2 Kings 8:2-8

8:2 So the woman did as the prophet said. 1  She and her family went and lived in the land of the Philistines for seven years. 8:3 After seven years the woman returned from the land of the Philistines and went to ask the king to give her back her house and field. 2  8:4 Now the king was talking to Gehazi, the prophet’s 3  servant, and said, “Tell me all the great things which Elisha has done.” 8:5 While Gehazi 4  was telling the king how Elisha 5  had brought the dead back to life, the woman whose son he had brought back to life came to ask the king for her house and field. 6  Gehazi said, “My master, O king, this is the very woman and this is her son whom Elisha brought back to life!” 8:6 The king asked the woman about it, and she gave him the details. 7  The king assigned a eunuch to take care of her request and ordered him, 8  “Give her back everything she owns, as well as the amount of crops her field produced from the day she left the land until now.”

Elisha Meets with Hazael

8:7 Elisha traveled to Damascus while King Ben Hadad of Syria was sick. The king 9  was told, “The prophet 10  has come here.” 8:8 So the king told Hazael, “Take a gift 11  and go visit the prophet. Request from him an oracle from the Lord. Ask him, 12  ‘Will I recover from this sickness?’”

1 tn Heb “and the woman got up and did according to the word of the man of God.”

2 tn Heb “and went out to cry out to the king for her house and her field.”

3 tn Heb “man of God’s.”

4 tn Heb “he”; the referent (Gehazi) has been specified in the translation for clarity.

5 tn Heb “he”; the referent (Elisha) has been specified in the translation for clarity.

6 tn Heb “and look, the woman whose son he had brought back to life was crying out to the king for her house and her field.”

sn The legal background of the situation is uncertain. For a discussion of possibilities, see M. Cogan and H. Tadmor, II Kings (AB), 87-88.

7 tn Heb “and the king asked the woman and she told him.”

8 tn Heb “and he assigned to her an official, saying.”

9 tn Heb “he”; the referent (the king) has been specified in the translation for clarity.

10 tn Heb “man of God” (also a second time in this verse and in v. 11).

11 tn The Hebrew text also has “in your hand.”

12 tn Heb “Inquire of the Lord through him, saying.”