Cornelius a Lapide
Table of Contents
Synopsis of the Chapter
Elisha foretells a seven-year famine, and in verse 7, death to Ben-hadad king of Syria, and to Hazael his kingdom: then in verse 17 are described the deeds of Joram son of Jehoshaphat king of Judah, and in verse 25, the deeds of Ahaziah son of Joram.
Vulgate Text: 4 Kings 8:1-29
1. Now Elisha spoke to the woman whose son he had restored to life, saying: Arise, go, you and your household, and sojourn wherever you may find a place; for the Lord has called a famine, and it will come upon the land for seven years. 2. She arose and did according to the word of the man of God; and going with her household, she sojourned in the land of the Philistines for many days. 3. And when the seven years were ended, the woman returned from the land of the Philistines, and went out to appeal to the king for her house and for her fields.
4. Now the king was talking with Gehazi, the servant of the man of God, saying: Tell me all the great things that Elisha has done. 5. And while he was narrating to the king how he had raised the dead, the woman whose son he had restored to life appeared, crying out to the king for her house and for her fields. And Gehazi said: My lord king, this is the woman, and this is her son, whom Elisha raised. 6. And the king questioned the woman: and she told him. And the king gave her one eunuch, saying: Restore to her all that is hers, and all the revenues of her fields, from the day she left the land until the present. 7. Elisha also came to Damascus, and Ben-hadad king of Syria was ill; and they reported to him, saying: The man of God has come here. 8. And the king said to Hazael: Take gifts with you, and go to meet the man of God, and consult the Lord through him, saying: Shall I recover from this illness of mine? 9. So Hazael went to meet him, having with him gifts, and all the good things of Damascus, loads for forty camels. And when he had stood before him, he said: Your son Ben-hadad king of Syria has sent me to you, saying: Shall I recover from this illness of mine? 10. And Elisha said to him: Go, tell him: You shall recover; but the Lord has shown me that he will certainly die. 11. And he stood with him, and was troubled even to a change of countenance; and the man of God wept. 12. Hazael said to him: Why does my lord weep? And he said: Because I know what evils you will do to the children of Israel. You will set fire to their fortified cities, and you will kill their young men with the sword, and you will dash their little ones to pieces, and rip open their pregnant women. 13. And Hazael said: But what is your servant, a dog, that he should do this great thing? And Elisha said: The Lord has shown me that you will be king of Syria. 14. And when he had departed from Elisha, he came to his master. Who said to him: What did Elisha say to you? And he answered: He told me: You shall recover. 15. And when the next day had come, he took a thick cloth, and poured water on it, and spread it over his face: and when he was dead, Hazael reigned in his place. 16. In the fifth year of Joram son of Ahab, king of Israel, and of Jehoshaphat king of Judah, Joram son of Jehoshaphat became king of Judah. 17. He was thirty-two years old when he began to reign, and he reigned eight years in Jerusalem. 18. And he walked in the ways of the kings of Israel, as the house of Ahab had walked: for a daughter of Ahab was his wife, and he did what was evil in the sight of the Lord. 19. But the Lord was not willing to destroy Judah, for the sake of David His servant, as He had promised him, to give him a lamp, and to his sons forever. 20. In his days Edom revolted from being under Judah, and set up a king for itself. 21. And Joram came to Seir, and all his chariots with him; and he arose by night and struck the Edomites who had surrounded him, and the commanders of the chariots, but the people fled to their tents. 22. So Edom revolted from being under Judah, to this day. Then Libnah also revolted at that time. 23. Now the rest of the deeds of Joram, and all that he did, are they not written in the Book of the Chronicles of the Kings of Judah? 24. And Joram slept with his fathers, and was buried with them in the City of David, and Ahaziah his son reigned in his place. 25. In the twelfth year of Joram son of Ahab, king of Israel, Ahaziah son of Joram, king of Judah, became king. 26. Ahaziah was twenty-two years old when he began to reign, and he reigned one year in Jerusalem: the name of his mother was Athaliah, daughter of Omri king of Israel. 27. And he walked in the ways of the house of Ahab, and did what was evil before the Lord, like the house of Ahab: for he was a son-in-law of the house of Ahab. 28. He also went with Joram son of Ahab, to fight against Hazael king of Syria in Ramoth-gilead, and the Syrians wounded Joram: 29. who returned to be healed in Jezreel; because the Syrians had wounded him in Ramoth, when he was fighting against Hazael king of Syria. Now Ahaziah son of Joram, king of Judah, went down to visit Joram son of Ahab in Jezreel, because he was ill there.
