(2 Kings) Outcasts and Kings — David Guzik

The Siege of Samaria and Elisha’s Promise

Alright, tonight we begin in 2 Kings chapter 7, although it's a little unfair to begin right there at verse 1, because 2 Kings chapter 7 actually begins right in the middle of a story of the siege surrounding Samaria.

The Syrian army had surrounded the capital city of the northern kingdom of Israel, that's the city of Samaria, and they were starving them out, as was the custom in a siege back in those ancient times.

And we're told at the end of 2 Kings chapter 6 that the siege became so bad that the Israelites were resorting to cannibalism in a vain attempt to try to keep themselves alive. It showed just how desperate it was at this time in the city of Samaria, in the northern kingdom of Israel.

And so now at verse 1,. Now, of course, you have no idea to know how those prices are, those high prices or those low prices. Well, let me tell you, those prices are a little bit more than usual. Those are prices that are slightly higher than normal, but for a time of famine, they're absolutely rock-bottom low prices.

You know, there was no food available anywhere in the city. They had been pushed to such extremity that they were eating their own children. And so for Elisha to make this kind of promise about food to be this plentiful in 24 hours in the city of Samaria was an absolutely astounding promise for him to make.

And I want you to notice something. He didn't say, I think, or it's my opinion, or I'm going to make this prediction. He said, hear the word of the Lord. I think it's wonderful that the Lord had anything to say to the king of Israel at this point.

Because just a few verses before, he was blaming God for the calamity. He was blaming God and his prophets for all this calamity of the great famine that had come upon the people of the northern kingdom of Israel.

And, of course, it wasn't God's problem at all. Yet God brought this merciful reply that in 24 hours there would be incredible food brought back into the city of Samaria. And I want you to think about this.

I mean, you have to say that this would be a remarkable promise to be fulfilled. Because even if the siege were to end immediately, let's say the Syrian army that was surrounding the city of Samaria decided, OK, we give up on the siege.

We're going to go. Well, if they were to leave, where would the food come from? I mean, you could understand things getting better in a week or two or in a month or two. But in 24 hours for the entire situation to turn around, how could it be?

Matter of fact, it was such an incredible promise that in verse 2, So an officer on whose hand the king leaned answered the man of God and said, Look, if the Lord would make windows in heaven, could this thing be?

And he said, that is, Elisha said back to him, In fact, you shall see it with your eyes, but you shall not eat of it. Now, the king's officer doubted the prophecy. His doubt was based on what seemed to be logic, right?

How could this logically come to pass? But I want you to see that actually his doubt was based on several faulty premises. First of all, he doubted the power of God. Certainly, if God willed it, he certainly could make windows in heaven and drop down food from the sky for the hungry besieged city of Samaria.

God could do that, right? I mean, I think of how Israel in the wilderness, he sent manna to them. Couldn't God send manna to Samaria all over again? I think of how when they were in the wilderness, God sent a huge flock of quail to provide meat for the whole city.

Couldn't God steer a big flock of, you know, turkeys or birds or something flying that's good to eat and send them right down? God could do that. If God wanted to, God could certainly open the windows of heaven.

Why was the king's officer doubting this? Secondly, he didn't just doubt the power of God. I would say he also doubted the creativity of God. In the mind of the king's officer, the only way that food could come to the city was from above because the city was surrounded by a hostile besieging army, right?

You can't get food through the army on the ground. Therefore, you have to drop it down from above with a window in heaven. That's the way that the king's officer thought. But you know what? He had no idea that God would bring the provision in a completely unexpected way.

I mean, he had it all planned out. Okay, well, you know, if God wants to open up windows in heaven, fine. But even if God were to do that, could it be enough? How often faith is just like that, or maybe I should say how often unbelief is just like this.

It says God can work in this way, but not in this way. We doubt the creativity of God. God can do it any way he pleases. If he wants to open a window in heaven, he can. If he doesn't, well, he doesn't have to.

