2 Kings 8 Bible study: A lamp for his children

The chapter opens with "the woman whose son he had restored to life" (8:1). Gehazi is telling the king "how he had restored to life him who was dead" (8:5), and at that moment she is there, begging the king for her house and her land, and he says, "this is her son, whom Elisha restored to life" (8:5). Then, in Damascus, a sick king sends to ask, "Will I recover from this sickness?" (8:8, 8:9). In Hebrew restored to life and recover are one verb, chayah, "live" (tap recover). The Hebrew has it ten times in this chapter's first fourteen verses. The Shunammite's son lives again; Benhadad asks whether he will live. Elisha's answer uses the verb twice and then the verb "die" twice: "Go, tell him, ‘You will surely recover;’ however the LORD has shown me that he will surely die" (8:10) (tap die).

2 Kings 8:11→leads toLuke 19:41-42

"Then the man of God wept" (8:11), and when Hazael asks why, Elisha answers, "Because I know the evil that you will do to the children of Israel" (8:12). As Jesus came near Jerusalem, "he saw the city and wept over it" (Luke 19:41), saying, "If you, even you, had known today the things which belong to your peace! But now, they are hidden from your eyes" (Luke 19:42), and he went on to say what would come on the city (Luke 19:43-44). Luke doesn't cite 2 Kings 8, and no New Testament verse does, so setting the two side by side is a reading. Some see in both one who weeps over harm he knows is coming on his own people. Others keep them apart: Elisha weeps over what Hazael, who will be king over Syria, will do to Israel (8:12-13), while Jesus weeps over Jerusalem itself and says the harm will come "because you didn’t know the time of your visitation" (Luke 19:44), and they read Luke 19 only in its own setting.

חָיָהchayahsay kha-YAH

Brown-Driver-Briggs: "live". Strong's: "to live, whether literally or figuratively", and it lists "recover" and "restore (to life)" among the verb's renderings. The chapter uses it ten times, all in its first fourteen verses: "the woman whose son he had restored to life" (8:1); three times in 8:5, "restored to life"; Benhadad's question, "Will I recover from this sickness?" (8:8, 8:9); and twice each in Elisha's "You will surely recover" (8:10) and Hazael's "He told me that you would surely recover" (8:14), where the Hebrew has the verb twice, chayoh tichyeh. The Hebrew of 2 Kings has the verb twenty-two times, and ten of them are here. Ahaziah had asked the same question of Baal Zebub: "whether I will recover from this sickness" (1:2). Later the LORD's word to Hezekiah through Isaiah is "you will die, and not live" (20:1), with this verb, and after the figs are laid on the boil, "he recovered" (20:7).