And when they came down to him. — This would mean that the Syrians came down to Elisha. But the prophet was, to begin with, in the city, which lay on the top of the hill; and the heavenly host intervened between him and his enemies, so that the latter must have occupied the lower position. The reading of the Syriac and Josephus ıs, “and they (i.e., Elisha and his servant) went down to them” — i.e., to the Syrian force; and this is apparently right. The sight of the heavenly host guarding his master had inspired the prophet’s follower with courage to face any danger in his master’s company.
Elisha prayed. — And Elisha; prayed — mentally, as he approached his foes.
This people. — Perhaps in the sense of multitude.
Blindness. — Sanwçrîm: the term used in Genesis 19:11, and nowhere besides. It denotes not so much blindness as a dazing effect, accompanied by mental bewilderment and confusion. “They saw, but knew not what they saw” (Rashi). Ewald pronounces the passage in Genesis the model of the present one.