Read 2 Kings 8
The Shunammite’s Land Restored
8 Now Elisha had said to the woman whose son he had restored to life, “Go away with your family and stay for a while wherever you can, because the Lord has decreed a famine in the land that will last seven years.” 2 The woman proceeded to do as the man of God said. She and her family went away and stayed in the land of the Philistines seven years.
3 At the end of the seven years she came back from the land of the Philistines and went to appeal to the king for her house and land. 4 The king was talking to Gehazi, the servant of the man of God, and had said, “Tell me about all the great things Elisha has done.” 5 Just as Gehazi was telling the king how Elisha had restored the dead to life, the woman whose son Elisha had brought back to life came to appeal to the king for her house and land.
Gehazi said, “This is the woman, my lord the king, and this is her son whom Elisha restored to life.” 6 The king asked the woman about it, and she told him.
Then he assigned an official to her case and said to him, “Give back everything that belonged to her, including all the income from her land from the day she left the country until now.”
Hazael Murders Ben-Hadad
7 Elisha went to Damascus, and Ben-Hadad king of Aram was ill. When the king was told, “The man of God has come all the way up here,” 8 he said to Hazael, “Take a gift with you and go to meet the man of God. Consult the Lord through him; ask him, ‘Will I recover from this illness?’”
9 Hazael went to meet Elisha, taking with him as a gift forty camel-loads of all the finest wares of Damascus. He went in and stood before him, and said, “Your son Ben-Hadad king of Aram has sent me to ask, ‘Will I recover from this illness?’”
10 Elisha answered, “Go and say to him, ‘You will certainly recover.’ Nevertheless, the Lord has revealed to me that he will in fact die.” 11 He stared at him with a fixed gaze until Hazael was embarrassed. Then the man of God began to weep.
12 “Why is my lord weeping?” asked Hazael.
“Because I know the harm you will do to the Israelites,” he answered. “You will set fire to their fortified places, kill their young men with the sword, dash their little children to the ground, and rip open their pregnant women.”
13 Hazael said, “How could your servant, a mere dog, accomplish such a feat?”
“The Lord has shown me that you will become king of Aram,” answered Elisha.
14 Then Hazael left Elisha and returned to his master. When Ben-Hadad asked, “What did Elisha say to you?” Hazael replied, “He told me that you would certainly recover.” 15 But the next day he took a thick cloth, soaked it in water and spread it over the king’s face, so that he died. Then Hazael succeeded him as king.
Jehoram King of Judah
16 In the fifth year of Joram son of Ahab king of Israel, when Jehoshaphat was king of Judah, Jehoram son of Jehoshaphat began his reign as king of Judah. 17 He was thirty-two years old when he became king, and he reigned in Jerusalem eight years. 18 He followed the ways of the kings of Israel, as the house of Ahab had done, for he married a daughter of Ahab. He did evil in the eyes of the Lord. 19 Nevertheless, for the sake of his servant David, the Lord was not willing to destroy Judah. He had promised to maintain a lamp for David and his descendants forever.
20 In the time of Jehoram, Edom rebelled against Judah and set up its own king. 21 So Jehoram went to Zair with all his chariots. The Edomites surrounded him and his chariot commanders, but he rose up and broke through by night; his army, however, fled back home. 22 To this day Edom has been in rebellion against Judah. Libnah revolted at the same time.
23 As for the other events of Jehoram’s reign, and all he did, are they not written in the book of the annals of the kings of Judah? 24 Jehoram rested with his ancestors and was buried with them in the City of David. And Ahaziah his son succeeded him as king.
Ahaziah King of Judah
25 In the twelfth year of Joram son of Ahab king of Israel, Ahaziah son of Jehoram king of Judah began to reign. 26 Ahaziah was twenty-two years old when he became king, and he reigned in Jerusalem one year. His mother’s name was Athaliah, a granddaughter of Omri king of Israel. 27 He followed the ways of the house of Ahab and did evil in the eyes of the Lord, as the house of Ahab had done, for he was related by marriage to Ahab’s family.
28 Ahaziah went with Joram son of Ahab to war against Hazael king of Aram at Ramoth Gilead. The Arameans wounded Joram; 29 so King Joram returned to Jezreel to recover from the wounds the Arameans had inflicted on him at Ramoth in his battle with Hazael king of Aram.
Then Ahaziah son of Jehoram king of Judah went down to Jezreel to see Joram son of Ahab, because he had been wounded.
Go Deeper
In this chapter, though four different things happen, they all serve to illustrate God’s sovereignty and His faithfulness to His people. Primarily, we will examine the story of the woman who regained her land and that of Jehoram, King of Judah.
As we saw previously in 2 Kings 4, God, through Elisha, had blessed a woman with a son despite her husband’s old age and later brought that same boy back to life. Elisha now warns the woman of a famine in the land and tells her to pack up and move to a land historically hostile to the Israelites. In her obedience to Elisha, and ultimately to God, the woman loses her land and seven years’ worth of income. What a cost to follow God’s will for her life. God blesses this obedience and later restores to her all that she had lost.
