Matthew Henry on 2 Kings 7:3-11
We are here told,
I. How the siege of Samaria was raised in the evening, at the edge of night (Kg2 7:6, Kg2 7:7), not by might or power, but by the Spirit of the Lord of hosts, striking terror upon the spirits of the besiegers. Here was not a sword drawn against them, not a drop of blood shed, it was not by thunder or hailstones that they were discomfited, nor were they slain, as Sennacherib's army before Jerusalem, by a destroying angel; but, 1. The Lord made them to hear a noise of chariots and horses. The Syrians that besieged Dothan had their sight imposed upon, Kg2 6:18. These had their hearing imposed upon. For God knows how to work upon every sense, pursuant to his own counsels as he…
Read the whole note in the consoleJamieson-Fausset-Brown on 2 Kings 7:10
horses tied, and asses tied, and the tents as they were--The uniform arrangement of encampments in the East is to place the tents in the center, while the cattle are picketed all around, as an outer wall of defense; and hence the lepers describe the cattle as the first objects they saw.
Adam Clarke on 2 Kings 7:6
The Lord had made the - Syrians to hear a noise - This threw them into confusion; they imagined that they were about to be attacked by powerful auxiliaries, which the king of Israel had hired against them.
John Gill on 2 Kings 7:11
And he called the porters,.... The porter of the city called to the porters of the king's palace:
and they told it to the king's house within; to some of his domestic servants within the palace, and they reported it to the king.
Keil & Delitzsch on 2 Kings 7:8-11
When these lepers (these, pointing back to Kg2 7:3.) came into the camp which the Syrians had left, they first of all satisfied their own hunger with the provisions which they found in the tents, and then took different valuables and concealed them. But their consciences were soon aroused, so that they said: We are not doing right; this day is a day of joyful tidings: if we are silent and wait till the morning light, guilt will overtake us; "for it is the duty of citizens to make known things relating to public safety" (Grotius). They then resolved to announce the joyful event in the king's palace, and reported it to the watchman at the city gate. העיר שׁער stands as a generic term in a coll…
