In Second Kings, chapter six, verse twenty-eight, there was a famine in Samaria, and Israel had lost their faith and departed from a covenant trust in God. His people committed horrible deeds against their children during a severe drought. A primary result of casting aside God and His Word is the loss of family love and affection, as in Deuteronomy twenty-eight, verse fifteen, verses fifty-three through fifty-seven, respectively.
Is there anything singular in thy case? Dost thou fare worse than thy neighbors? Honestly, yes: she and one of her neighbors had agreed that all provisions failing, they should boil and eat her son first, and then her neighbor’s (who can think on it without horror?) This shocking story is a terrible effect of the divine vengeance in which Moses, about six hundred years before, had warned the Israelites would fall upon them in case of their apostasy from, and rebellion against, God.
Learn to value plenty and to be thankful for it. See how contemptible money is, when the time of famine it is so freely parted with for anything eatable! The language of Jehoram to the woman may be the language of despair. See the fulfillment of the word of God among the threats of God’s judgments upon Israel for their sins in this horrible transaction. Alas! What miseries sin has brought upon the world! But the foolishness of man perverts his way, and then his heart frets against the Lord. The king swears the death of Elisha. Wicked men will blame anyone as the cause of their troubles rather than themselves and will not leave their sins. If rending the clothes, without a broken and contrite heart, would avail, if wearing sackcloth, without being renewed in the spirit of their mind, would serve, they would not stand out against the Lord. May the whole word of God increase in us reverent fear and holy hope, that we may be steadfast and immovable, always abounding in the work of the Lord, knowing that our labor is not in vain in the Lord.