2 Kings 7:12
advisers <05650> [unto his servants.]
tell <05046> [I will now.]
know .... starving <07457 03045> [They know that we be hungry.]
This was a very natural conclusion; and, in history of the revolt of Ali Bey, we have an account of a stratagem very similar to that supposed to have been practised by the Syrians. The pasha of Damascus having approached the Sea of Tiberias, found sheik Daher encamped there; but the sheik, deferring the engagement till the next morning, during the night divided his army into three parts, and left the camp with great fires blazing, all sorts of provisions, and a large quantity of spiritous liquors. In the middle of the night, the pasha, thinking to surprise the sheik, marched in silence to the camp, which, to his astonishment, he found entirely abandoned; and imagining the sheik had fled with so much precipitation that he could not carry off his baggage and stores, he stopped in the camp to refresh his soldiers. They soon fell to plunder, and drank so freely of the spirits, that, overcome with its fumes, they sunk into a deep lethargy. At that time, two sheiks came silently to the camp, and being rejoined by Daher, rushed upon the sleeping foe, 8,000 of whom were slain; the pasha and a few soldiers barely escaping with their lives.
hid .... field <02247 07704> [hide themselves.]
2 Kings 8:5
Elisha ........ life ........................................... life <02421> [he had restored.]
woman .............................. woman <0802> [behold, the woman.]
master <0113> [My lord.]
2 Kings 14:9
thornbush ................................. thorn <02336> [The thistle.]
The word {choach,} which is rendered here, and in 2 Ch 25:18; Job 31:18, thistle, in 1 Sa 13:6, thicket in Isa 34:13, bramble, and in 2 Ch 33:11; Pr 26:9; So 2:2; Ho 9:6 thorn, is probably the black thorn, or sloe tree, the {prunus spinosa} of Linn‘us, as the same word signifies in Arabic. There is a vast deal of insolent dignity in this remonstrance of Jehoash; but it has nothing conciliatory; no proposal of making amends for the injury his army had done to the unoffending inhabitants of Judah. (2 Ch 25:10-13.) The comparatively useless thorn, which may by chance lacerate the incautious passenger, is made the emblem of the house of Judah and David, while the house of Jehu is represented by the stately cedar.
