Ben-Hadad had gathered together a great host and had besieged Samaria till the famine had become terrible. So scarce had grown the food that an ass' head sold for eighty pieces of silver (about $44), (Editor's note: $44 in 1885 is equivalent to about $1400 in 2024.) and at last women were found who had eaten a child. When the king heard of this, he determined to kill Elisha, but when he came to where Elisha was, then Elisha said: "Then Elisha said, Hear the word of the Lord; Thus says the Lord, Tomorrow about this time shall a measure of fine flour be sold for a shekel, and two measures of barley for a shekel, in the gate of Samaria. Then a lord on whose hand the king leaned answered the man of God, and said, Behold, if the Lord would make windows in heaven, might this thing be? And he said, Behold, you shall see it with your eyes, but shall not eat thereof. And there were four leprous men at the entering in of the gate: and they said one to another, Why sit we here until we die? If we say, We will enter into the city, then the famine is in the city, and we shall die there: and if we sit still here, we die also. Now therefore come, and let us fall unto the host of the Syrians: if they save us alive, we shall live; and if they kill us, we shall but die." (2 Kings 7:1-4)
When men were found to be lepers the law was that: "The leper in whom the plague is, his clothes shall be rent, and his head bare, and he shall put a covering upon his upper lip, and shall cry, Unclean, unclean. All the days wherein the plague shall be in him he shall be defiled; he is unclean: he shall dwell alone; without the camp shall his habitation be." (Leviticus 13:45-46)
The famine being so great in the city, these men of course could obtain no food from there, and as they were about to perish any way, they concluded that nothing greater than that could befall them even though the Syrians should get them; but if the Syrians should happen to favor them, and give them food, their lives would be saved. So they determined to go. "And they rose up in the twilight, to go unto the camp of the Syrians: and when they were come to the uttermost part of the camp of Syria, behold, there was no man there. For the Lord had made the host of the Syrians to hear a noise of chariots, and a noise of horses, even the noise of a great host: and they said one to another, Lo, the king of Israel has hired against us the kings of the Hittites, and the kings of the Egyptians, to come upon us. Wherefore they arose and fled in the twilight, and left their tents, and their horses, and their asses, even the camp as it was, and fled for their life." (2 Kings 7:5-7)
It is easy for the Lord to spread terror among men. Several such instances are given in the Bible. Gideon will be remembered, with his three hundred men with their pitchers and torches, and how that, all of a sudden, the breaking of the pitchers and the glare of the torches put the 135,000 Midianites to flight in terror. (Judges 7) And, "the children of Ammon and Moab and Mount Seir," (2 Chronicles 20:10) came up against Judah when Jehoshaphat was king. The children of Judah were all gathered together in the wilderness of Tekoah, and Jehoshaphat "appointed singers unto the Lord, and that should praise the beauty of holiness, as they went out before the army, and to say, Praise the Lord; for His mercy endures for ever. And when they began to sing and to praise, the Lord set ambushments against the children of Ammon, Moab, and mount Seir, which were come against Judah; and they were smitten. For the children of Ammon and Moab stood up against the inhabitants of mount Seir, utterly to slay and destroy them; and when they had made an end of the inhabitants of Seir, every one helped to destroy another." (2 Chronicles 20:21-23)
It is not alone in the Bible, nor alone in Bible times that such things have occurred. The Lord has done just as remarkable things for His people in later ages as He did in those ancient times.
After the Papacy had put to death John Huss and Jerome of Prague, it set about to extirpate all the heretics of Bohemia. For this purpose crusade after crusade was set afoot, only to be defeated in disgrace. At last in 1427 AD, the pope had succeeded in gathering together an army of nearly 200,000 men.
Led by three electors of the Empire, by many princes and counts, and the legate-a-latere of the pope,--J. A. Wylie, The History of Protestantism, Book Third, Chapter 17, "Brilliant Successes of the Hussites." this great host invaded Bohemia, entering it in June.
The Bohemians marched to meet their invaders. They were now within sight of them and the two armies were separated only by the river that flows past Meiss. The crusaders were in greatly superior force, but instead of dashing across the stream, and closing in battle with the Hussites, whom they had come so far to meet, they stood gazing in silence at those warriors hardened by constant exposure, and begrimed with the smoke and dust of battle, and seemed to realize the pictures of terror which report had made familiar to their imaginations long before they came in contact with the reality. It was only for a few moments that the invaders contemplated the Hussite ranks. A sudden panic fell upon them; they turned and fled in the utmost confusion.--Ibid.
