The Aramean army has been laying siege to Israel's capital city of Samaria for some time now. The situation inside the city walls has grown so desperate that some of the citizens have resorted to eating their dead due to the scarcity of food. For the wealthy who are able to afford some of the food that's still available, the prices are astronomically inflated. But in yesterday's text the prophet Elisha told the king of Israel, upon authority of the Lord, that food would be so plentiful by the next day that prices would hit rock bottom. The king's chief officer scoffed at the idea that even the Lord could make such a thing happen. In response Elisha warned him that this bounty of food would happen before his very eyes but that due to his unbelief he would not taste any of it.
As we begin today's study the scene switches from Elisha's house in Dothan to the gates of Samaria. "Now there were four men with leprosy at the entrance of the city gate." (2 Kings 7:3a) Lepers were outcasts due to their illness. We spent some time talking about leprosy a few days ago and we learned that 95% of people exposed to leprosy will not contract it. Casual contact does not spread it and it usually takes several months of repeated contact for a person to receive enough exposure to run the risk of coming down with it themselves. In only about 5% of the population is a person's immune system too weak to successfully mount a defense. So these four men at the gates are part of the small but unlucky percentage of people whose bodies cannot produce enough antibodies to fight the infection off. The four men are considered infectious to anyone whose immune system is not healthy. This is why they must subsist at the edges of society, begging and hoping for compassion from their fellow man. We don't know whether these four men were originally citizens of Samaria who were forced to move outside the gates after they became ill, but by this point in the siege they have no hope of receiving even a crumb from anyone's table. The people of the city barely have enough food to keep themselves and their families alive; they are not going to take what little they have and throw it outside the gates for lepers.
After sitting outside the gates for an unspecified amount of time, these men realize they are waiting around for nothing. No one is going to take the meager food from their own table and bring it out to them. There's no use slipping into the city to go through anyone's garbage either, for nothing is being discarded these days if it's edible. "They said to each other, 'Why stay here until we die? If we say, 'We'll go into the city'---the famine is there, and we will die. And if we stay here, we will die. So let's go over to the camp of the Arameans and surrender. If they spare us, we live; if they kill us, then we die.'" (2 Kings 7:3b-4) They say, "What have we got to lose? We are going to starve to death if we remain here. If the Arameans take pity on us, we will at least be fed the bread and water of captives of war. If they put us to the sword, at least it will be a quicker and more merciful end than slowly dying of starvation out here in the open."
The Aramean soldiers have not been enduring any deprivations while they've been encamped around Samaria. They've been receiving regular deliveries of supplies from their king. They have plenty of water, wine, food, tents, blankets, pillows, and all the items necessary for making life comfortable while away from home. Their camp is the lepers' only hope of procuring food because they can't venture past the encampment to search for food elsewhere. They will wait until evening to approach the Arameans, likely because in the dim light their leprous condition will not be immediately apparent to the enemy army. If the Arameans arrest them and provide them with food and water during the nighttime hours, the men will at least have full bellies by the time the sun rises and the Arameans realize they are lepers. Even if the Arameans chase them away at that time, the men might be able to survive until they find a source of food elsewhere.
In addition, I am not sure the Arameans would put them to death or chase them away once they realize they have taken lepers into custody. I'm not certain how strictly the Arameans dealt with cases of leprosy compared to the way the Israelites dealt with such cases. You'll recall that Naaman, the leprous Aramean army commander, appeared to still be having some contact with his family, with his king, and with his soldiers. He had not been cast outside his city walls or relegated to a leper colony. It could be that Arameans would not reject leprous captives but might place them on work gangs with other captives where they would have to be provided with at least the minimum standards where food and shelter are concerned. If the only contact the Arameans had with lepers was in supervising them on work gangs then the risk of catching leprosy would be extremely low and possibly nonexistent.
Imagine these lepers' surprise when they arrive at the Aramean camp to find it deserted! "At dusk they got up and went to the camp of the Arameans. When they reached the edge of the camp, no one was there, for the Lord had caused the Arameans to hear the sound of chariots and horses and a great army, so that they said to one another, 'Look, the king of Israel has hired the Hittite and Egyptian kings to attack us!' So they got up and fled in the dusk and abandoned their tents and their horses and donkeys. They left the camp as it was and ran for their lives." (2 Kings 7:5-7)
I'm reminded of a verse I've quoted several times before during our study of the Old Testament: "The wicked flee though no one pursues, but the righteous are as bold as a lion." (Proverbs 28:1) Those who choose to live in sin are also making the choice to live in fear. They don't have the assurance of the children of God that their heavenly Father is watching over them. They cannot say, "If God is for us, who can be against us?" (Romans 8:31) Unlike the children of God, the idolatrous Arameans know they must depend solely on their own strength and skill to win battles, but those who belong to the Lord have Him fighting for them. Before the four lepers arrived at the enemy camp, the Lord had already startled the Arameans away by making them think they heard a vast army approaching.
The citizens of Samaria don't yet know that the Lord has delivered them. Only these four desperate men know it, but isn't it in our desperation that we receive the most blessing and help and comfort from the Lord? Isn't it when we know we can do nothing to solve our problems on our own that we throw ourselves fully upon His mercy, depending on Him to take action on our behalf? That's when we receive miracles! The Arameans fled because they were only trusting in themselves, for they knew they did not have enough men to defeat a large army. But the child of God knows he is not trusting only in his own strength, for the Lord is his helper! The child of God can say, "I will not fear though tens of thousands assail me on every side." (Psalm 3:6) The child of God can say, "Though an army besiege me, my heart will not fear; though war break out against me, even then will I be confident." (Psalm 27:3) The child of God can say, "God is our refuge and strength, an ever-present help in trouble. Therefore we will not fear, though the earth give way and the mountains fall into the heart of the sea, though its waters roar and foam and the mountains quake with their surging...The Lord Almighty is with us; the God of Jacob is our fortress." (Psalm 46:1-3,11)
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