Bird's-eye view
In this brief but potent passage, we are dropped into the middle of a scene of absolute desperation. The city of Samaria is under siege, and the consequences are horrific, as we know from the end of the previous chapter. Cannibalism is on the table. The king is frantic and faithless, blaming God and His prophet. And it is into this black hole of human misery and unbelief that God speaks a stunning word of promise through Elisha. The central issue here is the collision of God's sure and certain word with man's cynical, sight-based unbelief. God makes a promise that seems utterly disconnected from the miserable reality on the ground, and we immediately see two responses: the faith of the prophet who speaks the word, and the scorn of the official who hears it. This passage sets the stage for the dramatic deliverance to follow, and serves as a stark lesson on the nature of divine promises and the fatal consequences of scoffing at them.
The core theme is simple: God's word creates reality out of nothing. It does not predict a future based on current trends; it invades the present and overturns it. The royal officer's sin was not a simple failure of imagination. It was a failure of faith. He looked at the circumstances, did the math, and concluded that God was boxed in. Elisha's prophecy and his subsequent rebuke of the officer establish the central conflict of the chapter: will the people of God believe His promise of gracious provision, or will they trust their own miserable senses and perish?
Outline
- 1. The Impossible Promise (v. 1)
- a. The Command to Hear (v. 1a)
- b. The Specifics of Grace (v. 1b)
- c. The Place of Provision (v. 1c)
- 2. The Scornful Reply (v. 2)
- a. The Voice of Earthly Authority (v. 2a)
- b. The Logic of Unbelief (v. 2b)
- c. The Prophecy of Judgment (v. 2c)
Context In 2 Kings
This passage is the pivot point in the story of the Syrian siege of Samaria. The preceding verses (2 Kings 6:24-33) paint a grim picture of a city starved into utter depravity. The king of Israel, Jehoram, has hit rock bottom. He has just heard a mother's ghastly story of cannibalistic pacts gone wrong, and in his grief and rage, he blames Elisha and, by extension, Yahweh Himself. He vows to kill the prophet, demonstrating the classic response of a faithless ruler: when God's chastisement comes, blame the one who brings God's word. So, when Elisha speaks in 7:1, he is not speaking into a neutral or receptive environment. He is speaking to a king who wants his head and a populace that has abandoned all hope. This context of extreme desperation is crucial. God's promise is not a gentle encouragement in a time of mild difficulty; it is a thunderclap of grace in a world that looks like hell itself.
Key Issues
- The Nature of Prophetic Promises
- The Folly of Pragmatic Unbelief
- God's Word vs. Human Experience
- Judgment as a Consequence of Unbelief
- Key Word Study: Seah, "a measure"
- Key Word Study: Shekel, "a weight, a coin"
Verse by Verse Commentary
1 Then Elisha said, “Listen to the word of Yahweh; thus says Yahweh, ‘About this time tomorrow a seah of fine flour will be sold for a shekel, and two seahs of barley for a shekel, in the gate of Samaria.’ ”
Elisha begins by demanding their attention. "Listen to the word of Yahweh." This is not a suggestion, not a political strategy, not a hopeful projection. This is a command to hear a direct, authoritative word from the sovereign God. In the midst of the noise of growling stomachs and the king's murderous threats, the prophet insists that another reality, the ultimate reality, be heard. God is about to speak. Everything is about to change.
And what God says is utterly preposterous from a human point of view. He gives a specific time frame: "About this time tomorrow." This is not a vague "someday." This pins God down. The miracle will happen within twenty-four hours, or Elisha is a false prophet and the king is justified in taking his head. This is the nature of true prophecy; it is falsifiable. It puts God's reputation on the line.
