word Study
"according to the word of the LORD," and the two fates in the gate. The suspicious king first fears a trap, but scouts confirm the Syrians have truly fled, the road to Jordan "full of garments and vessels" cast away in panic. The city pours out to plunder, and the market collapses: "a measure of fine flour was sold for a shekel," exactly, to the letter, "according to the word of the LORD." Twice more the chapter repeats the fulfillment and repeats the doubting lord's mockery, so that no reader can miss the point: God's word came true in both its parts. The blessing came as promised, and so did the judgment. The scoffing officer, put in charge of the gate, is trampled to death by the very crowd rushing out to the abundance he refused to believe in: "he saw it with his eyes, but did not eat thereof," precisely as Elisha had said. The gate that became the place of the city's salvation became the place of his death. Here are the two responses to the word of God, faith and unbelief, and their two ends: those who believed the impossible promise ate and lived; the one who scoffed saw the feast but perished in the crush. God's word is a savour of life to the believing and of death to the unbelieving (2 Corinthians 2:16). Not one word of the LORD fell to the ground.
Explanation
The king, fearing a Syrian ambush, was persuaded to send scouts with a few remaining horses. They found the road to the Jordan littered with the enemy's discarded belongings, proof of a headlong flight. The people rushed out and plundered the abandoned camp, and food became cheap and plentiful in the gate, exactly as Elisha had foretold. The king had placed his doubting chief officer in charge of the gate, and in the stampede of the crowd he was trampled to death, fulfilling to the letter Elisha's word that he would see the abundance but never eat of it. The narrator repeats the prophecy and its fulfillment to underline that every word of the LORD came true, in blessing for the city and in judgment for the scoffer.
Gospel Focus
The chapter ends by hammering home one truth: God's word came to pass, "according to the word of the LORD," in every detail. The impossible plenty arrived on schedule, and the scoffer's doom arrived with it. Two men heard the same promise; one believing crowd feasted, and the unbelieving officer was trampled at the very gate of blessing. This is the solemn double edge of the gospel. To those who believe, it is "the power of God unto salvation" (Romans 1:16), an open feast of grace; to those who scoff, the same word becomes their condemnation, for "he that believeth not shall be damned" (Mark 16:16). The officer's tragedy was not that he lacked opportunity, he stood at the very gate, he saw the abundance with his own eyes, but that unbelief shut him out of what faith would have freely given. Do not be a spectator of grace who never tastes it. The feast is spread, the enemy is defeated, the word is sure. Believe it, and eat; the God whose word never fails has prepared a table, and He bids you come.
Chapter in Review
Second Kings 7 is the great reversal after the despair of chapter 6. Into the starving city Elisha speaks God's word: by tomorrow, plenty in the gate of Samaria. A scoffing officer limits God, "if the LORD would make windows in heaven," and is told he will see it but not eat it. That night God routs the entire Syrian army with a phantom noise, and four outcast lepers, with nothing to lose, discover the abandoned camp. Feasting on the spoil, they are convicted: "this day is a day of good tidings, and we hold our peace: we do not well", and they carry the news of deliverance to the dying city. The market collapses exactly as promised, and the doubting lord is trampled at the gate, seeing the blessing he would not believe. The chapter proclaims that God's word never fails, that His salvation is pure grace won without our strength, that good news must be shared, and that unbelief can bar a man from the very feast before his eyes.
Key Takeaways
- Do not limit God. "Is any thing too hard for the LORD?" The scoffer measured God by his reason and was shut out.
- Unbelief can see the feast and never taste it. "Thou shalt see it with thine eyes, but shalt not eat thereof."
- Salvation is God's victory, received not earned. He routed the enemy with a sound; the people simply went out and ate.
- Good news must be shared. "We do not well" to hold our peace; we are beggars telling beggars where to find bread.
- God's word comes to pass exactly. Blessing and judgment both fell "according to the word of the LORD."
Questions for Reflection
- Are you limiting God by your own reasoning, doubting a promise because it seems impossible?
- Is it possible to see God's blessing in others' lives and yet, through unbelief, never taste it yourself?
- Do you rest in salvation as God's free victory, or try to win it by your own strength?
- Have you, like the lepers, found the feast, and are you telling others, or holding your peace?
- How does the exact fulfillment of God's word strengthen your confidence in His promises?
References
- Scripture: 2 Kings 7:1-20, King James Version.
- Cross-references: Genesis 18:14; Psalm 78:41; Malachi 3:10; Mark 16:16; Romans 1:16; 10:14; 1 Corinthians 9:16; 2 Corinthians 2:16; Hebrews 3:19.
- Hebrew word meanings: standard lexical sources (Strong's, BDB) for yom besorah; historical background of the siege of Samaria and the Syrian retreat.