Chap. 8
Verses 1-2
Elisha’s Influence Helps the Shunammite to the Possession of her House and Field. - 2Ki 8:1, 2Ki 8:2. By the advice of Elisha, the woman whose son the prophet had restored to life (2Ki 4:33) had gone with her family into the land of the Philistines during a seven years’ famine, and had remained there seven years. The two verses are rendered by most commentators in the pluperfect, and that with perfect correctness, for they are circumstantial clauses, and ותּקם is merely a continuation of דּבּר, the two together preparing the way for, and introducing the following event. The object is not to relate a prophecy of Elisha of the seven years’ famine, but what afterwards occurred, namely, how king Joram was induced by the account of Elisha’s miraculous works to have the property of the Shunammite restored to her upon her application. The seven years’ famine occurred in the middle of Joram’s reign, and the event related here took place before the curing of Naaman the Syrian (2 Kings 5), as is evident from the fact that Gehazi talked with the king (2Ki 8:4), and therefore had not yet been punished with leprosy. But it cannot have originally stood between 2Ki 4:37 and 2Ki 4:38, as Thenius supposes, because the incidents related in 2Ki 4:38-44 belong to the time of this famine (cf. 2Ki 4:38), and therefore precede the occurrence mentioned here. By the words, “the Lord called the famine, and it came seven years” (sc., lasting that time), the famine is described as a divine judgment for the idolatry of the nation.
Verse 3
When the woman returned to her home at the end of the seven years, she went to the king to cry, i.e., to invoke his help, with regard to her house and her field, of which, as is evident from the context, another had taken possession during her absence.
Verse 4
And just at that time the king was asking Gehazi to relate to him the great things that Elisha had done; and among these he was giving an account of the restoration of the Shunammite’s son to life.
Verses 5-6
While he was relating this, the woman herself came into invoke the help of the king to recover her property, and was pointed out