So he doubted the power of God. He doubted the creativity of God. I'll give you a third thing that he doubted. He doubted the messenger of God. Now, I'll admit, this was a hard promise to believe, right?

But who made the promise? This was Elisha. Elisha, who had been proven true time and time before. The king's officer should have said, I know this seems like an unbelievable promise. It's a real stretch for me to accept it.

Nevertheless, I know who is making the promise, and I'm going to trust it because of that. But he didn't. All in all, I think that officer very well illustrates the conduct of unbelief. Unbelief dares to question the truthfulness of God's promise.

God makes a promise, and unbelief says, I don't think so. Unbelief says, I've never seen anything like it before. This is a new thing, and it can't be true. Unbelief says, it's a sudden thing. It can't happen that quickly.

Oh sure, maybe food can come, but not in 24 hours. It's a sudden thing. It can't happen. Unbelief says, I don't see any way to accomplish this. Unbelief says, there's only one way that God can work this.

Or unbelief says, even if God does something, it won't be enough. All of that is unbelief speaking. And in response to the officer's declaration of unbelief, what did Elisha say? He said, in fact, you shall see it with your own eyes, but you shall not eat of it.

Now through Elisha, God pronounced a very harsh judgment upon the king's doubting officer. He was going to see the word fulfilled, but not benefit from its fulfillment. Isn't that the great tragedy of unbelief?

You know, God can be doing good things all around you. And you can see it with your eyes. But if your heart is filled with unbelief, you may see it, but not enjoy it. You can see it, but you won't taste of it.

The Four Lepers Act in Faith

Now, what happens? How's God going to answer this amazing, amazing promise that Elisha made, or actually the Lord made through Elisha? Well, it's a wonderful story here. Look at it, starting at verse 3.

Now, there were four leperous men at the entrance of the gate. And they said to one another, why are we sitting here until we die? You have to love that. Okay, first of all, famine like this, when a city is besieged, there's no food, people are eating each other.

It's that bad. That affects everybody. But you have to admit, it affects some people worse than others. And if it affected anybody badly, it was the lepers. Now, do you understand where the lepers would normally get their food?

You couldn't work a job. You couldn't farm. You couldn't do anything. Lepers depended on basically the garbage dump for their food. That was the only place they could get food. And might I say, in a time of famine like that, nobody is throwing anything away that can be eaten.

Nothing. Nothing that can possibly be eaten. And so they say, why are we sitting here until we die? Those men weren't welcome in the city. That's why they were at the gate. Their leperous condition made them outcasts.

It made them untouchables. And I don't want to give away the story, but I'll tell you right now, God's going to work through these four leperous men. Isn't it wonderful to think how often in the scriptures God works through poor, afflicted, outcast men and women?

If you were to take all the stories out of the Bible where God worked with somebody who was sorrowful, or somebody who was afflicted, or somebody who was sick, or somebody who was distressed in some way, you take all of that out of the Bible, and it's a pretty thin book, isn't it?

No, God was going to work through these men. And it came through this question that they asked themselves, why are we sitting here until we die? Their logic was perfect. Listen, if they stayed at the city gate, not in the city, because they weren't allowed in, but if they stayed right there at the city gate, they would die of the famine.

Now, if food became available in the city, how long do you think it would take until those lepers got any of the scraps? It would take a long time. So they say, we stay here, we're dead. Now, if we go into the army camp of the Syrians, we're probably dead also, but my chances are better if I surrender to the Syrians.

They say, why do we sit here until we die? Verse 4, if we say we will enter the city, the famine is in the city, and we'll die there. And if we sit here, we die also. Now therefore, come, let us surrender to the army of the Syrians.

If they keep us alive, we shall live, and if they kill us, we shall only die. And they arose at twilight to go to the camp of the Syrians, and when they had come to the outskirts of the Syrian camp, to their surprise, no one was there.

Now, first of all, again, you just have to love their logic. And I think that this is great logic for any unbeliever. Any unbeliever who's under the conviction of sin, they say, listen, I'm going to hell, what can I do?

