2 Kings · 20 verses
2 Kings 7
Every verse links to the people and places named in it, and to the passages readers connect it with.
The chapter
What happens here
Atlas's own reading, written from this chapter and nothing else, and published only once a person has approved it. Each scene names the verses it covers; the names inside it link to the people and places they name.
An army vanished at twilight, leaving its tents, livestock, clothing, and supper behind; the starving men who found it first had to decide whether good news could be kept to themselves.
The camp without an armyvv. 1–9
Elisha announces an absurdly precise bargain at Samaria’s gate: famine prices by tomorrow. The officer leaning on the king’s arm finds this as likely as windows opening in heaven, and Elisha gives him the rather unwelcome privilege of seeing it without eating it. Meanwhile, four lepers make the soundest calculation available to men with nowhere left to go: into the city means death, staying put means death, and the Aramean camp offers at least a varied route to the same conclusion. Yet the camp is empty. The Lord has made the Arameans hear an army that is not there, complete with the imagined kings of the Hittites and Egyptians. The four men eat, drink, collect silver, gold, and clothing, hide the lot, and repeat the performance in another tent. Then conscience arrives, rather late but not empty-handed: this is a day of good news, and silence would be wrong.
The gate proves the prophecyvv. 10–20
The gatekeepers receive the report, and the king, who naturally suspects an ambush, proposes that the Arameans have hidden in the fields to catch the starving population alive. A servant suggests sending scouts with the remaining horses; there is little to lose, since the city is already in a grim condition. The scouts follow the abandoned trail as far as the Jordan, where the Arameans’ discarded clothing and equipment make a remarkably untidy argument. The people then plunder the camp, and the promised prices appear at the gate of Samaria. The officer is placed in charge of that very gate. There, at the moment abundance becomes measurable, the crowd tramples him to death. He sees the flour and barley economy arrive precisely on schedule, but Elisha’s second half arrives with it.
The text
Read it
Berean Standard Bible, public domain. Names the Hebrew and Greek put in the verse link to the person, place or people they name; the address beside each verse is a link to that verse, which is what a reader copies and shares.
2 Kgs 7:1Then Elisha said, “Hear the word of the LORD! This is what the LORD says: ‘About this time tomorrow at the gate of Samaria, a seah of fine flour will sell for a shekel, and two seahs of barley will sell for a shekel.’”
2 Kgs 7:2But the officer on whose arm the king leaned answered the man of God, “Look, even if the LORD were to make windows in heaven, could this really happen?” “You will see it with your own eyes,” replied Elisha, “but you will not eat any of it.”
2 Kgs 7:3Now there were four men with leprosy at the entrance of the city gate, and they said to one another, “Why just sit here until we die?
2 Kgs 7:4If we say, ‘Let us go into the city,’ we will die there from the famine in the city; but if we sit here, we will also die. So come now, let us go over to the camp of the Arameans. If they let us live, we will live; if they kill us, we will die.”
2 Kgs 7:5So they arose at twilight and went to the camp of the Arameans. But when they came to the outskirts of the camp, there was not a man to be found.
2 Kgs 7:6For the Lord had caused the Arameans to hear the sound of chariots, horses, and a great army, so that they said to one another, “Look, the king of Israel must have hired the kings of the Hittites and Egyptians to attack us.”
2 Kgs 7:7Thus the Arameans had arisen and fled at twilight, abandoning their tents and horses and donkeys. The camp was intact, and they had run for their lives.
2 Kgs 7:8When the lepers reached the edge of the camp, they went into a tent to eat and drink. Then they carried off the silver, gold, and clothing, and went and hid them. On returning, they entered another tent, carried off some items from there, and hid them.
2 Kgs 7:9Finally, they said to one another, “We are not doing what is right. Today is a day of good news. If we are silent and wait until morning light, our sin will overtake us. Now, therefore, let us go and tell the king’s household.”
2 Kgs 7:10So they went and called out to the gatekeepers of the city, saying, “We went to the Aramean camp and no one was there—not a trace—only tethered horses and donkeys, and the tents were intact.”
2 Kgs 7:11The gatekeepers shouted the news, and it was reported to the king’s household.
2 Kgs 7:12So the king got up in the night and said to his servants, “Let me tell you what the Arameans have done to us. They know we are starving, so they have left the camp to hide in the field, thinking, ‘When they come out of the city, we will take them alive and enter the city.’”
2 Kgs 7:13But one of his servants replied, “Please, have scouts take five of the horses that remain in the city. Their plight will be no worse than all the Israelites who are left here. You can see that all the Israelites here are doomed. So let us send them and find out.”
