2 Kings Chapter 7    

“the officer.” The Hebrew is “the third,” which was a military term that applied to an officer, but exactly why they were called “the third” is not clear.

“on whose hand the king leaned.” Naaman apparently had this position sometimes (2 Kings 5:18).

“the kings of the Hittites and the kings of the Egyptians.” The Hittites would have been attacking from the north while the Egyptians would have been attacking from the south, so God made the Syrians hear the sound of a large army coming from both north and south. So the Syrians headed east to the Jordan River so they could get across it and head back through the Golan Heights (biblical Gilead and Bashan) to get back to Syria. (2 Kings 7:15).

“and their horses and their donkeys.” In their panic, the Syrians could not think straight and left their fastest way to escape tied up in the camp. Panic creates mental blindness. It is a mark of mental maturity and control that people in difficult situations control their emotions and their fear so that they think clearly.

“lives.” The Hebrew reads “life,” using the collective singular for all the Syrians, but we say “lives” in English.

“it.” The Hebrew is singular referring to all the treasure as one pile of loot.

“punishment will overtake us.” The Hebrew can also be translated even more literally as “iniquity will find us.” Sometimes the word “iniquity” referred to the punishment for iniquity, and the idea that evil would “find” the sinner was a common idiom. 2 Kings 7:9 shows that the lepers were conscious of not doing what was right by keeping all the food and goods for themselves. These lepers could have been bitter at God and the kingdom for their disease, but instead they show good conscience and end up doing what is right.

“the king’s house.” That is, the palace, which would mean the king and those in it.

“nor even the sound of a man.” The lepers could not find anyone, nor could they hear anyone.

“in the city.” The Hebrew is simply “in it,” referring to in the city.

Some scholars think that there has been an accidental doubling of the Hebrew text through dittography, reading and copying a line twice. The NET text note says that the Hebrew text has been doubled, But the Masoretic Hebrew text may not have been doubled. It is different enough that it carries a different meaning.

“Then the messengers returned.” It would have taken the men from Samaria a number of hours to reach the Jordan River and then return to Samaria. It was more than 20 miles (32 km) to the Jordan and depending on the route may have been 25 miles (40 km). Plus, although the trip from Samaria was downhill, the trip home to Samaria was a climb of over 2,000 feet (600 m). So due to the trip of over 40 miles, although it was night when the chariots left Samaria, it was almost certainly light when they arrived back, and at that time the people of the city would have been awake and, starving for food, would have charged out of the city to get food and goods from the Syrian camp.

“just as the man of God had spoken, just as he had spoken.” This is a little awkward in English, but it emphasizes the point here, that it was the word of Yahweh that came to pass exactly as the man of God had spoken it.