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2 Kings 7 Bible study: A day of good news
The captain called the LORD's word "this thing" (7:2): in Hebrew, the same noun, davar. The four men and the fleeing Syrians both rose in the twilight (7:5, 7:7). And besorah, the four men's "good news" (7:9), comes only six times in the Hebrew Bible; the other five are all in 2 Samuel, all news for King David (2 Samuel 4:10, 18:20-27).
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“Then they said to one another, “We aren’t doing right. Today is a day of good news, and we keep silent. If we wait until the morning light, punishment will overtake us. Now therefore come, let’s go and tell the king’s household.””
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“In 2 Kings 7, both the four leprous men and the fleeing Syrians are said to have risen "in the twilight".”
Is that in 2 Kings 7, or not? Make your call.
What's really going on
After "Why should I wait?"
The chapter before ends in a city under siege, where "a donkey’s head was sold for eighty pieces of silver" (6:25), and with the words, "Behold, this evil is from the LORD. Why should I wait for the LORD any longer?" (6:33). The very next words are Elisha's: "Hear the LORD’s word" (7:1). The LORD's word is about the price of food: "Tomorrow about this time a seah of fine flour will be sold for a shekel, and two seahs of barley for a shekel, in the gate of Samaria" (7:1). The next day, "a seah of fine flour was sold for a shekel, and two measures of barley for a shekel, according to the LORD’s word" (7:16). The WEB's "two measures" there is the same Hebrew word as "two seahs" in 7:1: the prices are the ones Elisha gave. Elisha's word says what will be sold, for how much and where, and not how; the chapter tells how only as it happens (7:6).
Where it leads to Jesus
You are witnesses
2 Kings 7:9leads toLuke 24:47-48
Four men who had seen the empty camp for themselves (7:5, 7:10) said, "We aren’t doing right. Today is a day of good news, and we keep silent" (7:9), and they went and told (7:10). After he rose, Jesus told his disciples that it is written "that repentance and remission of sins should be preached in his name to all the nations, beginning at Jerusalem" (Luke 24:46-47), and said, "You are witnesses of these things" (Luke 24:48). Luke doesn't cite 2 Kings 7, and the news is not the same news: food in an empty camp, and repentance and remission of sins preached in Jesus's name. Setting them side by side is a reading that rests on a shared subject, that good news people have seen for themselves is to be told. Others read 7:9 only as the four men's own words, with the other thing they said beside it, "If we wait until the morning light, punishment will overtake us" (7:9), and draw no line to Jesus.
Honest questions
Questions people ask about 2 Kings 7
That was a taste
The rest of 2 Kings 7 is waiting in Favor
- "Could this thing be?"
- Four men and a great army
- Not a day for news, and a day of news
- "The Lord", not "the LORD"
- In the gate
- 7 questions as you read
- 12 more Hebrew words
- A short check at the end
- Your notes, saved as you go
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The Hebrew word behind it
בְּשׂוֹרָהbesorahsay be-so-RAH
Strong's: "glad tidings", a feminine noun "from 1319", the verb basar. Brown-Driver-Briggs: "tidings, news", and, for one use, "reward for good tidings". "Today is a day of good news, and we keep silent" (7:9). The Hebrew Bible uses the noun only six times, and this is its only use in 2 Kings. The other five are in 2 Samuel: David's words about the man who brought news that Saul was dead, "which was the reward I gave him for his news" (2 Samuel 4:10), and four on the day of the battle in which Absalom died (2 Samuel 18:20, 18:22, 18:25, 18:27).
For your group
2 Kings 7 Bible study questions
- 1The four men said, "We aren’t doing right. Today is a day of good news, and we keep silent" (7:9). What good news have you kept to yourself, and who might need to hear it?
- 2The captain asked, "if the LORD made windows in heaven, could this thing be?" (7:2). Where do you find it hardest to believe God's word could come true?
- 3"Why do we sit here until we die?" (7:3). Is there somewhere you've been sitting still, waiting, when there's a step you could take this week?
Leading a group? In Favor, everyone reads 2 Kings 7 during the week and answers these questions privately. Answers stay sealed until you meet, then appear together, and you can print the week's sheet.
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Scripture quotations are from the World English Bible, which is in the public domain. Hebrew and Greek words are checked against the original-language texts and public-domain lexicons. What we believe · Favor home