evident to them that, for some unknown reason, the enemy had left the camp. It was, however, not so much the thought

that this was a day of good tidings to Samaria, in which they must not hold their peace, as the fear that if they tarried till

the morning without telling it, guilt would attach to them, that induced them hastily to communicate with the guard at

the gate, who instantly reported the strange tidings. But so far from receiving the news as an indication that the

prediction of Elisha was in the course of fulfillment, the king does not even seem to have remembered it. He would

have treated the report as a device of the Syrians, to lure the people in the frenzy of their hunger outside the city gates.

Foolish as the seeming wisdom of Joram was, there are only too many occasions in which neglect or forgetfulnes s of

God's promise threatens to rob us of the liberty and blessing in store for us. In the present instance there were, happily,

those among the king's servants who would put the matter to the test of experiment. From the few remaining troops,

five  243 horsemen and two  244 chariots were to be dispatched to report on the real state of matters.

The rest is soon told. They found it as the lepers had informed them. Not only was the Syrian camp deserted, but all

along the way to Jordan the track of the fugitives was marked by the garments and vessels which they had cast away in

their haste to escape. And as the messengers came back with the tidings, the stream of people that had been pent up in

the city gate poured forth. They "spoiled the tents of the Syrians." Pres ently there was abundance and more than that

within Samaria. Once more market was held within the gate, where they sold for one shekel two sacks of barley, or else

one sack of fine flour. And around those that sold and bought surged and swayed the populace. Presumably to keep

order among them, the king had sent his own adjutant, the same "on whose hand" he had "leaned" when Elisha had

made his prophetic announcement; the same who had sneered at its apparent impossibility. But it was in vain to seek to

stem the torrent of the people. Whether accidentally or of purpose they bore down the king's adjutant, and trod him

under foot in the gate. "And he died, as the man of God had said."

We mark at the close of this narrative the emphatic repetition of the circum tances connected with this event. For,

s

assuredly, as it was intended to show the faithfulness of God in the fulfillment of His promise for good, so also that of

the certain and marked punishment of unbelief. And both for the teaching of Israel, and, let u s add, for that of all men,

and in all ages.