THE FOUR LEPERS
Based upon 2 Kings 7:1-20
2 Kings 7:9 “Then they said to one another, “We are not doing right. This day is a day of good news, and we remain silent.”
The city of Samaria had been surrounded by the Syrian army for a long time, causing the people of the city to go to desperate measures to survive. They had eaten almost all of the animals in the city, had begun to boil and eat their own children. Then Elisha the prophet spoke up and said, “Hear the word of the Lord. Thus says the Lord: ‘Tomorrow about this time a bushel basket of fine flour shall be sold for a shekel, and two bushels of barley for a shekel, at the gate of Samaria.’”
When one of the Kings officers heard this, and thought of the impossibility of such a thing happening, he said, “Look, even if the Lord opened the windows in heaven, could this really happen?”
To which Elisha replied, “In fact, it will happen and you will see it with your eyes, but you shall not taste it with your mouth.”
Now at this time, there were four starving leprous men crouched against the wall of the city, caught between the army and the starvation that was happening within Samaria. As they were discussing their dilemma, on said, “Are we just going to sit here until we die? If we go into the city the famine is there and we will surely die there. And if we stay here, we will be dead by morning. Why don’t we surrender to the army of the Syrians? If they keep us alive, we shall live; but if they kill us, we shall only die any way.”
Just as it was getting dark, they stumbled towards the camp of the Syrians. To their great surprise, when they came to the outskirts of the camp, there was no one there. They didn’t know it, but the Lord had caused the entire army to hear the sound of many chariots and horses—the noise of a great army. The Syrians thought that the king of Israel had hired the kings of the Hittites and the kings of the Egyptians to come against them. So they fled in the night, leaving the camp intact—with their tents set up, their horses tethered, and their food cooking.
The lepers began to go from one tent to another, eating and drinking. They also found bars of silver and gold and lots of clothing, which they carried off and buried for later. They had food in their mouths, food in their pockets, wearing many layers of clothing, and their arms loaded with bars of silver and gold.
The Bible doesn’t say this, but I imagine them laughing and crying at the same time. Perhaps they even threw food at each other, as they got caught up in the hilarity of it all.
After a while, they stopped long enough for one of them to say to the others, “We are doing is not right. This day is a day of good news, and we remain silent. If we wait until morning light before telling the people who are dying in the city, some punishment will come upon us. Let’s go and tell the king so everyone can have something to eat.”
So they went back to the city of Samaria and told the gatekeepers what they found at the camp of Syrians.
When the gatekeepers told the king, he thought it was a trap, but his men checked the story out and found it to be just as the lepers had said. They found the road to the camp littered with garments and weapons of every kind which the Syrians had thrown away as they fled.
So, in fact, a bushel of fine flour was sold for a shekel, and two bushels of barley for a shekel, according to the word of the Lord., but the officer who the king had appointed to stand at the gate was trampled to death as the starving people ran from the city to get at the food, just as the man of God had said.