I'll go to Jesus. Well, what if He rejects me? Well, what if He does? You're going to hell anyway. You know, why not just come to the Lord and put your trust in Him? Maybe He won't, well, okay, let's say He won't accept you.

Well, you're no worse off than you were before. So you may as well go. You may as well put your trust in Jesus. And you may as well try something. And that's what they did. And it says that they came to the outskirts of the Syrian camp, and to their surprise, no one was there.

Now, this huge army surrounded the city of Samaria for many months. And so it was set up like a city unto itself. It was the home and the supply center for thousands of men. And when the lepers came upon it that morning, they discovered an empty army camp.

It was like a ghost town. It was fully supplied, but empty of men. I think it's interesting what it says there. It says that they came to the outskirts of the Syrian camp. Now, those words, they came to the outskirts of the Syrian camp, imply that they came not only to the edge of the camp, but that they came to the furthest most part of the Syrian camp.

In other words, what they did was they didn't just go to the camp of the Syrians. They went all the way around the back of the camp and came from the entrance furthest away from the city of Samaria. They came implying that they were not coming from the city of Samaria.

They figured that's our best chance. And so they said, OK, well, we'll come. And, you know, here we are. We're walking from the other direction. And something happened. What happened? Look at verses 6 and 7.

For the Lord had caused the army of the Syrians to hear the noise of chariots and the noise of horses, the noise of a great army, so that they said to one another, Look, the king of Israel has hired us against the kings of the Hittites and the kings of the Egyptians to attack us.

Therefore, they arose and fled at twilight and left the camp intact, their tents, their horses and their donkeys. And they fled for their lives. Can you imagine what it was like to be a Syrian soldier in that camp?

All of a sudden you hear, what's that in the distance? And it gets closer and closer and louder and louder. And you hear what sounds like a huge army advancing towards you. Say, get out of here. Now, it wasn't just the sound that they heard, but it was also the reaction in their mind, the reaction in their hearts that they get out of here.

We have to leave immediately. Don't take the time to pick up the camp. Don't take the time to break up the kitchen or pack up the food or do anything. Just run. And that's what they did. I wonder how God did this miracle.

You know, I think of these lepers shuffling their feet, walking towards the camp. One commentator I read suggests that God amplified the sound of the little shuffling of the feet that the lepers made, because it was coming from that direction.

It was coming from the outside direction, right? And maybe God just amplified the sound until the shuffling little feet of four lepers sounded like it was the roar of a mighty army. But then I think more about it.

You know, did God put sound waves into the air that made it sound like the army was coming? Or did he just put the electrical impulses in their brain that made it sound in their heads like an army was coming?

I don't know. But God did it. He made it sound as if there was a great army coming and they said, Go now. Now, they left the camp intact. Everything was left behind. Leaving the unlikely lepers as conquerors of the Syrian camp and spoilers of it.

As a result, I want you to notice right now, the lepers walk into the camp, all the Syrians are gone. Do you understand something about the siege of the city of Samaria? It's over. The army measuring, the army guarding the siege walls, they're all gone.

The siege for the city of Samaria is over. But not a single person in the city of Samaria knew it. As far as they were concerned, they were still starving to death. As far as they were concerned, you couldn't go out of the city walls without immediately being killed.

Everybody who went to bed that night in the city of Samaria felt that they were still in that horrible place of starving to death with no hope, no possibility, and they didn't know you'd been set free.

You were set free. Isn't that amazing what God does with the work of Jesus Christ on the gospel? He has set people free from the law of sin and death. They just don't know it yet. They don't know that if they were to go out and receive it by faith, it could be theirs.

But now these four lepers, they're the only ones who know. They're the only ones who can enjoy it. And so notice what happens here, starting at verse 8. It says, And when these lepers came to the outskirts of the camp, they went into one tent and ate and drank and carried from it silver and gold and clothing and went and hid them.

