And Eliseus said: Hear ye the word of the Lord: Thus saith the Lord: Tomorrow about this time a bushel of fine hour shall be sold for a stater, and two bushels of barley for a stater, in the gate of Samaria.
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2 Then one of the lords, upon whose hand the king leaned, answering the man of God, said: If the Lord should make flood-gates in heaven, can that possibly be which thou sayest? And he said: Thou shalt see it with thy eyes, but shalt not eat thereof.
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3 Now there were four lepers, at the entering in of the gate: and they said one to another: What mean we to stay here till we die?
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4 If we will enter into the city, we shall die with the famine: and if we will remain here, we must also die: come, therefore, and let us run over to the camp of the Syrians. If they spare us, we shall live: but if they kill us, we shall but die.
5 So they arose in the evening, to go to the Syrian camp, And when they were come to the first part of the camp of the Syrians, they found no man there.
6 For the Lord had made them hear, in the camp of Syria, the noise of chariots, and of horses, and of a very great army, and they said one to another: Behold the king of Israel hath hired against us the kings of the Hethites, and of the Egyptians, and they are come upon us.
7 Wherefore they arose, and fled away in the dark, and left their tents, and their horses and asses in the camp, and fled, desiring to save their lives.
8 So when these lepers were come to the beginning of the camp, they went into one tent, and ate and drank: and they took from thence silver, and gold, and raiment, and went, and hid it: and they came again, and went into another tent, and carried from thence in like manner, and hid it.
9 Then they said one to another: We do not well: for this is a day of good tidings. If we hold our peace, and do not tell it till the morning, we shall be charged with a crime: come, let us go and tell it in the king’s court.
10 So they came to the gate of the city, and told them, saying: We went to the camp of the Syrians, and we found no man there, but horses, and asses tied, and the tents standing.
11 Then the guards of the gate went, and told it within the king’s palace.
12 And he arose in the night and said to his servants: I tell you what the Syrians have done to us: They know that we suffer great famine, and therefore they are gone out of the camp, and lie hid in the fields, saying: When they come out of the city we shall take them alive, and then we may get into the city.
13 And one of his servants answered: Let us take the five horses that are remaining in the city (because there are no more in the whole multitude of Israel, for the rest are consumed,) and let us send and see.
14 They brought therefore two horses, and the king sent into the camp of the Syrians, saying: Go, and see.
15 And they went after them as far as the Jordan: and behold all the way was full of garments, and vessels, which the Syrians had cast away in their fright, and the messengers returned and told the king.
16 And the people going out pillaged the camp of the Syrians: and a bushel of fine flour was sold for a stater, and two bushels of barley for a stater, according to the word of the Lord.
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17 And the king appointed that lord on whose hand he leaned, to stand at the gate: and the people trod upon him in the entrance of the gate; and he died, as the man of God had said, when the king came down to him.
18 And it came to pass according to the word of the man of God, which he spoke to the king, when he said: Two bushels of barley shall be for a stater, and a bushel of fine flour for a stater, at this very time tomorrow in the gate of Samaria.
19 When that lord answered the man of God, and said: Although the Lord should make flood-gates in heaven, could this come to pass which thou sayest? And he said to him: Thou shalt see with thy eyes, and shalt not eat thereof.
20 And so it fell out to him as it was foretold, and the people trod upon him in the gate, and he died.
Origen
“You will also find similar things in the times of Elisha, when the son of Jader, king of Syria, came up against Samaria and besieged it. "And there was a great famine in Samaria for so long," Scripture says, "that a donkey's head became worth fifty shekels of silver and a quarter of pigeon dung five pieces of silver." But suddenly an amazing change occurs through the word of the prophet, who says, "Hear the word of the Lord. Thus says the Lord: 'Tomorrow, at this hour a measure of the finest wheat flour shall be one shekel and two measure of barley shall be one shekel, in the gates of Samaria.' "Notice, therefore, what is inferred from all these texts: when famine prevails over a land, not only does it not prevail over the just, but rather through them, a remedy is brought to the threatened destruction.”
Ephrem the Syrian
“Elisha said, "Tomorrow there will be relief from the siege and the famine in the city of Samaria." But an officer of the house of king Jehoram mocked these words and derided the word [of the prophet]. Elisha answered him what the Scripture relates here. Some say that this man was the one whose story is reported by the biblical text above. He had sent to Elisha a messenger or a captain of the guard [of the king] to arrest him or to kill him but later had repented of his evil scheme and had run after him, preventing him from executing his command. This poor man, therefore, had seen the delivery of the town and the consequent abundance of which he had not profited, because on that same day the inhabitants of the city, who were coming out to plunder, had trampled him, and he had died. In his miserable fate he prefigures the fall of the people of Abraham, those who could see "the bread" of life "descended from heaven" to them but in large number were not worthy of enjoying that vivifying abundance, even though, at the same time, it was abundantly given to all those who asked for it through the grace of our Savior Jesus Christ.”
Ephrem the Syrian
“Even though the four lepers are loathsome, if we symbolically recognize in them the fact that they announced goods for the inhabitants of their city, they do no wrong to the symbol but correctly represent the four holy Evangelists. Indeed, we must bear in mind that through their books the grace of our Savior and source of life Jesus Christ was known, and freedom was given to all people according to his divine plan. And so those whose flesh was leprous shone in their interior look with the splendor of their righteousness. In addition, they symbolically represent the first attitude of the apostles in the fact that leprosy had corrupted their skin. But they also represent them in the fact that their interior was adorned with righteous behavior because the old man has been transformed by the coming of the Holy Spirit and renewed. Therefore they have clothed themselves with the garment shining with the colors of heaven and have been sent to show the work of the hands of God.”
Basil of Caesarea
“"The Lord brings to nothing the counsels of nations, and he rejects the devices of people." … If you will read the things in each history that God did to the faithless nations, you will find that the statement has much force even according to our corporal intelligence. When Joram, son of Ahab, was king in Israel, then his son Ader, king of Syria, carrying on a war with a great force and a heavy hand, besieged Samaria, so that even the necessaries of life were wanting to them, and the head of a donkey was sold for fifty shekels of silver and the fourth part of a cabe of pigeon dung for five shekels of silver. At that time, therefore, in order that the promise of Elisha might be fulfilled, the counsels of Syria were brought to nothing, and abandoning their tents and all their supplies, they fled, leaving such a great abundance in Samaria that a measure of fine flour and two measures of barley were sold for one shekel. Thus, then, the Lord knew how to bring to nothing the counsels of the nations.”