Commentary - 2 Kings 6:32-33

Bird's-eye view

In this brief but potent scene, we are dropped into the middle of a catastrophic famine in Samaria, a direct consequence of the nation's covenant unfaithfulness. The political leadership, represented by the king, has reached the absolute end of its rope. Having been confronted with the horrific reality of cannibalism within the city walls, the king's response is not repentance toward God but murderous rage directed at God's prophet, Elisha. The passage masterfully contrasts the prophet's supernatural calm and foresight with the king's frantic, blame-shifting despair. Elisha, sitting with the elders, operates with divine intelligence, fully aware of the king's intentions before they unfold. The king's final outburst is a textbook case of impenitent suffering; he correctly identifies the ultimate source of the calamity, Yahweh, but draws the entirely wrong conclusion. Instead of waiting on the Lord in faith, he renounces his hope, demonstrating a heart that has been hardened, not softened, by God's severe providence. This moment serves as a critical pivot, setting the stage for God's dramatic and unexpected deliverance in the following chapter, a deliverance that will come in spite of, not because of, Israel's leadership.

The core of this passage is the collision of two worldviews in a pressure cooker. On the one hand, you have the man of God, who sees the world as it truly is, governed by the sovereign hand of God, and who therefore has access to information and a stability that the world cannot understand. On the other, you have the man of the world, who, when his own power fails and circumstances overwhelm him, can only lash out at the nearest available target, which in this case is God's representative. The king's final words are the cry of a man who hates God's providence because he will not submit to God's authority.

Outline

Context In 2 Kings

This passage occurs deep within the Elisha narratives, a section of 2 Kings that demonstrates Yahweh's power and authority through His prophet in the midst of Israel's pervasive apostasy. The northern kingdom is ruled by Jehoram, a son of the notorious Ahab and Jezebel. While he made some token reforms (2 Kings 3:2), he largely continued in the idolatrous ways of his father. The immediate context is the devastating siege of Samaria by Ben-hadad of Syria. This siege has brought about the very curses for covenant-breaking that Moses warned of centuries earlier in Deuteronomy 28, specifically the horror of parents eating their own children (Deut 28:53-57). Just before our text, the king is confronted by a woman whose child has been eaten as part of a ghastly pact (2 Kings 6:26-29). This encounter shatters his composure and, instead of leading him to national repentance, it incites him to blame Elisha, the man of God, for the disaster. This sets up the confrontation in our passage, which in turn serves as the dark backdrop for the stunning announcement of God's miraculous deliverance in chapter 7.

Key Issues

The Blame Game at the Bottom of the Barrel

When a man's world collapses, his true theology comes out. The king of Israel is at the bottom of the barrel. His capital is starving, his people are resorting to cannibalism, and his military is useless. The covenant curses are raining down in buckets. And in this moment of ultimate crisis, what does he do? He looks for someone to kill. Specifically, he wants to kill the one man who is actually in touch with the God who is orchestrating all these events.

This is the primordial instinct of fallen man, going all the way back to the Garden. When God confronted Adam, Adam blamed the woman, and by extension, the God who gave him the woman. "The woman whom you gave to be with me..." (Gen 3:12). The king of Israel does the same thing, just with more violence. He correctly ascertains that "this evil is from Yahweh" (v. 33). This is a moment of stunning theological clarity. He is not a modernist; he doesn't believe in bad luck or impersonal historical forces. He knows God is behind this. But because his heart is unregenerate, this correct premise leads to a wicked conclusion. Instead of saying, "This evil is from Yahweh, therefore I must repent," he says, "This evil is from Yahweh, therefore I am done with Yahweh." And because he cannot get his hands on God, he sends an assassin for God's prophet. When men are cornered by the consequences of their own sin, they do not hate their sin. They hate the God who holds them accountable for it.

Verse by Verse Commentary

32 Now Elisha was sitting in his house, and the elders were sitting with him. And the king sent a man from his presence; but before the messenger came to him, he said to the elders, “Do you see how this son of a murderer has sent to take away my head? Look, when the messenger comes, shut the door and hold the door shut against him. Is not the sound of his master’s feet behind him?”