And they also came back and entered another tent and carried some from there also and went and hid it. Then they said to one another, We're not doing right. This is a day of good news. And if we remain silent, if we wait until morning light, some punishment will come upon us.

Now, therefore, come, let us go and tell the king's household. You know, I can just picture this in my mind. They rush into a tent. It's full of food on the table. You know, it was just worth the king or the general was there with all this food on the table.

And they can't believe it. They look to one another. They look around. Surely this is a trap. There must be Syrians. So there's nobody there. And then they go and they come up on the food and they grab it.

They're just about ready to eat. Oh, what if it's poison? No, I'm going to try it when they eat it. And it's so good. They start eating so fast. They start getting stomach aches and then they start feeling guilty about everything.

And they think, no, we can't do this. We can't do this. We are not doing right. We have to go tell people about this. Now, was it right for the lepers to enjoy the miracle that God had put right in front of them?

Absolutely. It was right. We would never tell those lepers. Now, don't you eat a thing until you've told everybody else? No, no, no. Eat, eat, eat, stuff yourself, but then go tell. And that was exactly their attitude here.

You see, they understood that for them to remain silent, for them to be silent and to selfishly enjoy their blessings would have been a sin. They had a responsibility to share the good news. Now, listen, boy, isn't this convicting for us?

How many Christians? That's their attitude. Oh, I love the feast, Lord. Whoo, you've provided the siege is broken. I'm free. And here's the feast right in front of me. Oh, Lord, you've provided. Isn't it great?

And they want to eat and eat and eat. But they never sense the Holy Spirit telling them, you can't keep eating this without telling somebody else. When are you going to set somebody else free? When are you going to turn somebody else onto this banquet?

So that's one lesson. Yes, we have a responsibility to tell others also. But nevertheless, I want you to notice something else. They enjoyed the feast first before they told other people about it. And that's how it should be for us.

You know, many Christians aren't enjoying the feast. They're there. They're looking at the table. They're watching it. You know, they're not enjoying it. I don't know why. They're on a hunger strike before the feast that God puts right in front of them.

And then they go, Oh, yeah. Would you like to enjoy the feast, too? Well, are you enjoying it? Oh, no, not me. But maybe you'd like to eat it. Well, no. Enjoy it first yourself. Feed on it and then tell others about it.

The Good News Reaches the City

So what happened here? Check it out. Here starting at verse 10, where we read, So they went and called to the gatekeepers of the city and told them, saying, We went to the Syrian camp and surprisingly no one was there.

Not a human sound. Only horses and donkeys tied and tents intact. Now, if you notice, that was their opening line. They had to speak to the gatekeepers. By the way, I like that. Who else could they tell?

The only people in the whole city they could talk to was the gatekeepers. I bet the gatekeepers knew these four lepers. Oh, there's the four lepers that we won't allow into the city. Hey, stay away from here.

That's about all the gatekeepers ever said to the lepers. Get away. Oh, finally. Oh, there's the four lepers. Where have you guys been? I know exactly how I would film this if I was making a movie of this.

I would have the four lepers coming up, kind of sheepishly looking at the gatekeepers. And then they would say, Hey, we've got something to tell you. And then they go out and they tell the news to the gatekeepers.

And the gatekeepers don't believe them until one of the lepers lets out a big burp, a big belch. And says, Oh, that's a satisfied burp of having eaten so much. And the gatekeepers look at it. Hey, those guys are just eating something.

There must be food out there some way. So anyway, the gatekeepers had to relay the message. Look at it. They're starting at verse 11. And the gatekeepers called out and they told it to the king's household inside.

So the king arose in the night and said to his servants, Let me now tell you what the Syrians have done to us. They know that we're hungry. Therefore, they've gone out of the camp to hide themselves in the field, saying when they come out of the city, we shall catch them alive and get into the city.

And one of his servants answered and said, Please let several men take five of the remaining horses which are left in the city. Look, they may become either like the multitude of Israel that are left in it.

