Text -- 2 Kings 7:13-20 (NET)

7:13 One of his advisers replied, “Pick some men and have them take five of the horses that are left in the city. (Even if they are killed, their fate will be no different than that of all the Israelite people– we’re all going to die!) Let’s send them out so we can know for sure what’s going on.” 7:14 So they picked two horsemen and the king sent them out to track the Syrian army. He ordered them, “Go and find out what’s going on.” 7:15 So they tracked them as far as the Jordan. The road was filled with clothes and equipment that the Syrians had discarded in their haste. The scouts went back and told the king. 7:16 Then the people went out and looted the Syrian camp. A seah of finely milled flour sold for a shekel, and two seahs of barley for a shekel, just as the Lord had said they would. 7:17 Now the king had placed the officer who was his right-hand man at the city gate. When the people rushed out, they trampled him to death in the gate. This fulfilled the prophet’s word which he had spoken when the king tried to arrest him. 7:18 The prophet told the king, “Two seahs of barley will sell for a shekel, and a seah of finely milled flour for a shekel; this will happen about this time tomorrow in the gate of Samaria.” 7:19 But the officer replied to the prophet, “Look, even if the Lord made it rain by opening holes in the sky, could this happen so soon?” Elisha said, “Look, you will see it happen with your own eyes, but you will not eat any of the food!” 7:20 This is exactly what happened to him. The people trampled him to death in the city gate.

Commentary -- Verse Notes / Footnotes

NET Notes: 2Ki 7:13

¹ tn Heb “Let them take five of the remaining horses that remain in it. Look, they are like all the people of Israel that remain in it. Look, they are like all the people of Israel that have come to an end.” The MT is dittographic here; the words “that remain in it. Look they are like all the people of Israel” have been accidentally repeated. The original text read, “Let them take five of the remaining horses that remain in it. Look, they are like all the people of Israel that have come to an end.”

² tn Heb “and let us send so we might see.”

NET Notes: 2Ki 7:14

¹ tn Heb “and the king sent [them] after the Syrian camp.”

² tn Heb “Go and see.”

NET Notes: 2Ki 7:15

¹ tn Heb “went after.”

² tn Heb “and look, all the road was full of clothes and equipment that Syria had thrown away in their haste.”

³ tn Or “messengers.”

NET Notes: 2Ki 7:16

¹ sn A seah was a dry measure equivalent to about 7 quarts.

² tn Heb “according to the word of the Lord.”

NET Notes: 2Ki 7:17

¹ tn Heb “the officer on whose hand he leans.”

² tn Heb “and the people trampled him in the gate and he died.”

³ tn Heb “just as the man of God had spoken, [the word] which he spoke when the king came down to him.”

NET Notes: 2Ki 7:19

¹ tn Heb “the Lord was making holes in the sky, could this thing be?” See the note at 7:2.

² tn Heb “he”; the referent (Elisha) has been specified in the translation for clarity.

³ tn Heb “you will not eat from there.”

tn In the Hebrew text vv. 18-19a are one lengthy sentence, “When the man of God spoke to the king…, the officer replied to the man of God, ‘Look…so soon?’” The translation divides this sentence up for stylistic reasons.