Verse 1: The Lord Has Called a Famine
1. FOR THE LORD HAS CALLED (by His voice, that is, by His command He will bring) A FAMINE, AND IT WILL COME UPON THE LAND FOR SEVEN YEARS. This is a hysteron proteron; for this prophecy of Elisha about the seven-year famine was made earlier, namely five or six years before; but it is recounted here because the things narrated in verse 5 and following happened to the woman who had been his hostess, to whom Elisha had foretold this famine, when she returned to her land after the seven years of famine. The same is confirmed from the fact that Gehazi here in verse 4 converses with the king. Therefore he was not yet a leper; for lepers were excluded from human intercourse. Therefore these things occurred before the arrival and healing of Naaman; for before that Gehazi was struck with leprosy, as I said above. So Torniellus, Salianus, and others.
Verse 7: Elisha Came to Damascus
7. ELISHA ALSO CAME TO DAMASCUS (which was the capital of Ben-hadad king of Syria), AND BEN-HADAD KING OF SYRIA WAS ILL in Damascus. Ben-hadad, shortly after the lifting of the siege of Samaria, fell into this illness, from which he died, due to the terror and grief. Hear Josephus, book 9, chapter 2: "The king of the Syrians, having returned safe to Damascus, when he learned that he and his army had been put to flight by a divinely sent terror, and that what they had believed about the coming of enemies had been false, judging that the Deity was entirely against him, through his mental distress fell into a bodily illness as well." Indeed, God willed to punish Ben-hadad, who had inflicted so many disasters on Israel, with illness and death, and therefore sent Elisha to Damascus, who would foretell his death to Hazael, and declare him the successor to the kingdom.
Verse 9: Having With Him Gifts, and All the Good Things of Damascus
9. HAVING WITH HIM GIFTS, AND ALL THE GOOD THINGS OF DAMASCUS, LOADS FOR FORTY CAMELS. Hazael offered so many and such great gifts to Elisha for the health of his king Ben-hadad; but it is certain that Elisha did not accept them; both because he did not heal Ben-hadad, but foretold his death: and because he had firmly refused, in chapter 5, the gifts of Naaman whom he had cured of leprosy, and punished Gehazi with leprosy for accepting them. So Abulensis and others.
Verse 10: You Shall Recover, But the Lord Has Shown Me
10. GO, TELL HIM: YOU SHALL RECOVER. BUT THE LORD HAS SHOWN ME THAT HE WILL CERTAINLY DIE. This is a difficult passage; for Elisha seems to command Hazael to tell a lie, namely to tell King Ben-hadad that he will recover, when he is about to die. First, the Rabbis and from them Abulensis read the contrary, namely, you shall not recover; for instead of לו le, with a vav, that is, to him, they read לא lo with an aleph, that is, not. But the Chaldean, Septuagint, and all Latin manuscripts read affirmatively: you shall recover. Secondly, others reply that Elisha spoke ironically, as if to say: namely, you shall recover — you hope to recover; but you are wrong: for you will not recover, but will die.
Thirdly and genuinely: "you shall recover," namely as far as concerns the disease, as if to say: your disease is not fatal; from this disease you will not die, which was true; for it was not the disease, but the violence of Hazael that killed and suffocated Ben-hadad. So Cajetan, Serarius, Salianus, and others.