God’s sovereignty and faithfulness to those who follow Him are amazing. The amount of detail required for this woman to receive not only her land, but her income for the past seven years is immense. And the timing of her appeal, coming while Gehazi was telling the king all the great things that Elisha had done, is something only God could have orchestrated.
In the story of the Shunammite woman, we see that God is faithful to take care of her, considering her obedience. But God’s faithfulness isn’t determined by our obedience. In the same chapter, we also see that God remains faithful despite Jehoram’s disobedience. Because of God’s promise to David, nothing any one of his descendants does, no matter how evil, could make the Lord falter in His promise. Jehoram did evil in the eyes of the Lord, but God remained faithful nonetheless. Even though Edom and Libnah revolted against Judah, the Lord kept the house of David alive.
What a comforting reminder that no matter how much we sin or try to run from God, He will always keep His promises. From this great love, then, we can strive to follow him as best we can without fear that He will stop loving us when we mess up. We are free when we realize we can live and work from God’s love, and we don’t have to work for His love.
Questions
- In what ways do you work for God’s love?
- What can we do to prepare ourselves to follow the Lord regardless of the cost?
- Which of God’s promises in Scripture do you need to hold onto right now?
Keep Digging
The exact timeline of this story (v.4) is disputed. Some scholars put it before 2 Kings 5, where Elisha curses Gehazi with leprosy, and 2 Kings 6, where the king of Israel wants to behead Elisha, and others in chronological order. Either way, it shows God’s sovereignty. Look at this commentary for further study!
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5 responses to “2 Kings 8”
2 Kings seems discombobulated. It is historical facts but not in chronilogical order. One commentary said it is like the movies with flashbacks in order to bring you up to speed.
It is hard to comprehend and understand why God does what He does. But when we read the Bible and see how His hand is so sovergn, that He is working from the beginning to the end. He has a plan and it will be fullfilled whether we obey or not. ” It is as if we are reliving the era of Judges or of the biblical Kings all over again, and in churches and synagogues everywhere people have become willfully ignorant of God’s Word and prefer instead to accept the more attractive traditions of men as their path and source of truth.” Bradford We as believers who have the rule book “The Bible” should know better than to compromise, as we see in these historical facts.
“God’s Word often carries an open promise and a hidden warning, inviting us to lean in with both trust and discernment. Elisha’s tears remind us that it is right to mourn the injustices of our world and to bring those burdens before the Lord in prayer.” Living Hope Blog. So let us come before God and ask for His help. Let us read His word and not compromise what we know to be truth.
God thank You for these minutes of this day. My I take one minute at a time and do Your will. God help me, show me, guide me in Your ways today in these minutes. God thank You for wisdom, knowledge and understanding to illuminate Your ways for all this day in Jesus name amen.
WOOHOO!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
6 “Give back everything that belonged to her, including all the income from her land from the day she left the country until now.”
I find it interesting to be reading in 2 Kings about how God worked through financial circumstances, investment results, etc.! In this case, not only returning the land, but recognizing the opportunity cost of the seven years it had been taken from the woman!
The Shunammite woman was hospitable, generous, trusting, courageous and full of faith throughout all life threw at her. She witnessed and encountered one miracle after another. The example of her life was impeccable. She modeled the phrase “your job is to trust God, his job is everything else.”
“Failing Leaders, Faithful God”
When I read 2 Kings 8, I see a world where leaders are often unjust, greedy, or corrupt. That hits close to home. I don’t follow the news, but stories of injustice still find their way to me—from trusted friends, from my advocacy work, and even from my own family’s experience.
Sometimes it feels like everywhere I turn, people in authority are misusing their power, and the weight of it can be overwhelming.
And yet this chapter reminds me that while human leadership can (and does!) fail spectacularly, God’s sovereignty does not. Proverbs 21:1 says, “The king’s heart is a stream of water in the hand of the LORD; He turns it wherever He will.” Even when rulers appear to hold all the power, they are never beyond God’s reach.
So what does trusting God look like right now?
• Remember His higher hand. Broken leaders don’t cancel God’s purposes.
• Refuse to mirror the madness. We can overcome evil with good (Romans 12:21).
• Be faithful in our sphere. Like Elisha, we may not stop every injustice, but we can remain steadfast in the places God has given us.
• Anchor in God’s justice. Injustice may thrive for a season, but it will never have the last word.
Once more I’m reminded and reassured that these challenges are not new:
Long before we had the option of endless online doomscrolling, Scripture was already full of stories about leaders gone bad, and all the ruin that follows: greed, injustice, oppression and evil.
And what was true then is just as true now:
God is in control.
While human authority is continually corrupted and collapsing, our sovereign God upholds us in righteousness, goodness, and love.
The Shunammite woman’s story is a testament to God’s faithfulness. Despite the years of absence, her land and income were restored. This illustrates that God is a restorer of what is lost. “I will restore to you the years that the swarming locust has eaten” (Joel 2:25). Trust in His timing and His ability to restore what seems irretrievably lost.