2Kgs 6:24

“"Some time later King Ben-hadad of Aram mustered his entire army; he marched against Samaria and laid siege to it." This is that Ben-hadad who had been condemned to death by God; and Ahab had received the order to execute him. But he spared his life and sent him back in peace. Therefore the Arameans besieged the city and prolonged the siege for many days, because their army occupied the whole surrounding area, so that bread began to be more and more scarce, and famine ruled. And when [the citizens] did not find the usual sustenance and food, they fell on the corpses of the dead. For the Scripture relates that there were certain mothers who decided to kill their children to assuage their hunger. And after one of them had put her son to death, when her companion in crime hid her own son (in order to save him) and broke the contract, an argument rose between them, and they both went before the judge. And they began to expound their reasons before the king, that is, Jehoram, the son of Ahab. The king, seeing that that was a harsh trial for him, was taken over by a violent rage against Elisha. For he thought [the prophet] was the cause of his disaster. Therefore he said, "Yesterday he gave abundant goods to Aramean robbers, and today has given sufficient bread to his disciples, and they are not lacking food, but he has no care for the people of his city and abandons them in their need." And he swore that on that day itself he would take revenge on Elisha for the blood of his people. But Jehoram had no right to accuse the prophet, but rather Ahab, his father, who had scorned the prophets. In fact, if he had been persuaded by their words and had killed Ben-hadad, that [king] would have never besieged Samaria and would have never thrown him into such calamities.From the symbolic point of view the atrocious famine which tortured the Samaritans for so many days and forced them to eat in such an abominable manner shows the lack of heavenly nourishment, which affected in those days all the nations of the earth. So the city of Samaria signifies the whole of humankind, and its famine represents the famine of all. But Elisha made it disappear through his prayer, as well as through the grace of Christ. The sick were fortified by his strength, and "those who were full hired themselves out for bread." This means that the apostles, announcers [of the gospel], have transmitted to the Gentiles the knowledge of salvation, and it has flowed, as Isaiah predicted, like "the waters covering the sea." In the same manner it had been decreed before God that the hungry should eat the crop of the foolish and that the thirsty should absorb his goods, as the friend of the righteous Job said. Indeed, as the Samaritans plundered the food that they had collected for the Arameans and the needs of their army and brought it into their army, so the church of the Gentiles took the holy books which were preserved in the Hebrew synagogues, and gave them for the benefit of their descendants.”

“After this there arose so fearful a famine in Samaria on the occasion of a siege by Benhadad, that one mother complained to the king of another, because she would not keep her agreement to give up her son to be eaten, as she herself had already done. Kg2 6:25 The famine became great - till an ass's head was worth eighty shekels of silver, and a quarter of a cab of dove's dung was worth five shekels. היה בּ, to become for = to be worth. The ass was an unclean animal, so that it was not lawful to eat its flesh. Moreover the head of an ass is the most inedible part of the animal. Eighty shekels were about seventy thalers (10, 10s. - Tr.), or if the Mosaic bekas were called shekels in ordinary life, thirty-five thalers (5, 5s.; see Bertheau, Zur Gesch. der Isr. p. 49). According to Thenius, a quarter of a cab is a sixth of a small Dresden measure (Msschen), not quite ten Parisian cubic inches. Five shekels: more than four thalers (twelve shillings), or more than two thalers (six shillings). The Chetbib חרייונים is to be read יונים, excrementa columbarum, for which the Keri substitues the euphemistic יונים, fluxus, profluvium columbarum. The expression may be taken literally, since dung has been known to be collected for eating in times of terrible famine (vid., Joseph. Bell. Jud. v. 13, 7); but it may also be figuratively employed to signify a very miserable kind of food, as the Arabs call the herba Alcali Arab. s̆nân, i.e., sparrow's dung, and the Germans call Asa foetida Teufelsdreck. But there is no ground for thinking of wasted chick-pease, as Bochart (Hieroz. ii. p. 582, ed. Ros.) supposes (see, on the other hand, Celsii Hierobot. ii. p. 