Verse 13: What Is Your Servant, a Dog
13. BUT WHAT IS YOUR SERVANT, A DOG, THAT HE SHOULD DO THIS GREAT THING? Hazael denies that he is a dog, not only as to baseness, but even more as to canine impudence and ferocity, as if to say: I am not so impudent, barbarous, and fierce as to rage against human entrails like a dog, and devour them. Why then do you, O Elisha, assert and say to me: "You will dash their little ones to pieces, and rip open their pregnant women?" Thus indeed Hazael felt at that time; but having become king of Syria he changed his disposition, and did what Elisha here foretells, and what he himself here abhors. For honors change character, but rarely for the better. He adds the reason:
THE LORD HAS SHOWN ME THAT YOU WILL BE KING OF SYRIA, as if to say: you will become king of Syria, and therefore having become king you will put on the innate hatred of the Syrians against the Israelites, so that you will "dash their little ones and rip open their pregnant women," as I predicted. This hatred began with Hadad, while he rebelled against Solomon and made himself king of Syria, and from him as from a father his son Ben-hadad imbibed it, and from him the other kings of Syria. See what was said on 3 Kings 11:14. Made bolder by this prediction of the kingdom, Hazael suffocated King Ben-hadad and seized his kingdom, as follows: and unmindful and ungrateful to Elisha, he made himself an enemy of Israel, and raged against it, and fulfilled the barbarity foretold to him by Elisha.
Verse 15: He Took a Thick Cloth, and Poured Water on It
15. HE TOOK A THICK CLOTH, AND POURED WATER ON IT, AND SPREAD IT OVER HIS FACE. The Hebrew, Chaldean, and Septuagint add: and he died, which our translator expressed by adding: And when he was dead, Hazael reigned in his place. It seems Ben-hadad, burning with feverish heat, had asked for water to cool himself: Hazael handed it to him in a cloth soaked with water, and thus, whether through carelessness or rather through treachery, as water continually dripped from the cloth into the mouth and throat of Ben-hadad, he suffocated him, so that he might succeed him in the kingdom. Serarius adds that this water and cloth had perhaps been infected with some poisonous liquid: as the ancients relate about Hercules' shirt from Deianira, and about the tunics of Emperor Otto III, Ladislaus king of Hungary, and Suleiman. Josephus says he was simply strangled: thus indeed God punished Ben-hadad for the cruelty exercised against the Israelites.
Moreover, Ben-hadad seems to have reigned 56 years; for so many intervene from the 17th year of Asa king of Judah, when Ben-hadad began to reign, as is clear from 3 Kings 15, verse 18, up to the first year of Hazael's reign. So Salianus. Some however think that several kings intervened in Syria, and all were called "Ben-hadad," that is, sons and successors of Hadad, the first king of Syria. Whence the Hebrews hold that Ben-hadad was the common name of the kings of Syria. Finally, Josephus, book 11 of Antiquities, chapter 2, asserts that both Ben-hadad and Hazael are held in the highest veneration among the Syrians, indeed "both are worshipped with divine honors," and the image of each is honored with daily processions, both because of other beneficence, and because by magnificently building temples they made Damascus more beautiful.
