Context No. 3182 of 4322 · 2 Kings

2 Kings 6:29-33: in context

29So we boiled my son and ate him; and I said to her on the next day, ‘Give up your son, that we may eat him;’ and she has hidden her son.” 30When the king heard the words of the woman, he tore his clothes. Now he was passing by on the wall, and the people looked, and behold, he had sackcloth underneath on his body. 31Then he said, “God do so to me, and more also, if the head of Elisha the son of Shaphat stays on him today.” 32But Elisha was sitting in his house, and the elders were sitting with him. Then the king sent a man from before him; but before the messenger came to him, he said to the elders, “Do you see how this son of a murderer has sent to take away my head? Behold, when the messenger comes, shut the door, and hold the door shut against him. Isn’t the sound of his master’s feet behind him?” 33While he was still talking with them, behold, the messenger came down to him. Then he said, “Behold, this evil is from the LORD. Why should I wait for the LORD any longer?”

This is a harrowing scene, and it should be read with grief. In a besieged, starving Samaria, a woman brings the king a horror born of desperation, one so terrible it lays bare how far the famine had driven the people. The king tears his clothes, and the people see he wears sackcloth beneath, a sign of mourning before God; yet in the same breath he vows to kill the prophet Elisha, and says, this trouble is from the LORD; why should I wait for the LORD any longer?

The king wears sackcloth, a token of some grief before God, and yet his response to the horror around him is to blame God and turn on God's prophet. In his despair he abandons hope in God at the very edge of deliverance, for the next chapter brings a sudden, complete rescue. When suffering reaches its extreme, the temptation is to give up on God just before he acts, to stop waiting one fatal moment too soon. The deliverance was closer than the king could see.

When suffering reaches its extreme, am I tempted, like the king, to stop waiting on God just before his deliverance comes?

Sources

2 Kings 6:33: "Behold, this evil is from the LORD. Why should I wait for the LORD any longer?"
2 Kings 7:1: "Tomorrow about this time a measure of fine flour will be sold for a shekel... in the gate of Samaria."
Psalm 27:14: "Wait for the LORD. Be strong, and let your heart take courage. Yes, wait for the LORD."