a king · noun, common masculine singular construct
Syria
אֲרָ֖ם'a.Ram
H758
Aram or Syria · proper noun, a place name
gathered
וַיִּקְבֹּ֛ץvai.yik.Botz
H6908
to grasp · conjunction + verb, qal sequential imperfect, 3rd person masculine singular
host
מַחֲנֵ֑הוּma.cha.Ne.hu
H4264
an encampment (of travellers or troops) · noun, common feminine singular construct + pronominal suffix, 3rd person masculine singular
up
וַיַּ֕עַלvai.Ya.'al
H5927
to ascend · conjunction + verb, qal sequential imperfect, 3rd person masculine singular
besieged
וַיָּ֖צַרvai.Ya.tzar
H6696
to cramp · conjunction + verb, qal sequential imperfect, 3rd person masculine singular
Samaria
שֹׁמְרֽוֹןsho.me.Ron
H8111
Shomeron · proper noun, a place name
Strong's Exhaustive Concordance (James Strong, 1890/1894), public domain; digitized by Open Scriptures (CC BY-SA). KJV word tagging: eBible.org (public domain). Original-language text, parsing and brief lexicon: STEPBible.org data from Tyndale House, Cambridge (CC BY 4.0).
Cross-references
1 Kings 20:1 And Ben-hadad the king of Syria gathered all his host together: and there were thirty and two kings with him, and horses, and chariots: and…
Deuteronomy 28:52 And he shall besiege thee in all thy gates, until thy high and fenced walls come down, wherein thou trustedst, throughout all thy land: and…
1 Kings 22:31 But the king of Syria commanded his thirty and two captains that had rule over his chariots, saying, Fight neither with small nor great, sav…
2 Kings 17:5 Then the king of Assyria came up throughout all the land, and went up to Samaria, and besieged it three years.
Ecclesiastes 9:14 There was a little city, and few men within it; and there came a great king against it, and besieged it, and built great bulwarks against it…
2 Kings 18:9 And it came to pass in the fourth year of king Hezekiah, which was the seventh year of Hoshea son of Elah king of Israel, that Shalmaneser k…
2 Kings 25:1 And it came to pass in the ninth year of his reign, in the tenth month, in the tenth day of the month, that Nebuchadnezzar king of Babylon c…
Cross-references from OpenBible.info (CC BY), in the lineage of the Treasury of Scripture Knowledge (public domain).
Commentary
Matthew Henry on 2 Kings 6:24–end
This last paragraph of this chapter should, of right, have been the first of the next chapter, for it begins a new story, which is there continued and concluded. Here is,
I. The siege which the king of Syria laid to Samaria and the great distress which the city was reduced to thereby. The Syrians had soon forgotten the kindnesses they had lately received in Samaria, and very ungratefully, for aught that appears without any provocation, sought the destruction of it, Kg2 6:24. There are base spirits that can never feel obliged. The country, we may suppose, was plundered and laid waste when this capital city was brought to the last extremity, Kg2 6:25. The dearth which had of late been in the l…
BEN-HADAD BESIEGES SAMARIA. (Kg2 6:24-33)
Ben-hadad . . . besieged Samaria--This was the predicted accomplishment of the result of Ahab's foolish and misplaced kindness (Kg1 20:42).
Adam Clarke on 2 Kings 6:23
He prepared great provision for them - These, on the return to their master, could tell him strange things about the power of the God of Israel, and the magnanimity of its king.
So the bands of Syria came no more - Marauding parties were no more permitted by the Syrian king to make inroads upon Israel. And it is very likely that for some considerable time after this, there was no war between these two nations. What is mentioned in the next verse was more than a year afterwards.
John Gill on 2 Kings 6:24
And it came to pass after this, that Benhadad king of Syria gathered all his host,.... Still retaining a grudge and enmity against Israel, and not at all softened by the kind and humane treatment his forces had met with, when in the hands of Israel; and finding he could do nothing in a secret way, by ambush, mustered all his forces together, to try what he could by open war:
and went up, and besieged Samaria; Jehoram king of Israel not being able to stop him till he came to his capital, which he laid close siege to.