Verse 16: In the Fifth Year of Joram Son of Ahab
16. IN THE FIFTH YEAR OF JORAM SON OF AHAB, KING OF ISRAEL, JORAM SON OF JEHOSHAPHAT BECAME KING OF JUDAH, namely alone after the death of his father Jehoshaphat. You will object that this seems to have happened in the seventh year of Joram, not the fifth; for in chapter 3, verse 1, it was said that Joram king of Israel began to reign in the 18th year of Jehoshaphat king of Judah; and Jehoshaphat reigned 25 years: from the 18th year to the 25th, there are seven years, after which, when Jehoshaphat died, his son Joram succeeded him. Lyra and Cajetan respond that Joram son of Ahab reigned after Ahab's death together with Ahaziah his firstborn brother for two years: namely from the 18th year of Jehoshaphat until his 20th year, when Ahaziah died, and then Joram his younger brother began to reign alone. Therefore what is said here: "in the fifth year of Joram," understand from the time when Joram alone began to reign after his brother's death, which was in Jehoshaphat's 20th year; but against this is what is said in 3 Kings, last chapter, verse 52, namely that Ahaziah began to reign in Israel in the 17th year of Jehoshaphat, and died in his 18th year, for he reigned only two years: therefore since Ahaziah died in the 18th year of Jehoshaphat, and his brother Joram immediately succeeded him, it follows that Joram began to reign in the 18th year of Jehoshaphat, not the 20th. Better, Abulensis responds that the 18th year of Jehoshaphat should not be counted, because Joram began to reign at its completion, nor the 19th, because he began to reign toward its end, nor the 25th, because it was incomplete: and with these three years removed, from the 18th year of Jehoshaphat to his 25th year there remain only five complete years, about which it is said here: "In the fifth year of Joram son of Ahab, etc. Joram son of Jehoshaphat reigned," namely after the death of Jehoshaphat, who died in the 25th year of his reign; for then his son Joram succeeded him.
Most excellently, Richard of St. Victor in his reconciliation of the books of Kings and Chronicles, Arias on Daniel, Salianus, Torniellus, Sanchez, and Serarius here respond that Joram king of Judah was twice named king by his father, on account of two wars, namely first, in the 17th year of Jehoshaphat, when he himself was about to go to war with Ahab against the Syrians, 3 Kings 22, and then it seems Jehoshaphat again declared his son Joram king, and entrusted the administration of the kingdom to him in his absence, and from that point the eight years in which Joram is said to have reigned are to be counted; that is, for three years Joram reigned with his father Jehoshaphat alive, and for four more after his father's death: and the eighth and last year was incomplete, and therefore not counted. Therefore although some hold that Joram reigned eight years after the death of his father Jehoshaphat, yet it is truer as I have said, namely that he reigned only four complete years, and a fifth incomplete one, after the death of Jehoshaphat, but during his father's lifetime he reigned during the last three years, this is clear from chapter 9:29, where Ahaziah son of Joram king of Judah, after Joram his father died, is said to have begun to reign in the eleventh year of Joram king of Israel: now count the years from the fifth year of Joram king of Israel to his eleventh year, you will have only five complete years, during which alone the other Joram reigned in Judah after the death of his father Jehoshaphat.
Conversely, when in chapter 1:17, Joram king of Israel is said to have begun reigning in the second year of Joram son of Jehoshaphat king of Judah, understand the second year from the time when Joram first received from his father Jehoshaphat, who was going against the Syrians, the title of king, which was in the 17th year of Jehoshaphat. Whence the second year of Joram son of Jehoshaphat falls in the 18th year of Jehoshaphat, when Joram son of Ahab began to reign in Israel.
Verse 18: Joram Walked in the Ways of the Kings of Israel
18. AND JORAM (son of Jehoshaphat, king of Judah) WALKED IN THE WAYS OF THE KINGS OF ISRAEL (worshipping their idols) AS THE HOUSE OF AHAB HAD WALKED. FOR A DAUGHTER OF AHAB WAS HIS WIFE, named Athaliah; for she was the wife of Joram, and the mother of Ahaziah, as is clear from verse 26.
Verse 19: To Give Him a Lamp
19. TO GIVE HIM A LAMP, that is, a royal stock and lineage, namely of descendants continuously succeeding one another in the kingdom of Judah.
Verse 21: Joram Came to Seir
21. AND JORAM CAME TO SEIR, that is, to Edom. For just as from Esau its founder, who was also called Edom, it was called Idumea, so from the same man, who was likewise called Seir, that is, hairy, shaggy, it was called Seira.