The content of the promise is economic deliverance. A seah of fine flour for a shekel, and two seahs of barley for a shekel. A seah was about seven quarts, and a shekel was a standard weight of silver. The point is not just that food would be available, but that the market would be so flooded with it that the prices would crash to normal, peacetime levels. This was not a promise of a small relief package. This was a promise of total, overwhelming, economy-altering deliverance. And it would happen "in the gate of Samaria," the very place of public commerce and civic life that was currently a scene of starvation and death. God promises to restore normalcy and abundance right where the crisis was most visible.
2 And the royal officer on whose hand the king was leaning answered the man of God and said, “Behold, if Yahweh should make windows in heaven, could this thing be?” Then he said, “Behold, you will see it with your own eyes, but you will not eat of it.”
Here we meet the voice of sophisticated, respectable unbelief. This is not some random heckler in the crowd. This is a high-ranking official, the king's right-hand man, the one "on whose hand the king was leaning." He represents the pinnacle of the establishment's wisdom. He is a pragmatist. He looks at the city walls, the besieging army, the empty larders, and he scoffs.
His response, "Behold, if Yahweh should make windows in heaven, could this thing be?" is dripping with contempt. He is not asking a sincere question. He is mocking the prophet. He is saying that even if God performed an unheard-of miracle, like cutting holes in the sky to pour down grain, a sarcastic reference, perhaps, to the manna in the wilderness, it still would not be enough to accomplish what Elisha has just promised. This is the logic of the carnal mind. It limits God to the realm of what it considers possible. It cannot grasp a God who speaks and brings worlds into being, who can rout an entire army with nothing more than a sound. This officer's god is too small, a projection of his own limited imagination.
Elisha's reply is swift, personal, and terrifying. It is a prophecy of judgment that perfectly fits the crime. "Behold, you will see it with your own eyes, but you will not eat of it." The officer's sin was one of sight. He trusted what he could see, the famine, and refused to believe what he could not see, the power of God's word. So his judgment is tailored to his senses. He will be granted the sight he craves. He will see the promise fulfilled. He will see the flour and barley flooding the gate. But he will be excluded from the blessing. He will see the feast, but he will starve. This is a terrible picture of the fate of all who hear the good news of the gospel but refuse to believe it. They will see the kingdom of God from a distance, but they will never taste its joys.
Key Words
Seah, "a measure"
A seah was a common Hebrew measure for grain and flour, equivalent to about one-third of an ephah. While the exact modern equivalent is debated, it was a substantial amount, roughly 7 to 8 quarts. The point of the prophecy is that a significant quantity of food, which hours before was unobtainable at any price, would suddenly become available for a very small amount of money. The specificity of the measure underscores the concrete, verifiable nature of God's promise.
Shekel, "a weight, a coin"
The shekel was the standard unit of weight and currency in ancient Israel, typically a piece of silver weighing about 11.5 grams. By naming the price as one shekel, the prophecy was not just promising food, but a complete reversal of the hyperinflation caused by the siege. It was a promise of economic stability and prosperity, delivered overnight by the hand of God.
Application
The central application for us is as straightforward as it was for those starving in Samaria. Do we believe the promises of God, or do we believe the "reality" presented to us by our circumstances, our senses, and our sophisticated, pragmatic advisors? The world, like that royal officer, is constantly telling us what is and is not possible. It tells us that economies only work a certain way, that cultural decay is irreversible, that your sinful habits are too ingrained to be broken, that your family situation is hopeless.
And into that chorus of despair, God speaks His word. He promises forgiveness for the repentant. He promises resurrection from the dead. He promises that He is building His church and the gates of Hell will not prevail against it. He promises to make all things new. From a worldly perspective, these promises are just as absurd as Elisha's promise of cheap barley. They require a miracle.
The question for us is whether we will lean on the arm of the king, trusting in the world's assessment of reality, or whether we will "listen to the word of Yahweh." The officer saw the problem and concluded God was impotent. The Christian is called to see the problem, see it in all its horror, and conclude that it is the perfect backdrop for God to display His glory. Unbelief sees and perishes. Faith hears, believes, and eats of the fruit of God's impossible promises.