2 Kings 8:7-10 - Hawker's Poor Man's Commentary

It is not very easy to ascertain at what time it was that Elisha paid this visit to Damascus. The Lord had commanded Elijah about 21 years before this period: See 1 Kings 19:15. (that is, supposing, this visit of Elisha was as is here introduced, after the two years of famine before related) to go to the wilderness of Damascus, and anoint Hazael king of Syria; but when Elisha went to Damascus, or what the occasion of his visit there was for, is not easy to conjecture. But passing this by, there is one sweet spiritual improvement ariseth out of it, which is this. Even in those distant ages before the coming of the Lord Jesus Christ, the visits of God's faithful servants to the Gentile and Heathen portended the full salvation being one day preached to them. And though our dear Lord told the poor woman of Canaan that he was not sent but to the lost sheep of the house of Israel, yet we find that he graciously included both Jew and Gentile in one fold, and told that very woman that such was her faith, that everything should be as she herself desired. Matthew 15:22-28. When we consider in what was related before (see 2 Kings 6:8-14.) how Benhadad intended to have seized the prophet, it is somewhat singular that Elisha should venture his person in Damascus. And it is no less strange that the mind of Benhadad should have been so changed from hatred to reverence. But these things are all plain to be understood, when we trace the hand of the Lord in it. God giveth his servants boldness, like a lion, and the same God turneth the hearts of his children's enemies to be at peace with them, when such things answer the sovereign purpose of his holy will. The answer which Elisha made to Hazael's question, whether the king his master should recover, seems at first reading ambiguous. He said, thou mayest certainly recover; howbeit ye shall surely die. But the sense seems to be very plainly this; the disorder under which thy master labours is not in itself mortal; of that disease he might certainly recover. But he shall surely die of a violent death. For thou wilt be his executioner. This the following verses prove.