Would you like to read James McNaught’s novel Sinking Sand”? click here: Sinking Sand
(The view expressed in this blog are my own and should not be taken as inspired in any way.)
2 Kings 6:24–33, “And it came to pass after this, that Benhadad king of Syria gathered all his host, and went up, and besieged Samaria. And there was a great famine in Samaria: and, behold, they besieged it, until an ass’s head was sold for fourscore pieces of silver, and the fourth part of a cab of dove’s dung for five pieces of silver. And as the king of Israel was passing by upon the wall, there cried a woman unto him, saying, Help, my lord, O king. And he said, If the LORD do not help thee, whence shall I help thee? out of the barnfloor, or out of the winepress? And the king said unto her, What aileth thee? And she answered, This woman said unto me, Give thy son, that we may eat him to day, and we will eat my son to morrow. So we boiled my son, and did eat him: and I said unto her on the next day, Give thy son, that we may eat him: and she hath hid her son. And it came to pass, when the king heard the words of the woman, that he rent his clothes; and he passed by upon the wall, and the people looked, and, behold, he had sackcloth within upon his flesh. Then he said, God do so and more also to me, if the head of Elisha the son of Shaphat shall stand on him this day. But Elisha sat in his house, and the elders sat with him; and the king sent a man from before him: but ere the messenger came to him, he said to the elders, See ye how this son of a murderer hath sent to take away mine head? look, when the messenger cometh, shut the door, and hold him fast at the door: is not the sound of his master’s feet behind him? And while he yet talked with them, behold, the messenger came down unto him: and he said, Behold, this evil is of the LORD; what should I wait for the LORD any longer?”
Even though there was a period of peace, before long, Benhadad the king of Syria decided that he would attack Samaria and set a siege to the city. Every entrance and exit to Samaria were blocked and they were unable to find food as their supplies had run out. When they people in the city became really desperate they did whatever they could to get food to eat. In fact, the situation was so desperate that some people began to eat their own children. One day a woman complained to the king of Israel that she had made an arrangement with her neighbour that they would eat their children, on the first day the first woman killed her son and they ate him. When the meat had run out the second woman hid her son so that he could not be eaten. The first woman appealed to the king to force the second woman to produce her son. The king blamed Elisha because the prophet brought the Lord’s message and told Israel to return to the Lord. He should really have blamed himself because he had led Israel into sin and the prophet was innocent. Elisha knew that the king wanted to kill him but he went to remind the king that his own sin against the Lord had brought this desperate situation to Israel.
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