30ff.). (Note: Clericus gives as a substantial parallel the following passage from Plutarch (Artax. c. 24): "he only killed the beasts of burden, so that the head of an ass was hardly to be bought for sixty drachmae;" and Grotius quote the statement in Plin. h. n. viii. 57, that when Casalinum was besieged by Hannibal a mouse was sold for 200 denaria.) Kg2 6:26 As the king was passing by upon the wall to conduct the defence, a woman cried to him for help; whereupon he replied: אל־יושׁעך יי, "should Jehovah not help thee, whence shall I help thee? from the threshing-floor or from the wine-press?" It is difficult to explain the אל which Ewald (355, b.) supposes to stand for אם לא. Thenius gives a simpler explanation, namely, that it is a subjective negation and the sentence hypothetical, so that the condition would be only expressed by the close connection of the two clauses (according to Ewald, 357). "From the threshing-floor or from the wine-press?" i.e., I can neither help thee with corn nor with wine, cannot procure thee either food or drink. He then asked her what her trouble was; upon which she related to him the horrible account of the slaying of her own child to appease her hunger, etc. Kg2 6:30 The king, shuddering at this horrible account, in which the curses of the law in Lev 26:29 and Deu 28:53, Deu 28:57 had been literally fulfilled, rent his clothes; and the people then saw that he wore upon his body the hairy garment of penitence and mourning, מבּית, within, i.e., beneath the upper garment, as a sign of humiliation before God, though it was indeed more an opus operatum than a true bending of the heart before God and His judgment. This is proved by his conduct in Kg2 6:31. When, for example, the complaint of the woman brought the heart-breaking distress of the city before him, he exclaimed, "God do so to me ... if the head of Elisha remain upon him to-day." Elisha had probably advised that on no condition should the city be given up, and promised that God would deliver it, if they humbled themselves before Him in sincere humility and prayed for His assistance. The king thought that he had done his part by putting on the hairy garment; and as the anticipated help had nevertheless failed to come, he flew into a rage, for which the prophet was to pay the penalty. It is true that this rage only proceeded from a momentary ebullition of passion, and quickly gave place to a better movement of his conscience. The king hastened after the messenger whom he had sent to behead Elisha, for the purpose of preventing the execution of the murderous command which he had given in the hurry of his boiling wrath (Kg2 6:32); but it proves, nevertheless, that the king was still wanting in that true repentance, which would have sprung from the recognition of the distress as a judgment inflicted by the Lord. the desperate deed, to which his violent wrath had impelled him, would have been accomplished, if the Lord had not protected His prophet and revealed to him the king's design, that he might adopt defensive measures. Kg2 6:32 The elders of the city were assembled together in Elisha's house, probably to seek for counsel and consolation; and the king sent a man before him (namely, to behead the prophet); but before the messenger arrived, the prophet told the elders of the king's intention: "See ye that this son of a murderer (Joram, by descent and disposition a genuine son of Ahab, the murderer of Naboth and the prophets) is sending to cut off my head?" and commanded them to shut the door against the messenger and to force him back at the door, because he already heard the sound of his master's feet behind him. These measures of Elisha, therefore, were not dictated by any desire to resist the lawful authorities, but were acts of prudence by which he delayed the execution of an unrighteous and murderous command which had been issued in haste, and thereby rendered a service to the king himself. - In Kg2 6:33 we have to supply from the context that the king followed close upon the messenger, who came down to Elisha while he was talking with the elders; and he (the king) would of course be admitted at once. For the subject to ויּאמר is not the messenger, but the king, as is evident from Kg2 7:2 and 2 Kings 17. The king said: "Behold the calamity from the Lord, why shall I wait still further for the Lord?" - the words of a dispairing man, in whose soul, however, there was a spark of faith still glimmering. The very utterance of his feelings to the prophet shows that he had still a weak glimmer of hope in the Lord, and wished to be strengthened and sustained by the prophet; and this strengthening he received.”