Or indeed, I say they may become like all the multitude of Israel left from those who are consumed. So let us send them and see. Therefore, they took the two chariots with the horses and the king sent them in the direction of the Syrian army, saying, Go and see.

And they went out after them to the Jordan. And indeed, all the road was full of the garments and weapons which the Syrians had thrown away in their haste. So the messengers returned and told the king.

I like this. You know, the lepers couldn't speak to the king, right? Never in a million years. So who could they speak to? The gatekeepers. You know, God doesn't expect you to witness to the people that you can't witness to.

Speak to the people that you can. There's somebody you can speak to. And so he spoke to who they could. But that's how it is with good news. The gatekeepers told it to somebody else. And they told it to somebody else.

And eventually, it got all the way to the king. And the king said, Well, we better find out and see. So they went out and they sent this expedition to see if it was true. And it was true. So now, verse 16.

Then the people went out and plundered the tents of the Syrians. So a say a fine flower was sold for a shekel and to say as a barley for a shekel, according to the word of the Lord. Wasn't that just how the Lord works?

Just exactly as he lies. The prophet had predicted. But who could have ever thought that it would be fulfilled in this way? You see, when the good news that started with the report of the lepers was found to be true, there was no stopping the people.

Could you imagine the king to say, All right, everybody, we've just discovered there's a massive amount of food just outside the city. But let's go there in a very orderly fashion. Nobody run it. You couldn't stop them, right?

They're beating down the walls. They're opening the gates. They're running out to satisfy their need. Because they knew how needy they were. They were happy to receive God's provision to meet the need.

And so they say, Well, let's go out and get it met. And they run out. And it all happened according to the word of the Lord. Now, I wonder what the king's official thought at all of this. And he thought that I couldn't see how this could have happened.

How could this be true? I don't believe it. But you know, you can't argue with somebody like those lepers who is actually known and handled and tasted the food. It's like that great testimony from the Gospel of John, right?

The man who was born blind. And then he had the testimony when Jesus healed him. Once I was blind, but now I see. Once I was hungry, but now I'm filled. You can't argue against that. Well, you see the argument that the Lord made against the city official.

Verse 17. Now, the king had appointed the officer on whose hand he leaned to have charge of the gate. But the people trampled him in the gate, and he died just as the man of God had said, who spoke when the king came down to him.

So it happened just as the man of God had spoken to the king, saying, Two sails of barley for a shekel and a sail of fine flour for a shekel shall be sold tomorrow about this time in the gate of Samaria.

Then that officer who had answered the man of God and said, Now look, if the Lord would make windows in heaven, could such a thing be? And he had said, In fact, you shall see it with your eyes, but you shall not eat of it.

And so it happened to him, for the people trampled him in the gate, and he died. I wonder if the king did not give this officer this responsibility as a rebuke. You know, you doubted the prophet, so now you have to supervise the people as they run out to get this.

But I don't know if the king did it as a rebuke or just as a matter of course, but no matter why the king did it, the man went out there to supervise the people running out to the Syrian camp that was now empty, and now the people trampled him, and he never saw the provision that he doubted would come.

Because of his unbelief, he saw other people enjoying God's blessings while he did not. And I think that has to be one of the huge, huge lessons from this chapter, right? I mean, this is a really beautiful chapter with many, many practical devotional type applications to our life.

We can think of the lepers, and we can think, You know what? The boldness of faith. Just going out there and saying, Hey, look, if I stay here, I'm going to die. If I do something, why not go for it? Why not try something bold for the Lord?

Why not try something and see what God will do with it? And that was their attitude. We can take a lesson from the king's officer and see the harmful, harmful conduct of the unbelief. We can see how it's possible that other people can be enjoying things right in front of us, but we don't enjoy it because of our own unbelief.

And we can see in the overarching way, the way that God cares for his people and can provide even when there seems to be no other way for him to provide. This is a glorious truth from the scriptures, repeated many, many times, that God has ways to provide that we know nothing about.