The Church Fathers
"Some time later King Ben-hadad of Aram mustered his entire army; he marched against Samaria and laid siege to it." This is that Ben-hadad who had been condemned to death by God; and Ahab had received the order to execute him. But he spared his life and sent him back in peace. Therefore the Arameans besieged the city and prolonged the siege for many days, because their army occupied the whole surrounding area, so that bread began to be more and more scarce, and famine ruled. And when [the citizens] did not find the usual sustenance and food, they fell on the corpses of the dead. For the Scripture relates that there were certain mothers who decided to kill their children to assuage their hunger. And after one of them had put her son to death, when her companion in crime hid her own son (in order to save him) and broke the contract, an argument rose between them, and they both went before the judge. And they began to expound their reasons before the king, that is, Jehoram, the son of Ahab. The king, seeing that that was a harsh trial for him, was taken over by a violent rage against Elisha. For he thought [the prophet] was the cause of his disaster. Therefore he said, "Yesterday he gave abundant goods to Aramean robbers, and today has given sufficient bread to his disciples, and they are not lacking food, but he has no care for the people of his city and abandons them in their need." And he swore that on that day itself he would take revenge on Elisha for the blood of his people. But Jehoram had no right to accuse the prophet, but rather Ahab, his father, who had scorned the prophets. In fact, if he had been persuaded by their words and had killed Ben-hadad, that [king] would have never besieged Samaria and would have never thrown him into such calamities.From the symbolic point of view the atrocious famine which tortured the Samaritans for so many days and forced them to eat in such an abominable manner shows the lack of heavenly nourishment, which affected in those days all the nations of the earth. So the city of Samaria signifies the whole of humankind, and its famine represents the famine of all. But Elisha made it disappear through his prayer, as well as through the grace of Christ. The sick were fortified by his strength, and "those who were full hired themselves out for bread." This means that the apostles, announcers [of the gospel], have transmitted…
The Church Fathers: public-domain translations (Ante-Nicene and Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers), verse-indexed by SermonIndex (CC BY 4.0).
Dictionary and topics
Elisha — God his salvation, the son of Shaphat of Abel-meholah, who became the attendant and disciple of Elijah (1 Kings 19:16-19). His name first occurs in the command given to Elijah to anoint him as his…
Jehoram — Jehovah-exalted. (1.) Son of Toi, king of Hamath, sent by his father to congratulate David on the occasion of his victory over Hadadezer (2 Sam. 8:10). (2.) A Levite of the family of Gershom (1 Chr.…
Samaria · .Besieged by Ben-hadad — .Besieged by Ben-hadad
Samaria, Ancient · Samaria the capital of: Besieged again by Benhadad — Samaria the capital of: Besieged again by Benhadad
Siege · of the inhabitants during a — of the inhabitants during a
Sieges · Mentioned in scripture: Samaria — Mentioned in scripture: Samaria
Syria · Besieged Samaria again — Besieged Samaria again
Dictionary: Easton's (1897) and Smith's (1863), public domain. Topics: Nave's Topical Bible (1896) and Torrey's Topical Textbook (1897), public domain. Both as parsed by NEUU (CC BY 4.0).
Keil & Delitzsch on 2 Kings 6:24–end
After this there arose so fearful a famine in Samaria on the occasion of a siege by Benhadad, that one mother complained to the king of another, because she would not keep her agreement to give up her son to be eaten, as she herself had already done.
Kg2 6:25
The famine became great - till an ass's head was worth eighty shekels of silver, and a quarter of a cab of dove's dung was worth five shekels. היה בּ, to become for = to be worth. The ass was an unclean animal, so that it was not lawful to eat its flesh. Moreover the head of an ass is the most inedible part of the animal. Eighty shekels were about seventy thalers (10, 10s. - Tr.), or if the Mosaic bekas were called shekels in ordinary l…
So severe was this famine that normally unclean things were not only eaten but sold for an exorbitant price. Donkey meat, for example, was forbidden by the laws regarding unclean foods (Lev 11:1-7). Dove’s dung may be a variety of wild vegetable, but the consumption of dung is known from other sources describing siege conditions (Isa 36:12). The dove’s dung might also have been used for fuel.
