Consequential Famine and God’s Will

2 Kings 6:24-33
    24 And it happened after this that Ben-Hadad king of Syria gathered all his army, and went up and besieged Samaria. 25 And there was a great famine in Samaria; and indeed they besieged it until a donkey's head was sold for eighty shekels of silver, and one-fourth of a kab of dove droppings for five shekels of silver.
    26 Then, as the king of Israel was passing by on the wall, a woman cried out to him, saying, "Help, my lord, O king!"  27 And he said, "If the LORD does not help you, where can I find help for you? From the threshing floor or from the winepress?" 28 Then the king said to her, "What is troubling you?"  And she answered, "This woman said to me, 'Give your son, that we may eat him today, and we will eat my son tomorrow.' 29 So we boiled my son, and ate him. And I said to her on the next day, 'Give your son, that we may eat him'; but she has hidden her son."
    30 Now it happened, when the king heard the words of the woman, that he tore his clothes; and as he passed by on the wall, the people looked, and there underneath he had sackcloth on his body. 31 Then he said, "God do so to me and more also, if the head of Elisha the son of Shaphat remains on him today!"
    32 But Elisha was sitting in his house, and the elders were sitting with him. And the king sent a man ahead of him, but before the messenger came to him, he said to the elders, "Do you see how this son of a murderer has sent someone to take away my head? Look, when the messenger comes, shut the door, and hold him fast at the door. Is not the sound of his master's feet behind him?" 33 And while he was still talking with them, there was the messenger, coming down to him; and then the king said, "Surely this calamity is from the LORD; why should I wait for the LORD any longer?"

Syria besieged Samaria until a great famine overtook Samaria, a common wartime tactic used where a city was surrounded and cut off from supplies to starve its inhabitants into surrendering.  This famine was a consequence of Jehoram, king of Israel, pursuing God’s messenger while ignoring the messages from the LORD which he brought, and Israel who followed.  The starvation reached the point during the long siege where a woman told the tale of cannibalistic woes to the king where two mothers agreed to eat their children, but after one child was consumed, the other was hidden.  Such desperation led to such a low point!  This angered the king, but he blamed the prophet Elisha once more for what he LORD had meted out upon His rebellious people.  Jehoram sent a messenger to capture God’s messenger, but the LORD revealed his coming, as well as the anxious king coming on his heels to ensure Elisha was caught and dealt with.  He blamed the LORD, but then tried to handle the matter to bring about the result he wanted and not God’s will to be done.  He tried to kill the messenger of God so he could ignore God’s will.  We must beware that we do not follow Jehoram’s example of running ahead of God to force our will for our desired outcome, and not the Lord’s, whether in a physical or spiritual famine or simply in good times when we don’t like what God is doing or saying.  Submission to the Sovereign One is the only life and peace, no matter the circumstance (1 Timothy 6:6).  We exist to honor and glorify the Lord, not command Him to make life pleasing to us.