Глава 6

1–33. New miracles of the prophet Elisha: the emergence of an ax, the discovery by the prophet of Syrian military plans, the appearance of the heavenly army to the prophet, the defeat of the Syrians by blindness, the foresight of danger from Joram. 2 Kings 6:1. And the sons of the prophets said to Elisha: behold, the place where we live with you is too small for us; 2 Kings 6:2. Let us go to the Jordan and take from there each one one log and make ourselves a place to live there. He said: go. 2 Kings 6:3. And one said: Do me a favor, go you and your servants. And he said: I will go. 2 Kings 6:4. And he went with them, and they came to the Jordan and began to cut down the trees. 2 Kings 6:5. And when one felled a log, his ax fell into the water. And he shouted and said: Ah, my lord! and he was taken into custody! 2 Kings 6:6. And the man of God said, Where did he fall? He showed him the place. And he cut off a piece of wood and threw it there, and the ax floated up. 2 Kings 6:7. And he said: Take it for yourself. He stretched out his hand and took it. Communication began ch. VI with the end of the previous beatitude. Theodoret establishes this: “Gehazi, this lover of acquisitions, became a leper, and the host of prophets loved extreme poverty. They didn’t even have a house; they lived in huts. That's why they asked the great prophet to go with them to cut down trees to build them. And such was their poverty that they had nothing to buy their own ax with” (question 19). In terms of setting and content, this section (vv. 1–7) is directly adjacent to the story of 2 Kings 4:38–44. The miracle of the ax floating up, blessedly. Theodoret, “prefigured the economy of our Savior. For just as light wood sank and heavy iron floated up, so the descent of God’s nature accomplished the ascent of human nature.” 2 Kings 6:8. The king of Syria went to war against Israel, and consulted with his servants, saying: in such and such a place I will pitch my camp. 2 Kings 6:9. And the man of God sent to the king of Israel to say: Beware of passing through this place, for the Syrians are lying there. 2 Kings 6:10. And the king of Israel sent to the place about which the man of God had spoken to him and warned him; and saved himself there more than once or twice. 2 Kings 6:11. And the heart of the king of Syria was alarmed at this incident, and he called his servants and said to them: tell me, which of us is in relations with the king of Israel? 2 Kings 6:12. And one of his servants said, No one, my lord the king; and Elisha the prophet, who is with Israel, tells the king of Israel the words that you speak in your bedroom. 2 Kings 6:13. And he said: Go, find out where he is; I'll send and get it. And they told him and said, Behold, he is in Dophaim. 2 Kings 6:14. And he sent horses and chariots and many troops there. And they came at night and surrounded the city. 2 Kings 6:15. In the morning the servant of the man of God got up and went out; and behold, there was an army around the city, both horses and chariots. And his servant said to him: Alas! my lord, what should we do? 2 Kings 6:16. And he said: Do not be afraid, for those who are with us are greater than those who are with them. 2 Kings 6:17. And Elisha prayed and said: Lord! open his eyes so that he can see. And the Lord opened the eyes of the servant, and he saw, and behold, the whole mountain was filled with horses and chariots of fire all around Elisha. 2 Kings 6:18. When the Syrians came to him, Elisha prayed to the Lord and said: Smite them with blindness. And He struck them with blindness according to the word of Elisha. 2 Kings 6:19. And Elisha said to them, “This is not the right road and this is not the right city; follow me, and I will lead you to the person you are looking for. And he brought them to Samaria. 2 Kings 6:20. When they came to Samaria, Elisha said: Lord! open their eyes so that they can see. And the Lord opened their eyes, and they saw that they were in the middle of Samaria. 2 Kings 6:21. And the king of Israel said to Elisha, when he saw them, “Shall I slay them, my father?” 2 Kings 6:22. And he said: do not kill. Have you taken them captive with your sword and your bow to kill them? Offer them bread and water; let them eat and drink, and go to their sovereign. 