Verse 23: The Rest of the Deeds of Joram
23. NOW THE REST OF THE DEEDS (that is, affairs and exploits) OF JORAM, AND ALL THAT HE DID, ARE THEY NOT WRITTEN IN THE BOOK OF THE CHRONICLES OF THE KINGS OF JUDAH, that is, in the Diaries and Annals of the kings of Judah?
Note, many things about Joram are passed over in silence here, which are therefore supplied in 2 Chronicles chapter 21, where in verse 3 King Jehoshaphat is said to have given his sons, who were brothers of Joram, "pensions" (some wrongly read, compensations), that is, annual revenues. Again, that Joram killed all his brothers, six in number, so that he alone might reign securely. Moreover, that Elijah, already taken up (nine years before), sent him a letter from paradise, in which for these fratricides and for his idolatry he threatened God's vengeance, which soon came upon him; for God struck him with an incurable disease, so that his bowels came out: He also killed all his sons through the Philistines and Arabs, except only Ahaziah, who though the youngest, succeeded him, and this as the punishment of retribution, so that just as he himself had killed his brothers, so also his sons would be killed. Josephus adds that his wives were killed. Thus these barbarians by the just judgment of God, by the slaughter of the king's sons, offered a funeral sacrifice to the shades of the royal brothers: nor yet did the foolish king say in his heart: "You are just, O Lord, and Your judgment is right."
Verse 25: In the Twelfth Year of Joram Son of Ahab
25. IN THE TWELFTH YEAR OF JORAM SON OF AHAB, KING OF ISRAEL, AHAZIAH SON OF JORAM, KING OF JUDAH, BECAME KING. You will object: in the following chapter, verse 29, it is said that Ahaziah began to reign in the eleventh year of Joram, not the twelfth. I respond: he began in the eleventh year to reign with his father Joram, who was in the torments of his illness; but in the following year, which is the twelfth, after his father's death he reigned alone in Judah. So Abulensis, Sanchez, Salianus, and others.
Verse 26: Ahaziah Was Twenty-Two Years Old When He Began to Reign
26. AHAZIAH WAS TWENTY-TWO YEARS OLD WHEN HE BEGAN TO REIGN. You will object: 2 Chronicles chapter 22,
vers. 2, he is said to have been 42 years old? This contradiction is very difficult and almost irreconcilable, which I will discuss in its place in the book of Chronicles.
THE NAME OF HIS MOTHER WAS ATHALIAH, DAUGHTER OF OMRI, that is, granddaughter of Omri; for Athaliah was the daughter of Ahab, as was said in verse 18. And Ahab was the son of Omri. Thus in Matthew 1:8, Uzziah is called the son of Joram, when he was his grandson, indeed his great-great-grandson; for there three generations are omitted, and three intermediate sons, namely Ahaziah, Joash, and Amaziah, because Joram had joined himself to the impious stock of Ahab, and with his wife Athaliah, daughter of Jezebel, had brought idolatry into the kingdom of Judah.
Otherwise the Hebrews, according to St. Jerome in the Traditions, and Cajetan, respond that Athaliah was truly the daughter of Omri, but is called the daughter of Ahab either by imitation or by upbringing, because she was educated by Ahab, and therefore imitated his idolatry.
Verse 27: He Was a Son-in-Law of the House of Ahab
27. FOR HE WAS A SON-IN-LAW OF THE HOUSE OF AHAB. Ahaziah therefore seems to have married a daughter of Joram son of Ahab, just as Joram, Ahaziah's father, had married Athaliah the daughter of Ahab, or at least married a daughter of a brother or sister of Joram; for he is called "son-in-law of the house of Ahab" because his father-in-law was Joram, or a brother of Joram: indeed this whole propagation of impiety and idolatry was brought into the kingdom of Judah through the impious Jezebel; for Athaliah was her daughter, and her granddaughter was the wife of Ahaziah, both of whom, educated by Jezebel, who was the mother of one and the grandmother of the other, imbibed her impiety and pagan ways. See here how dangerous and harmful it is to marry infidel or heretical wives.