Syria Besieges Samaria in Famine

And it happened after this that Ben-Hadad king of Syria gathered all his army, and went up and besieged Samaria.

And there was a great famine in Samaria; and indeed they besieged it until a donkey’s head was sold for eighty shekels of silver, and one-fourth of a kab of dove droppings for five shekels of silver.

If we say, ‘We will enter the city,’ the famine is in the city, and we shall die there. And if we sit here, we die also. Now therefore, come, let us surrender to the army of the Syrians. If they keep us alive, we shall live; and if they kill us, we shall only die.”

The King Restores the Shunammite’s Land

Then Elisha spoke to the woman whose son he had restored to life, saying, “Arise and go, you and your household, and stay wherever you can; for the Lord has called for a famine, and furthermore, it will come upon the land for seven years.”

By the ninth day of the fourth month the famine had become so severe in the city that there was no food for the people of the land.

either three years of famine, or three months to be defeated by your foes with the sword of your enemies overtaking you, or else for three days the sword of the Lord—the plague in the land, with the angel of the Lord destroying throughout all the territory of Israel.’ Now consider what answer I should take back to Him who sent me.”

“When there is famine in the land, pestilence or blight or mildew, locusts or grasshoppers; when their enemies besiege them in the land of their cities; whatever plague or whatever sickness there is;

‘If disaster comes upon us—sword, judgment, pestilence, or famine—we will stand before this temple and in Your presence (for Your name is in this temple), and cry out to You in our affliction, and You will hear and save.’

Does not Hezekiah persuade you to give yourselves over to die by famine and by thirst, saying, “The Lord our God will deliver us from the hand of the king of Assyria”?

There were also some who said, “We have mortgaged our lands and vineyards and houses, that we might buy grain because of the famine.”

In famine He shall redeem you from death, And in war from the power of the sword.

You shall laugh at destruction and famine, And you shall not be afraid of the beasts of the earth.

They are gaunt from want and famine, Fleeing late to the wilderness, desolate and waste,

To deliver their soul from death, And to keep them alive in famine.

They shall not be ashamed in the evil time, And in the days of famine they shall be satisfied.

Moreover He called for a famine in the land; He destroyed all the provision of bread.

The firstborn of the poor will feed, And the needy will lie down in safety; I will kill your roots with famine, And it will slay your remnant.

These two things have come to you; Who will be sorry for you?— Desolation and destruction, famine and sword— By whom will I comfort you?

They have lied about the Lord, And said, “It is not He. Neither will evil come upon us, Nor shall we see sword or famine.

therefore thus says the Lord of hosts: ‘Behold, I will punish them. The young men shall die by the sword, their sons and their daughters shall die by famine;

Sword, Famine, and Pestilence

The word of the Lord that came to Jeremiah concerning the droughts.

When they fast, I will not hear their cry; and when they offer burnt offering and grain offering, I will not accept them. But I will consume them by the sword, by the famine, and by the pestilence.”

Then I said, “Ah, Lord God! Behold, the prophets say to them, ‘You shall not see the sword, nor shall you have famine, but I will give you assured peace in this place.’ ”

Therefore thus says the Lord concerning the prophets who prophesy in My name, whom I did not send, and who say, ‘Sword and famine shall not be in this land’—‘By sword and famine those prophets shall be consumed!

And the people to whom they prophesy shall be cast out in the streets of Jerusalem because of the famine and the sword; they will have no one to bury them—them nor their wives, their sons nor their daughters—for I will pour their wickedness on them.’