7:1 The famine is severe and Samaria is desperate. Elisha provides a word from God in which God promises to absolve the famine.
7:2 An officer of the king scoffs at this prophecy; he cannot envision a scenario in which God could make such a drastic change. The officer's disbelief is malicious in nature; he mocks God stating that even if God dropped food out of windows in heaven, He could not reverse the famine. Elisha responds; he tells the officer that he will witness the truth of God's word but will not benefit from it. Surely the faithless live in a barren land, an endless famine because they maliciously refuse the bread of God.
7:3-4 At the gate of Samaria, between Israel and the Syrian army are four leprous men. They are contemplating their situation: if they remain where they are, they will die. If the enter into Samaria, they will die (there is no food) and if they approach the Syrian army, they will die. However, they decide that approaching the army at least provides them one chance a survival, perhaps they will be taken in and fed by the army if they surrender.
7:5-6 At twilight the men begin walking toward the army only to find that it has disappeared. God caused the entire army to perceive the sounds of a massive approaching army (though there was none) and the Syrians deserted their post. The army thought that Israel hired a foreign nation to defend them.
7:7-8 So the men enter into the abandoned camp. They eat and drink and take food, gold, silver and clothing. They horde and hide their spoils, hardly believing their luck.
7:9-11 The men begin to feel guilty. They are filling their stomachs while all of Samaria starves. They decide that if they wait any longer, they doom themselves. So they travel back to Samaria to inform the king that the Syrian army has left.
7:12 They find the king's quarters to be a wasteland, almost nobody is around. When they finally are able to tell the king about what they have found, the king thinks it is a trap. He thinks that as soon as they leave their gates to eat, the Syrians will attack them.
7:13-16 One of the king's servants suggests that he send scouts outside of the gate; after all, what more do they have to lose? The entire population is starving and dying. The scouts find the army camp to be abandoned, just as the four men said. Therefore the people of Israel leave the city and walk into abundance, all of it left behind by their enemy.
7:17-20 The officer who scoffed at God is trampled by the crowd leaving through the gates to get to the food, right after he witnesses the truth of Elisha's prophecy. The message is that we cannot benefit from God's blessings if we refuse to allow Him into our life. Our faith is the tunnel through which blessings come and the landing pad on which they arrive.
Life will trample us if we do not invite God to protect us. Not as a punishment but as a subsequent circumstance of choosing to remain vulnerable. Spiritual famine starves our lives of contentment, joy and the fulfillment of hope. Those who trust God live by a different formula than those who do not. Because faithful children live by a different philosophy of life, an entirely different formula is threaded through their lives. Children of God live by a divine equation, an equation which produces entirely different results than the world's calculations could ever even conceive of.
Life will trample us if we do not invite God to protect us. Not as a punishment but as a subsequent circumstance of choosing to remain vulnerable. Spiritual famine starves our lives of contentment, joy and the fulfillment of hope. Those who trust God live by a different formula than those who do not. Because faithful children live by a different philosophy of life, an entirely different formula is threaded through their lives. Children of God live by a divine equation, an equation which produces entirely different results than the world's calculations could ever even conceive of.