Four years afterward another army was raised for the invasion of Bohemia, to destroy the followers of the doctrines preached by Huss, and for which he had been cruelly and treacherously burned at the stake. This time--the fifth of these crusades--130,000 men swept into Bohemia.
On the 1st of August, 1431, the crusaders crossed the Bohemian frontier, penetrating through the great forest which covered the country on the Bavarian side. They were brilliantly led, as concerned rank, for at their head marched quite a host of princes, spiritual and temporal. ... The feelings of the Hussites as day by day they received tidings of the numbers, equipments, and near approach of the host, we can well imagine. Clouds as terrible had ere this darkened their sky, but they had seen an omnipotent Hand suddenly disperse them. ... They reflected, however, that victory did not always declare on the side of the largest battalion, and, lifting their eyes to heaven, they calmly awaited the approach of the foe. The invading host advanced, "chanting triumph before victory," says Lenfant, and arriving at Tochan, it halted there a week. ... Forming in three columns, the invaders moved forward. Procopius fell back on their approach. ... His design was to lure the enemy father into the country, and fall upon him on all sides. On the morning of the 14th of August, the Bohemians marched to meet the foe. ...
The enemy were encamped near the town of Reisenberg. The Hussites were not yet in sight, but the sound of their approach struck upon the ear of the Germans. The rumble of their wagons, and the war-hymn chanted by the whole army as it marched bravely forward to battle, were distinctly heard. Cardinal Cesarini had a companion climbed a little hill to view the impending conflict. ... The cardinal and his friend had gazed only a few minutes when they were startled by a strange and sudden movement in the host. As if smitten by some invisible power, it appeared all at once to break up and scatter. The soldiers threw away their armor and fled, on this way, another that; and the wagoners, emptying their vehicles of their load, set off across the plain at full gallop. ... The army had been seized with a mysterious panic. That panic extended to the officers equally with the soldiers. The duke of Bavaria was one of the first to flee. He left behind his carriage, in the hope that its spoil might tempt the enemy and delay their pursuit. Behind him, also in inglorious flight, came the elector of Brandenburg; and following close on the elector were others of less note, chased from the field by this unseen terror. The army followed, if that could be styled an army which so lately had been a marshaled and bannered host, but was not only a rabble rout, fleeing when no man pursued.
The cardinal succeeded in rallying a few of the flying soldiers.
They stood then ground only till the Bohemians were within a short distance of them, and that strange terror fell upon them, and the stampede became so perfectly uncontrollable, that the legate himself was borne away in the current of bewildered and hurrying men. He left behind him his hat, his cross, his bell, and the pope's bull proclaiming the crusade--that same crusade which had come to so ridiculous a termination.
This was now the second time the strange phenomenon of panic had been repeated in the Hussite wars. The Germans are naturally brave; they have proved their valor on a hundred fields. ... There is here the touch of a divine finger--the infusion of a preternatural terror. So great was the stupefaction with which the crusaders were smitten, that many of them instead of continuing their flight into their own country, wandered back into Bohemia; while others of them, who reached their homes in Nuremburg, did not know their native city when they entered it, and began to beg for lodgings as if they were among strangers.--Ibid.
It is impossible to read this narrative and not see in it a perfect likeness to the panic of the Syrians in this lesson. Rome and the Emperor Sigismund had treacherously burnt the saintly Huss, and the scholarly Jerome, and now sought to destroy their innocent brethren, and God wrought for His people here as veritably as ever He did in the world. God's wondrous workings for His children are not all confined to the times in which the Bible was written. He is the same Mighty One still. There is still a God in Israel.
Yes, and still there are men as unbelieving as that "lord" upon whose hand the king of Israel leaned when Elisha said that "tomorrow about this time" there should be such plenty in the gates of starving Samaria. Still there are such ready to say, "If the Lord would make windows in heaven, might this thing be?" (2 Kings 7:2)
But yet for all the unbelief of men, the fact remains that God leads, and works for, His people. And yet for all the unbelief of men, every part of the word of God will be fulfilled as literally as was the word of Elisha that day. The four lepers went and called to the watchman of Samaria, and told the city, by him, that the Syrians had fled and left everything; then a company was sent out to learn whether it were really true, and they returned and confirmed the word; then the whole city poured out "and spoiled the tents of the Syrians. So a measure of fine flour was sold for a shekel, and two measures of barley for a shekel, according to the word of the Lord." (2 Kings 7:16) "Believe in the Lord your God, so shall you be established; believe His prophets, so shall you prosper." (2 Chronicles 20:20)--Signs of the Times, October 1, 1885--Notes on the International Lesson, October 11--2 Kings 7:1-17
A.T. Jones