2 Kings 7.1-20 tells us about a prophecy that is related to deliverance. Samaria is under siege and Elisha said that the next day flour would be sold for a shekel, and two measures of barley for a shekel in the gate of Samaria (the markets). This was a very bold statement considering they were in a famine and under siege. Now an aide to the king said that was impossible, and Elisha said it would happen, and he would see it, but not eat any of it as a punishment (v 2).
Now, four lepers were sitting at the gate (lepers cannot go into a city-Lev 13.46) and they wondered why they were just sitting there waiting to die. They thought they would just go out to the Syrians. Maybe they would be spared, but if not, they were going to die anyway just sitting around. So they left and came to the camp of the Syrians and found that everyone was gone. God caused the army of the Syrians to hear the noise of chariots and horses, so they thought a mercenary army hired by the king of Israel was coming from the Hittites or Egypt. They heard things that were not there and left the camp so fast that they left all their belongings (food, drink, silver, gold, clothes, etc).
Now the lepers thought they really had a score and began to hide the spoil but realized that what they were doing was wrong. This was a day of “basorah” or “good tidings” (and this word translated as “gospel” in English) and that they should go to Samaria and tell them the “good news” from the battlefield that, “We won!” So they went to the gatekeepers and told them the story, and the gatekeepers told the king. So the king sent some of the remaining horses with chariots to find out if all this is true, fulfilling the prophecy of Elisha, or was this a trap.
When it was found to be true, the people could not be stopped. The Syrians even threw away their belongings all the way to the Jordan because they could not get out of there fast enough. Everything Elisha said came true (v 16). The aide that doubted in 2 Kings 7.2 was trampled by the people in their frenzy, and never did eat any of the food, just as Elisha had predicted.
2 Kings 8.1-6 tells us about how the Shunamite woman listened to the advice of Elisha and how this would benefit her in the long run. These verses are eschatological and will allude to the birth-pains (tribulation) and what happens to Israel, so she is a type of Israel, the olive tree and the kahal here. Elisha, a type of God, and tells her to “arise” (Rosh Ha Shanah term) and go with her household and live in a place wherever she can go and stay there. A famine was coming that would last seven years. So she arose (like the believers will on Rosh Ha Shanah at the Natzal) and she went away.
At the end of the seven years (birth-pains) she returned to the land. She was going to appeal to the king for her house and for her field. She wanted the restoration of her inheritance. The king was told about this woman (Israel) and that her son was raised from the dead (a type of Yeshua) by Elisha. Then all that was hers was restored, and Yeshua will do the same with Israel.
In 2 Kings 8.7-15 we learn about a new king in Syria. Elisha comes to Damascus and Ben-Hadad is sick. He is told that Elisha has come there, and the king told Hazael (“God has seen”), the general of his army, to take a gift to Elisha and ask him if he would recover from his illness. So Hazael went and came before Elisha and said, “Your son (in respect, as if the king was a student of Elisha) Ben-Hadad, king of Syria, has sent me to you saying, ‘Will I recover from this sickness?'” Elisha told him that he would, but that the Lord showed him that he would certainly die, and he will by a violent death through Hazael. Then Elisha looked at Hazael and started to weep because he saw all the evil that he would do to the sons of Israel (2 Kings 10.32-33, 12.17, 13.3-7; Amos 1.3). Of course Hazael was insulted, but God knows our actions before we even do them.
In 2 Kings 8.14-15 it tells us about the assassination of Ben-Hadad. Hazael told the king he would recover, but on the next day Hazael took a thick cloth and soaked it in much water. He put it over Ben-Hadad’s face so the water went into Ben-Hadad’s nostrils and it suffocated him, leaving no marks. This is a case of ancient “water boarding.” Now Hazael was king.
2 Kings 8.16-24 tells us about two new kings in Judah. Jehoshaphat has ended his 25 year reign and is succeeded by his son Yehoram (not the Yehoram of Israel in 2 Kings 3). He was an idolatrous king and he made Judah sin (2 Chr 21.11). He married the daughter of Ahab and Jezebel named Athaliah. However, God withheld judgment against Judah for the sake of David (v 19).
Edom revolted against Judah and made a king for themselves after 150 years of paying tribute. So Yehoram struck the Edomites and won a great victory, but Libnah, a Levitical city, in his own kingdom revolted because of his idolatry. Yehoram dies, but there is no big state funeral because he was hated (2 Chr 21.19). Ahaziah took his place (2 Chr 22.2) and he reigned for one year. His grandmother was Athaliah (more on her later) and he was as idolatrous as Ahab and Jezebel. He went with his uncle Yehoram to war against Hazael of Syria and they wounded Yehoram, like they did his father Ahab, but he came back and healed up. Then Ahaziah the son of Yehoram went to see Yehoram the son of Ahab because he was sick.
2 Kings 9.1-37 begins to tell us about the truth of divine government and God’s gentle guidance being replaced by judgment. Elisha calls one of the young prophets and tells him to take a flask of oil and go anoint Yehu, the son of Yehoshaphat, as king of Israel. Elisha was going to do it earlier but it was deferred until now (1 Kings 19.16). At the time, Yehoram was still king in Israel. The dynasty of Omri was coming to an end now.
Yehu was the commander of the army of Israel and was prophesied to overthrow Omri and Ahab (1 Kings 19.16-18). Like David, Yehu was not going to take the throne right way after he was anointed. Yehu will be a type of the Messiah who will wake war on and destroy the house of Ha Satan and the False Messiah, who made war on the tzadikim (saints) like Ahab did (v 7-8). Yehovah will destroy the whole house of Ahab, a type of Ha Satan and the False Messiah. Those around Yehu thought the prophet was a madman (what unbelievers always think about true believers). But Yehu was made king and he brings judgment on the house of Ahab.
In 2 Kings 9.14-20 Yehu begins to bring God’s judgment, like Yeshua will after he is anointed in heaven on Rosh Ha Shanah, year 6001 from creation (Rev 4-5). Yehu approaches Jezreel, where Yehoram was, to depose him. Yehu kills him and in 2 Kings 9.21-24 he casts his body on the property of Naboth, the land that Ahab and Jezebel had stolen after murdering him. Yehu sees himself as fulfilling God’s will. Likewise, Yeshua will come and kill the False Messiah on Yom Kippur and cast his body into the Lake of Fire.
Yehu also kills Ahaziah, king of Judah (2 Kings 9.27-29-related to Ahab on his mother’s side) but he did not have a specific command from God to do this, but it is believed that he was led by the Lord because Ahaziah was related to Ahab on his mother’s side.
2 Kings 9.30-37 then tells us that Jezebel was killed in fulfillment of the prophecy about her in 1 Kings 21.23. As Yehu approached her, she looks out a window and calls him “Zimri” in v 31. Now, Zimri killed King Baasha of Israel and this was her way of calling him a traitor and despicable, or a “deplorable.” Yehu asks, “Who is my side?” And two or three officers looked down to him from the window. He tells them to “Throw her down” so they threw her down out of her own window, and she was trampled down under foot by Yehu. Her blood was sprinkled everywhere because she spilled the blood of others.
They couldn’t even bury her because all that was left was her skull, feet and palms. The dogs ate her flesh and this fulfilled the words of Elijah. Yehu said that the corpse of Jezebel “shall be as dung on the face of the field in the property of Jezreel, so they cannot say, ‘This is Jezebel (v 37).'” She would be as “dung” because the dogs ate her and her flesh passed through the bowels of the dogs onto the field. However, the house of Yehu also became corrupt (Hos 1.4).
We will pick up here in Part 7.
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