Sieges have always been used by mankind to starve and eventually destroy the resolve of those being sieged. The Bible has a number of references to cities in Israel being sieged - and one of them is the town of Samaria. Let’s take a look at the verses before us this evening and again see how God took care of His man of God, Elisha the prophet.

2. Thus, the same people who had feed the Syrian soldiers were now surrounded by possibly many of these same men whose goal now was to starve the same people who had fed them. This is a good case of the mouth biting the hand that fed it. The king of Syria seems to have been obsessed with defeating Israel, and thus the God of Israel. In reality he was really only a glutton for punishment. He soon forgot all that God had already done to help him see that He was real and that the gods of Syria were false. He had “forgotten” how his able general, Naaman, had been healed by the God of Israel of leprosy. He had “forgotten” that the God of Israel had blinded his soldiers when they came to arrest the prophet Elisha. He had “forgotten” how this same Elisha showed mercy to his soldiers, fed them, and sent them back to their wives and children unharmed. He just didn’t seem to get it, just like many today quickly forget how God has worked in some sovereign way in their life, but with time forget and return to their old ways.

3. As the text implies in verse 32, Elisha is also “caught” in the web of his besieging Samaria. He didn’t get him the last time he surrounded a city, but this time it would appear that he might just get his hands on the prophet.

4. Those who forsake God are capable of the most wicked and horrible actions against their fellow man.

5. What about the people he was besieging? They were not innocent either. They, like their king, had for the most part departed from worshipping Jehovah to worshipping Baal. They had front row seats to the miracle of all those Syrian soldiers being blind and then receiving their sight again. Did that transform their thinking about Jehovah? For some, maybe, but for most of them they responded just like the King of Syria.

6. As God’s people they were experiencing His chastisement of them for not walking faithfully in His ways. They were experiencing the judgments that God promised in Deuteronomy 28-30.

1. The verse tells us that a great famine existed in the city. Often we see the word “famine” used in the context of a drought, as in the days of the prophet Elijah when a three year drought took place. This results in all living plants dying or nearly dying because of the lack of water. Food becomes scarce for everyone in the affected region. When we get to chapter 8 we find that just such a famine was coming upon the land for seven years.

2. The difference here is that the famine was isolated to just the city of Samaria. The Syrian soldiers outside the walls of Samaria had plenty to eat as is seen in 2 Kings 7. There was plenty of rain for the crops to be growing outside the city walls but nobody to access them. Of course, this is what the Syrians wanted to see happen.

3. This verse gives us several examples of how bad things had become for the inhabitants of the town of Samaria. First, a donkey’s head, with little meat on it, sold for 80 pieces of silver, or about 2 pounds worth of silver. According to the Old Testament law, a donkey was an unclean animal and was not to be eaten under any conditions (see Lev. 11:2-7; Deut. 14:4-8), but the famine was so bad that they not only ignored the laws of uncleanness, but the least edible part of a donkey became very costly. This implies that everything else that was considered clean had already been eaten.

4. Second, the text tells us that the fourth part of a cab of dove’s dung sold for 5 pieces of silver, or about 2 ounces of silver. It is hard to imagine people paying top dollar for bird dung so they could eat it. The bird was able to fly outside the city and eat grain and seeds that were not available to the people, so their dung would have had traces of these items. Ladies, can you imagine sharing recipes with your neighbors on how best to serve dove dung to your family? It really isn’t funny when you think about the horrible conditions starvation bring upon people.

5. If you think this is bad it gets worse, and even this was predicted and promised by God centuries before.

6. When people today forsake God for the crumbs this world holds out to them, they too find themselves spiritually partaking of that which nothing but garbage and refuse. It is amazing what people consumed by the passions of their lusts will spend their money on, even going in debt over. For what? Disease, desperation, despair, and death. They refuse to come to the feast prepared by our Savior so they eat the food of the swine.

3. When the woman asks him to help her with some food to eat he simply and bluntly tells her that he does not have anything to give her, and that God alone would be able to help her, if He would. As we will see next week, He would.

