(11. ") But the king of Syria could not rest under such dishonor. He abandons his marauding system, and gathers a regular army, with which he lays siege to Samaria. The awful extremities to which the in- habitants of the place were driven need not here be re- called. Roused by an encounter with an incident more ghastly than all, and which remained without parallel in Jewish records till the unspeakable horrors of the last days of Jerusalem (Josephus, ir«?-, v, 10, 3 ; i;], 7, etc.), the king vents his wrath on the prophet, prol)ably as having, by his share in the last transac- tion (so" Josephus, A7it. ix, 4, 4), or in some other way not recorded, jirovoked the invasion ; possibh' actuated by the spite with which a weak bad man in difficulty often regards one better and stronger than himself. The king's name is not stated in tlie Bible, but there can be no doubt that Josephus is correct in givhig it as Joram ; and in keeping with this is his employment of the same oath which his mother Jezebel used on an oc- casion not dissimilar (1 Kings xix, 2), " God do so to me and more also, if the head of Elisha, the son of Sha- phat, shall stand on him this day." No sooner is the word out of the king's mouth than his emissary starts to execute the sentence. Elisha is in his house, and round him are seated the elders of Samaria, doubtless receiving some word of comfort or guidance in their sore calamity. He receives a miraculous intimation of the danger. Ere the messenger could reach the house, he said to his companions, " See how this son of a murderer (alluding to Ahab in the case of Naboth) hath sent to take away my head ! Shut the door, and keep him from entering : even now I hear the sound of his master's feet behind him (hastening to stay the result of his rash exclamation!" interprets Josephus, Ant. ix, 4, 4). As he says the words the messenger ar- rives at the door, followed immediately, as the prophet had predicted, by the king and by one of his officers, the lord on whose hand he leaned. What follows is very grapliic. The king's hereditary love of Baal burst forth, and he cries, " This evil is from Jehovah," the ancient enemy of my house : " why should I wait for Jehovah any longer ?" To this Elisha answers : "Hear the word of Jehovah" — he who has sent fam- ine can also send plenty — "to-morrow at this time shall a measure of fine fiour l)e sold for a shekel, and two measures of barley for a sliekcl, in the gate of this verj' cit}-." " This is foil j'," says the officer ; "even if Jehovah were to make windows in heaven and pour down the provisions, it could not be." " It can, it shall," replies Elisha ; " and you, you shall see it all, but shall not live even to taste it" (2 Kings vi, 24-vii, 2). The next night God caused the Sj'rians to hear the noise of chariots and horses ; and conceiving that Jehoram had hiredagainst them the kings of the Hit- tites and the king of Egypt, thev fled from before the walls of Samaria — leaving their tents filled with gold and provisions — in the utmost panic and confusion. In this waj' did God, according to the word of Elisha, miraculously deliver tlie inhabitants of Samaria from a deadly enemy without, and from sore famine within, its walls : another prediction moreover was accom- plished ; for the distrustful lord was trampled to death liy the famished people in rushing through the gate of the city to the forsaken tents of the Syrians (2 Kings vii). See Samaria.
(12.) We now go back several years to an incident connected with the lady of Shunem, at a period ante- cedent to the cure of Naaman and the transfer of his leprosy to Gehazi (v, 1, 27). Elisha had been made aware of a famine which Jehovah was about to bring upon the land for seven j'ears ; and he had warned his friend the Shunammite of it that she might provide for her safety. Accordingh' she had left Shunem with her family, and had taken refuge in the land of the Philistines, that is, in the rich corn-growing plain on the sea-coastofJudah, where, secure from want, she re- mained during the dearth. At the end of the seven
years she returned to her native place, to find that dur- ing her absence her house with the field-land attached to it — the corn-fields of the former storj' — had been ap- propriated by some other person. In Eastern coun- tries kings are (or were) accessible to the complaints of the meanest of their subjects to a degree inconceiv- able to the inhabitants of the Western world. To the king, therefore, the Shunammite had recourse, as the widow of Tekoah on a former occasion to king David (2 Sam. xiv, 4). Thus occurred one of those rare co- incidences which it is impossible not to ascribe to some- thing more than mere chance. At the very moment of the entrance of the woman and her son — clamoring, as Oriental suppliants alone clamor (pi" JJ), for her home and her land — the king was listening to a recital by Gehazi of "all the great things which Elisha had done," the crowning feat of all being that which he was then actually relating — the restoration to life of the boy of Shunem. The woman was instantly recog- nised b}' Gehazi. "Mj' lord, O king, this is the wom- an and this is her son whom Elisha restored to life." From her own mouth the king hears the repetition of the wonderful tale, and, whether from regard to Elisha, or struck by the extraordinary' coincidence, orders her land to be restored, with the value of all its produce during her absence (2 Kings viii, 1-G).