Samaria’s siege gives way to unexpected food
Divided Kingdom · Draft · BSB
Content revision: 24faa26a76122e71 · No editorial review date recorded
Date: Israel · Ben-hadad’s siege during Elisha’s ministry
Ben-hadad besieges Samaria, causing a famine so severe that the account reports the killing and eating of a child. The king blames Elisha, who announces relief. Four men with skin disease discover the enemy camp abandoned, share the news and help the city find food; the skeptical officer dies in the rush at the gate.
The text attributes the Aramean flight to a sound the LORD causes them to hear. The four excluded men become messengers to the city. The relief should be read alongside the famine’s horror and the officer’s death, rather than as an uncomplicated story of abundance.
Primary Scripture
6:24 Some time later, Ben-hadad king of Aram assembled his entire army and marched up to besiege Samaria.
6:25 So there was a great famine in Samaria. Indeed, they besieged the city so long that a donkey’s head sold for eighty shekels of silver, and a quarter cab of dove’s dung sold for five shekels of silver.
6:26 As the king of Israel was passing by on the wall, a woman cried out to him, “Help me, my lord the king!”
6:27 He answered, “If the LORD does not help you, where can I find help for you? From the threshing floor or the winepress?”
6:28 Then the king asked her, “What is the matter?” And she answered, “This woman said to me, ‘Give up your son, that we may eat him, and tomorrow we will eat my son.’
6:29 So we boiled my son and ate him, and the next day I said to her, ‘Give up your son, that we may eat him.’ But she had hidden her son.”
6:30 When the king heard the words of the woman, he tore his clothes. And as he passed by on the wall, the people saw the sackcloth under his clothes next to his skin.
6:31 He announced, “May God punish me, and ever so severely, if the head of Elisha son of Shaphat remains on his shoulders through this day!”
6:32 Now Elisha was sitting in his house, and the elders were sitting with him. The king sent a messenger ahead, but before he arrived, Elisha said to the elders, “Do you see how this murderer has sent someone to cut off my head? Look, when the messenger comes, shut the door to keep him out. Is not the sound of his master’s footsteps behind him?”
6:33 While Elisha was still speaking with them, the messenger came down to him. And the king said, “This calamity is from the LORD. Why should I wait for the LORD any longer?”
7:1 Then Elisha said, “Hear the word of the LORD! This is what the LORD says: ‘About this time tomorrow at the gate of Samaria, a seah of fine flour will sell for a shekel, and two seahs of barley will sell for a shekel.’”
7:2 But the officer on whose arm the king leaned answered the man of God, “Look, even if the LORD were to make windows in heaven, could this really happen?” “You will see it with your own eyes,” replied Elisha, “but you will not eat any of it.”
7:3 Now there were four men with leprosy at the entrance of the city gate, and they said to one another, “Why just sit here until we die?
7:4 If we say, ‘Let us go into the city,’ we will die there from the famine in the city; but if we sit here, we will also die. So come now, let us go over to the camp of the Arameans. If they let us live, we will live; if they kill us, we will die.”
7:5 So they arose at twilight and went to the camp of the Arameans. But when they came to the outskirts of the camp, there was not a man to be found.
7:6 For the Lord had caused the Arameans to hear the sound of chariots, horses, and a great army, so that they said to one another, “Look, the king of Israel must have hired the kings of the Hittites and Egyptians to attack us.”
7:7 Thus the Arameans had arisen and fled at twilight, abandoning their tents and horses and donkeys. The camp was intact, and they had run for their lives.
7:8 When the lepers reached the edge of the camp, they went into a tent to eat and drink. Then they carried off the silver, gold, and clothing, and went and hid them. On returning, they entered another tent, carried off some items from there, and hid them.
7:9 Finally, they said to one another, “We are not doing what is right. Today is a day of good news. If we are silent and wait until morning light, our sin will overtake us. Now, therefore, let us go and tell the king’s household.”
7:10 So they went and called out to the gatekeepers of the city, saying, “We went to the Aramean camp and no one was there—not a trace—only tethered horses and donkeys, and the tents were intact.”
7:11 The gatekeepers shouted the news, and it was reported to the king’s household.
7:12 So the king got up in the night and said to his servants, “Let me tell you what the Arameans have done to us. They know we are starving, so they have left the camp to hide in the field, thinking, ‘When they come out of the city, we will take them alive and enter the city.’”
7:13 But one of his servants replied, “Please, have scouts take five of the horses that remain in the city. Their plight will be no worse than all the Israelites who are left here. You can see that all the Israelites here are doomed. So let us send them and find out.”
7:14 Then the scouts took two chariots with horses, and the king sent them after the Aramean army, saying, “Go and see.”
7:15 And they tracked them as far as the Jordan, and indeed, the whole way was littered with the clothing and equipment the Arameans had thrown off in haste. So the scouts returned and told the king.
7:16 Then the people went out and plundered the camp of the Arameans. It was then that a seah of fine flour sold for a shekel, and two seahs of barley sold for a shekel, according to the word of the LORD.
7:17 Now the king had appointed the officer on whose arm he leaned to be in charge of the gate, but the people trampled him in the gateway, and he died, just as the man of God had foretold when the king had come to him.
7:18 It happened just as the man of God had told the king: “About this time tomorrow at the gate of Samaria, two seahs of barley will sell for a shekel, and a seah of fine flour will sell for a shekel.”
7:19 And the officer had answered the man of God, “Look, even if the LORD were to make windows in heaven, could this really happen?” So Elisha had replied, “You will see it with your own eyes, but you will not eat any of it!”
7:20 And that is just what happened to him. The people trampled him in the gateway, and he died.
Related Scripture
Deuteronomy 28:52–57 · teaching
Moses’ siege warning supplies a sobering context for the desperate conditions described here.
Location evidence
Samaria is identified, but the precise siege camp, the men’s shelter and the gate in this episode are not established.
Event map marker: Identified site; [longitude, latitude] = [35.195, 32.276111]. This is a teaching marker, not an exact event venue.
Samaria: Identified site. Coordinates [longitude, latitude]: [35.195, 32.276111]. Classification source: editorial.
OpenBible.info: Samaria (CC BY 4.0)
OpenBible.info: Samaria (CC BY 4.0)
For the class
What moves the four men from keeping the discovery to themselves to sharing it?
Interpretation and reuse
Narrative order is a reading arrangement, not a proven chronology. Dates retain their stated uncertainty. An identified locality does not establish the exact venue or prove an event. Region extents and routes are illustrative, not surveyed boundaries or ancient roads. Draft material has not completed editorial review.
Record source: editorial (content/authored/divided-kingdom.json)
Place coordinates from OpenBible.info Bible Geocoding Data, CC BY 4.0.
Teaching stops, summaries and regional extents are original editorial content of this atlas.
Berean Standard Bible (BSB), public domain. https://berean.bible/licensing.htm