2 Kgs 7:14Then the scouts took two chariots with horses, and the king sent them after the Aramean army, saying, “Go and see.”
2 Kgs 7:15And they tracked them as far as the Jordan, and indeed, the whole way was littered with the clothing and equipment the Arameans had thrown off in haste. So the scouts returned and told the king.
2 Kgs 7:16Then the people went out and plundered the camp of the Arameans. It was then that a seah of fine flour sold for a shekel, and two seahs of barley sold for a shekel, according to the word of the LORD.
2 Kgs 7:17Now the king had appointed the officer on whose arm he leaned to be in charge of the gate, but the people trampled him in the gateway, and he died, just as the man of God had foretold when the king had come to him.
2 Kgs 7:18It happened just as the man of God had told the king: “About this time tomorrow at the gate of Samaria, two seahs of barley will sell for a shekel, and a seah of fine flour will sell for a shekel.”
2 Kgs 7:19And the officer had answered the man of God, “Look, even if the LORD were to make windows in heaven, could this really happen?” So Elisha had replied, “You will see it with your own eyes, but you will not eat any of it!”
2 Kgs 7:20And that is just what happened to him. The people trampled him in the gateway, and he died.
01 — Also here
Who else the chapter reaches
Names written in the English are linked in the text above. These are the ones that are not: an entity the Hebrew or Greek names under a spelling the translation does not use, or one reached only by an assertion about a verse of this chapter.
Named in the Hebrew or Greek somewhere in this chapter, under a form the English renders differently — the registry's Ludim against the translation's Ludites — so there is no word in the sentence to hang the link on.
Reached by an assertion Atlas extracted from a verse of this chapter rather than by a name written in it — a pronoun, a title, or a participant the sentence carries without naming. This layer is model-read and measured at 88.6–90.3% precision, and it is kept separate from the names above for that reason.
02 — Read alongside
Where this is echoed
Readers' own connections, from OpenBible's crowd-voted cross-references — agreement about relevance, and not scholarly confidence. 150 passages were voted onto 18 verses of this chapter; the 16 shown lead on votes, and each is listed at the verse it was voted onto most strongly.
- 1Joshua 3:5Then Joshua told the people, “Consecrate yourselves, for tomorrow the LORD will do wonders among you.”
- 1Exodus 16:12“I have heard the grumbling of the Israelites. Tell them, ‘At twilight you will eat meat, and in the morning you will be filled with bread. Then you will know that I am the LORD your God.’”
- 1Ezekiel 37:4And He said to me, “Prophesy concerning these bones and tell them, ‘Dry bones, hear the word of the LORD!
- 62 Samuel 5:24As soon as you hear the sound of marching in the tops of the balsam trees, move quickly, because this will mean that the LORD has gone out before you to strike the camp of the Philistines.”
- 11 Samuel 11:9So they said to the messengers who had come, “Tell the men of Jabesh-gilead: ‘Deliverance will be yours tomorrow by the time the sun is hot.’” And when the messengers relayed this to the men of Jabesh, they rejoiced.
- 1Exodus 9:5–6The LORD set a time, saying, “Tomorrow the LORD will do this in the land.”
- 1Psalms 46:5God is within her; she will not be moved. God will help her when morning dawns.
- 2Genesis 18:12–14So she laughed to herself, saying, “After I am worn out and my master is old, will I now have this pleasure?”
- 2Malachi 3:10Bring the full tithe into the storehouse, so that there may be food in My house. Test Me in this,” says the LORD of Hosts. “See if I will not open the windows of heaven and pour out for you blessing without measure.
- 2Genesis 7:11In the six hundredth year of Noah’s life, on the seventeenth day of the second month, all the fountains of the great deep burst forth, and the floodgates of the heavens were opened.
- 9Isaiah 52:7How beautiful on the mountains are the feet of those who bring good news, who proclaim peace, who bring good tidings, who proclaim salvation, who say to Zion, “Your God reigns!”
- 1Exodus 8:23I will make a distinction between My people and your people. This sign will take place tomorrow.’”
- 2Psalms 78:41Again and again they tested God and provoked the Holy One of Israel.
- 2Romans 3:3What if some did not have faith? Will their lack of faith nullify God’s faithfulness?
- 22 Timothy 2:13if we are faithless, He remains faithful, for He cannot deny Himself.
- 3Leviticus 13:45–46A diseased person must wear torn clothes and let his hair hang loose, and he must cover his mouth and cry out, ‘Unclean, unclean!’
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