2 Kings 6:24 - 7:2 - Daily Devotion - 20 July 2026

St Barnabas Anglican Church Fairfield & Bossley Park

A warning before you read: Today’s passage contains a graphic description of starvation and cannibalism.

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24 Some time later, Ben-hadad king of Aram assembled his entire army and marched up to besiege Samaria.

25 So there was a great famine in Samaria. Indeed, they besieged the city so long that a donkey’s head sold for eighty shekels of silver, and a quarter cab of dove’s dung sold for five shekels of silver.

26 As the king of Israel was passing by on the wall, a woman cried out to him, “Help me, my lord the king!”

27 He answered, “If the LORD does not help you, where can I find help for you? From the threshing floor or the winepress?” 28 Then the king asked her, “What is the matter?”

And she answered, “This woman said to me, ‘Give up your son, that we may eat him, and tomorrow we will eat my son.’ 29 So we boiled my son and ate him, and the next day I said to her, ‘Give up your son, that we may eat him.’ But she had hidden her son.”

30 When the king heard the words of the woman, he tore his clothes. And as he passed by on the wall, the people saw the sackcloth under his clothes next to his skin. 31 He announced, “May God punish me, and ever so severely, if the head of Elisha son of Shaphat remains on his shoulders through this day!”

32 Now Elisha was sitting in his house, and the elders were sitting with him. The king sent a messenger ahead, but before he arrived, Elisha said to the elders, “Do you see how this murderer has sent someone to cut off my head? Look, when the messenger comes, shut the door to keep him out. Is not the sound of his master’s footsteps behind him?”

33 While Elisha was still speaking with them, the messenger came down to him. And the king said, “This calamity is from the LORD. Why should I wait for the LORD any longer?”

Chapter 7

1 Then Elisha said, “Hear the word of the LORD! This is what the LORD says: ‘About this time tomorrow at the gate of Samaria, a seah of fine flour will sell for a shekel, and two seahs of barley will sell for a shekel.’”

2 But the officer on whose arm the king leaned answered the man of God, “Look, even if the LORD were to make windows in heaven, could this really happen?”

“You will see it with your own eyes,” replied Elisha, “but you will not eat any of it.”

REFLECTIONS

Written by Stephen Shead

When I reached verse 29, and I lost all desire to write a devotion on today’s passage. I felt sick. I wanted to tear my clothes too. This is a level of suffering, evil and horror that is beyond my comprehension, beyond rational reflection. I felt like a veil had been drawn back to reveal “the powers of this dark world and … the spiritual forces of evil in the heavenly realms” (Eph. 6:12) that rule the affairs of men and drive people to unspeakable deeds.

War along with its accompanying evils – slaughter, famine and disease – perhaps shows more starkly than anything else the madness and horror of the sin to which humanity has become enslaved. Israel’s king recognises the tragedy befalling his city of Samaria – and yet there’s something messed up in the way he responds. He rightly understands that the calamity is at the same time the result of unbridled human wickedness, and also “from the LORD” (v 33). The same disaster can be the result of human evil for which God is not to blame, a devastating tragedy suffered by innocent victims, and also God’s wrath and judgment against a corrupt and rebellious world (see Romans 1:18-32).

But the king’s response is to swear an oath by God himself to kill God’s prophet. That seems … unhinged.

God gives Elisha an extraordinary prophetic word which seems to stall the king – we’ll find out how that is fulfilled tomorrow. But it’s worth remembering that this king – Jehoram son of Ahab – is the fourth king in the most evil and idolatrous dynasty that had ever ruled Israel. Israel is deservedly under the judgment of God. On top of that, he is the same king Jehoram who, only a few chapters earlier, had launched an unjustified and brutal war on a neighbouring country, and lied that the Lord had told him to (chapter 3)! Now he blames the Lord for the consequences of his war-mongering policies.

Revelation 6 paints a picture of the whole world, in our own age, in a similar situation, with four horsemen that represent the horrors of war, slaughter, famine and disease. Even though Jesus has risen from the dead and is saving people from every nation (Rev. 5), the world is under God’s judgment – and the New Testament hints that human evil will only increase until Jesus returns.

Today, pray for the innocent victims of wars around the world, and for Christian believers caught up in them. Come, Lord Jesus! I long for the day when Jesus will return and complete his victory over every power and authority by putting “all His enemies under His feet” (1 Cor. 15:25).

ABOUT THE AUTHOR

Stephen is our Senior Minister.