1. Upon hearing this horrible and disturbing news from this starving and grieving woman, King Jehoram rent his clothes and revealed to those who saw him that he was wearing sackcloth under his clothes.

2. As seen elsewhere in the Word of God, sackcloth was worn as a sign of humility and grief. It was rough to the skin, and was a reminder to the wearer that they needed to remain humble before God. It would appear that Jehoram was attempting to do just that. Maybe he was coming around to his need to obey and walk with God, but his actions in the next few verses seems to throw cold water on that. People, when humbled, will often feel the need to act in a penitential manner with the hopes that God will look upon them and have mercy. They are very real about what they are doing, but they also never turn to God and repent. God’s people often do the same thing - coming to church when things are rough and perceive their need of God, but slipping in that commitment when things begin to get better.

3. It would appear, from the last verse, that Jehoram and Elisha had been in communication with one another during this siege. Elisha most likely encouraged Jehoram to repent and to wait on the LORD to deliver them. He may very well have been giving heed and thought to these things told him by Elisha, thus the sackcloth being worn.

1. We are not told in the text why king Jehoram thought Elisha was to blame for the horrible siege currently taking place in Samaria. Maybe he was upset with him for not doing some miraculous deed to stop what was happening. Maybe he blamed him for not letting him kill the Syrians when he had them trapped in this very city. Now they have come back to kill them all.

2. Instead of repenting of his own sin of idolatry and ending it right there and then, he makes Elisha the scapegoat for all his and other’s problems. His solution is to behead Elisha, as if that is going to help matters. Just as we saw this past Sunday in Matthew 14 when Herod had John the Baptist beheaded because he didn’t like what he told him and Herodius. Beheading John didn’t solve the problem of his conscience, it only made things worse for him.

3. People still lash out at God and God’s people when things are going wrong. They blame God for all their problems and take it out on people they know are Christians, like loved ones. This is senseless since they are not willing to face the real problem, themselves and their sin. Jehoram was the same.

III. A Delivered Prophet - 6:32,33

A. The king’s mandate revealed - 6:32

1. After the number of times that Elisha had told King Jehoram about the plans of the king of Syria and what the king of Syria said in his bedroom, you would think that it would cross his mind that Elisha would be notified by God when he too wished to get rid of Elisha.

2. Elisha tells all those assembled in his home what is about to happen, and that Jehoram will arrive right behind the man he sent to execute him. He tells them to hold the door shut until Jehoram arrives. Of course, it all happened in that manner.

3. Elisha calls king Jehoram “this son of a murderer”. Who was Jehoram’s father? King Ahab, the king whom Elijah had dealings with on many occasions; the king who put into action the murderous plans and schemes of his wicked wife Jezebel; the king that sought to put to death all the prophets of God.

1. Apparently after giving the command to kill Elisha, and the executioner leaving to do so, king Jehoram had a change of mind about what he wanted done to Elisha. This is why Elisha says at the end of verse 32 - “is not the sound of his master’s feet behind him?”

2. The wording of verse 33 can be alittle confusing, but I believe the last statement of the verse is uttered by king Jehoram, not the executioner sent to kill Elisha.

3. King Jehoram openly admits that he knows this horrible siege has been sent by God. It is hard to tell if he says this with an attitude of admitting his own wrong in all this, or his disdain toward God that He could be a God that would allow such things to happen. I lean toward that idea. People are still quick to blame God instead of themselves when terrible things happen. Why did God let the terrorists of 9/11/2001 do what they did? Why didn’t God stop Katrina from hitting us so hard and killing so many people? Why did God allow a tsunami to kill so many people the day after Christmas 2004?

4. From his words, it appears, as I said earlier, that he and Elisha had spoken about what was happening and Elisha had encouraged him to wait on the LORD. Jehoram’s hopeless words here indicate that he does not believe God will come through for them so why not just give up and die in battle against the Syrians.