The scene opens with a picture of perfect prophetic tranquility amidst civic chaos. Elisha is not pacing the walls or trying to rally the troops. He is sitting, at home, with the elders. This is a picture of authority and stability. While the king is falling apart, the true leadership of Israel is calmly gathered around the man of God. God grants a supernatural peace to those who trust in Him, even when the world outside is burning. Elisha's knowledge of the king's plan is not the fruit of a good intelligence network; it is a direct revelation from God. He knows a messenger has been dispatched, and he knows the man's purpose: assassination.

Elisha's description of the king is brutally blunt: this son of a murderer. This is not casual name-calling. It is a precise theological and covenantal indictment. He is identifying King Jehoram with the bloody legacy of his father, Ahab, who murdered Naboth for his vineyard and slaughtered the prophets of the Lord. Sins run in families, and they certainly run in dynasties. Jehoram is proving himself to be a chip off the old block, resorting to murder when faced with a problem he cannot solve. Elisha's instructions are practical and confident. He tells the elders to act as bouncers, to bar the door against the hitman. He knows the king's resolve is weak and that the king himself is following close behind, likely torn between his murderous rage and a desperate, last-ditch hope that the prophet might have a solution. The prophet sees the whole affair, not just the immediate threat, but the wavering, conflicted heart of the king behind it.

33 While he was still speaking with them, behold, the messenger came down to him and he said, “Behold, this evil is from Yahweh; why should I wait for Yahweh any longer?”

Just as the prophet foretold, the royal goon arrives. The text is slightly ambiguous as to who speaks the final words. It could be the messenger speaking on the king's behalf, or it could be the king himself, having pushed past his messenger at the door. The latter seems more likely given the personal nature of the outcry. The statement itself is a marvel of right theology married to a wicked heart. "Behold, this evil is from Yahweh." He gets it. This isn't Ben-hadad's fault. This isn't a supply chain issue. This is the hand of God in judgment. He sees the First Cause behind the secondary causes. This is a far more orthodox statement than you would get from many pulpits today.

But this correct doctrine, in an unrepentant heart, curdles into blasphemous despair. "Why should I wait for Yahweh any longer?" This is the language of a spiritual divorce. He is saying, "I have given your religion a try. I have tolerated your prophet. And the result is cannibalism. I am done. Waiting on God is for fools." He sees God's heavy hand not as a call to repentance but as a sign of malevolence. His suffering has not driven him to God, but from Him. He has mistaken a divine chastisement for a divine abandonment, and his response is to abandon God in turn. This is the ultimate spiritual dead-end, and it is precisely this kind of hopelessness that the gospel is designed to answer.

Application

We are all tempted to be King Jehoram. When God's providence in our lives becomes painful, when the business fails, when the diagnosis comes back, when the relationship breaks, our first, fallen instinct is to find someone to blame. And if we are theologically astute, we know that the buck ultimately stops with God. He is sovereign over all these things. At that point, we stand at the same crossroads as the king of Israel. Will we say, "This hardship is from the Lord, therefore I will humble myself, repent of my sin, and trust His good purposes, even though I cannot see them"? Or will we say, "This hardship is from the Lord, and I want nothing to do with a God who treats me this way"?

The difference between those two responses is the gospel. The king saw God's hand as the hand of a cosmic tyrant. Through Christ, we know that the hand that disciplines us is the same hand that was pierced for us. The Father who brings hardship into our lives is the same Father who did not spare His own Son for us. Therefore, we can know that even the most grievous trial is intended for our good, to strip away our idols and drive us to a deeper reliance upon Him. The king despaired because he had no hope of deliverance. We have the sure hope of deliverance, not from all suffering in this life, but from the ultimate curse of sin and death. Our hope is not that God will make our circumstances easy, but that He will make us holy through them. Unlike the king, we have every reason to wait for Yahweh, because He has already shown us the glorious end of the story in the resurrection of His Son.