2 Kings 6:23. And he prepared a great meal for them, and they ate and drank. And he released them, and they went to their sovereign. And those hordes of Syria went no more into the land of Israel. The chronological date of the armed attacks of the Syrians on the kingdom of Israel described here cannot be determined with accuracy: the unifying idea here is not a temporal sequence, but the miracle-working of the prophet Elisha. Apparently, these raids preceded the story of Naaman, where there is a mention of these raids (2 Kings 5:2); Probably, these events took place under Joram “the son of the murderer”; these words of the verse (2 Kings 6:32) could only be applied to him, and not to subsequent kings. The Prophet Elisha, possessing superhuman knowledge, uses it to discover the insidious plans of the Syrians and this incites persecution on the part of the latter (verses 9-12), directed to the residence of the prophet - Dophaim, Heb. Dotan (v. 13) is a city on the trade route from Gilead to Egypt, where Joseph was once sold (Gen. 37:17,25), north of Samaria (cf. Judith 3:6 and others). Now Tell Dotan is north of Nabulus (Onomasticon, 396. Cf. Interpretations. Bible, vol. I, p. 101). The blessed heavenly protection over Israel in the form of fiery horses and chariots, like the heavenly army that once encouraged Jacob (Gen. 32:1-2), was, through the prayer of the prophet, revealed to one of his servants (verses 15-17). Elisha miraculously blinds the Syrian detachment, then heals him again, brings him to Samaria to the king of Israel, but rejects the latter from his intention to perform a herem that was dangerous in ancient times over the Syrians (verses 19-23; cf. (1 Sam. 27:11)), ordering the Syrian soldiers to be released as captives without a fight: and if they are killed, then the miracle will not be known; and if they return healthy to the sender, then he too will know the power of our God (Blessed Theodoret, question 20). Temporary peace was achieved. 2 Kings 6:24. After this, Ben-hadad king of Syria gathered all his army and marched out and besieged Samaria. 2 Kings 6:25. And there was a great famine in Samaria when they besieged it, so that a donkey's head was sold for eighty shekels of silver, and the fourth part of a cabbage of pigeon dung for five shekels of silver. 2 Kings 6:26. One day the king of Israel walked along the wall, and a woman screamed and said to him, “Help me, my lord the king.” 2 Kings 6:27. And he said, If the Lord does not help you, how can I help you? Is it from the threshing floor, or from the grindstone? 2 Kings 6:28. And the king said to her: what do you want? And she said: this woman told me: “Give me your son, we will eat him today, and we will eat my son tomorrow.” 2 Kings 6:29. And we cooked my son and ate him. And I told her the next day: “Give me your son, and we will eat him.” But she hid her son. 2 Kings 6:30. The king, having listened to the woman’s words, tore his clothes; and he walked along the wall, and the people saw that sackcloth was on his very body. 2 Kings 6:31. And he said: May God do this and that for me, and even more, if the head of Elisha the son of Shaphat remains on him today. 2 Kings 6:32. Elisha was sitting in his house, and the elders were sitting with him. And [the king] sent a man from himself. Before the messenger came to him, he said to the elders: Do you see that this son of a murderer has sent to take my head off? Look, when the messenger comes, close the door and press him with the door. And here comes the trampling of his master’s feet behind him! 2 Kings 6:33. While he was still talking to them, a messenger came to him and said: this is the calamity from the Lord! What can I expect from the Lord from now on? Now the open war of the Syrian king against the kingdom of Israel begins. About Benhadad, see commentary on (1 Kings 15:18) and (1 Kings 20:1). During the siege of Samaria, a great famine occurred, 3 which forced the inhabitants to eat types of food prohibited by law, even pigeon droppings (used by the besieged instead of salt, Blessed Theodoret) and buy them at a high price (v. 25) Kab - 1/16 ephah (v. 25). The terrible incident (vv. 26–30), recognized by the king, although it plunged him into great sadness (verse 30), but then this feeling was replaced by the king’s unaccountable anger towards the prophet Elisha (vv. 31), and only the miraculous power of his foresight saved the prophet (vv. 31–33; sn. Blessed Theodoret, question 21–22). He advises those around the prophet to detain the royal messenger, obviously in the thought that the rash royal command should soon be canceled, which actually happened. The severe famine that took place during the siege of Samaria and was accompanied by a terrible phenomenon: the killing of a child by a mother for food, which Moses predicted, Deut. 28:53, was only a harbinger of those exorbitant horrors of hunger and death that were accompanied after the destruction of Jerusalem by Nebuchadnezzar and, finally, Titus. Josephus Josephus speaks about the latter, Jude War 5:13,7) and others. You might be interested in: