A time of great trouble had come to the land of Israel. Ben-hadad, the king of Syria, had led his great army into the land and had camped around the walls of Samaria, where Jehoram lived. Day after day he waited outside the walls for the people of that city to open the gate and let him come in to capture them and their King. But the people were afraid to open the gates.
Ben-hadad knew that if he waited long enough the people of Samaria would starve for food, because they had no way to bring food inside the city. He believed they would then be willing to open the gate. So he built a nice camp and made ready to stay there for many days. And while he waited, sure enough the food-supply grew less and less inside the city walls, and the people began to get very hungry. They were willing to pay great sums of money for only a handful of food, and finally they could find nothing to eat except the flesh of horses and donkeys.
One day while King Jehoram was walking about through the streets of Samaria he learned that his people were even killing and eating their own children. He was terrified, and he tore his clothes and dressed himself in sackcloth. Then he said, “Elisha, the prophet, is to blame for this famine, and I am going to kill him.” Instead of appreciating the good prophet who had helped him many times before, the King blamed Elisha for allowing this trouble to come upon Israel. Yet it was his own sins and the sins of his people that had brought about this trouble.
Elisha knew that Jehoram was sending a man to take him and cut off his head. But he told his friends to stop the man at the door and wait until the King himself should come. And soon Jehoram came, leaning upon the arm of an officer. Elisha spoke boldly to him, and said, “Tomorrow about this time there shall be food for the hungry people in this city, and the food will be sold in the gate of the city for a small sum of money.” The officer who came with the King did not believe Elisha’s words. He said, “If the Lord would make windows in heaven, could this thing be true?” Elisha replied that the officer should see with his eyes, but he should not eat any of the food. And then the King decided to let Elisha live at least one more day, to see if his words would come true.
That very evening four lepers came to the gate of Samaria and sat down. They were very tired and hungry. Although these men were Israelites they had not been allowed to live among their own people, because they were lepers. Now they wondered what to do. They knew of the famine inside the city walls, so they decided to go out to the camp of Ben-hadad and give themselves up for prisoners. But when they came to the camp they found no one in sight. Every tent was empty.’ On and on they went, from one tent to another, but they did not see a Syrian anywhere. They found much food, and ate greed-ily of it. Then they began to gather the treasures of gold and silver and rich garments, which the Syrians had left in the camp, intending to hide them in a safe place.
Finally the lepers thought of the starving people in Samaria, and they said to each other, “We do wrong when we fail to report to the people what we have found in this camp.” So they hurried to the city gate and told the gatekeeper about the good news. And soon the lepers’ message was being told in every part of the city.
Now, God had caused the Syrians and their King to hear a strange noise, which sounded like a strong army coming upon them through the darkness, and they feared that Jehoram had sent for the kings of other countries to come and drive them away. They were not prepared to meet and fight a strong army, and they did not want to be defeated. So they left their tents and their food and everything in the camp, and ran on foot toward their homeland. As they ran they dropped the treasures that they had tried to carry back to their own country, and the road was strewn With rich garments and empty vessels. As soon as King Jehoram heard what the lepers had found in the camp, he rose up in the night and sent servants to search in the country for the missing army. He thought that Ben-hadad and his soldiers were only hiding somewhere near by, waiting for the starving people to crowd out of the city in search of food. But the servants soon returned, and told the King that they had found no trace of Ben-liadad’s army anywhere. They told him how the road was strewn with garments and vessels, just as if the enemy had run away in great haste.
On the next day Elisha’s words came true, for the people gathered much food from the empty tents of the Syrians and brought it to the gate of the city to be sold. And Jehoram told the officer on whose arm he had leaned, to sit in the gate and have charge of the people as they came and went; but the officer could not control them, for they were so hungry that they crowded like starving animals, and they pushed him down and trampled over him until he died. Perhaps before he died he remembered that Elisha had said, “Your eyes shall see the food, but you shall not eat of it.”