Isn't it human nature that when we have a need, we immediately start thinking how God can meet the need for us? And then we start, you know, sort of putting God in a certain box, in a certain direction.

Lord, you have to meet this need for me. And I'm not just talking about material needs or financial needs. You may say, well, I have a need, you know, for this emotional thing. Lord, I need a special friend.

And I know how that friend should be. And you start thinking all about it in your mind, how this must be, how God has to do it. And you know what? You better be totally open to the fact that God may do it in a completely unexpected way.

That God may meet that need that you have and want to meet it. But the problem is, is your way of planning things out for God has essentially made your heart unbelieving towards any other way that God might meet your need.

You've said this. Well, Lord, if you want to open a window in heaven and do it that way, that's fine. But that's the only way you can meet my need. Well, did you see that in this case with the Syrian camp?

God didn't have to open a window in heaven. He did it in a completely unexpected way. I think we all benefit tremendously when we just say to the Lord, OK, you're God. I'm not your God. And just let him handle it from there.

Elisha’s Care for the Shunammite Woman

All right. Well, now on to 2 Kings chapter 8, verse 1. We sort of come to another instance, another miraculous occasion in the life of Elisha. Verse 1. Then Elisha spoke to the woman whose son he had restored to life, saying, Arise and go, you and your household, and stay wherever you can.

For the Lord has called for a famine, and furthermore, it will come upon the land for seven years. Now, you remember this situation where Elisha had brought this widow's son or this woman's son back to life, and she was beautifully restored.

Excuse me. She was restored of having her son come back to her, that the son was restored to life. And out of kindness to them, when Elisha knew that a famine was coming upon the land, he warned them.

And he said, Go ahead. Go a different way. Find some other place to live, because it's going to come upon the land for seven years. And so it tells us, So the woman arose and did according to the saying of the man of God, and she went with her household and dwelt in the land of the Philistines seven years.

It came to pass, at the end of the seven years, that the woman returned from the land of the Philistines, and she went to make an appeal to the king for her house and for her land. Now, again, this woman's story was previously reported to us in 2 Kings chapter 4, where Elisha's previous dealings with this woman included restoring her son to life.

And so her and her husband were godly, generous people who had helped the prophet. But through Elisha's prayer, they were blessed with the son who was also brought back miraculously to life. And she went with her household at the warning, at the prompting of Elisha, and lived in the land of the Philistines seven years on the advice of the prophet, and therefore they were spared the worst of the famine.

But upon leaving Israel and going back to the land of the Philistines, the woman forfeited her right to her ancestral lands. And so she makes the appeal to the king coming back. And I like the woman's logic.

I don't think that I should suffer for obeying the prophet of God. And so I'm going to make an appeal to the king. If he doesn't answer, he doesn't answer. But at least I will make an appeal to the king to have these lands restored.

And let me ask you, was this a king of Judah or a king of Israel? It was a king of Israel. In fact, it was Joram, the son of Ahab. Now, the son of Ahab, would you expect him to be a godly man, a sympathetic man, not one bit?

We don't expect this man to answer favorably. Remember how Ahab liked to grab land from people, how he wanted to get the land of Nabal, and how he was willing to murder him for it and all the rest of it?

So you remember that whole occasion there? It doesn't look very optimistic for this woman to say, Oh, please, can I have my land, my house back? But look at what the Lord does. Verse 4. Then the king talked with Gehazi, the servant of the man of God.

Stop right here. Remember Gehazi? Where was the last place we saw Gehazi? Getting struck with leprosy because he went after Naaman the Syrian and asked for material things and God had said, you know, no, to Elisha and to Elisha's servants as well.

No, don't take anything from Naaman the Syrian. And so God gave him some of the wealth of Naaman, but he also gave him Naaman's leprosy. Now, we read this and we say, Oh my gosh, is the king of Israel having a conference with Mr. Leper here?

Gehazi? And there's two responses to that. Number one, this may be out of chronological order. This may have happened before Gehazi was smitten with leprosy. Or there's another possibility. It may be that Gehazi was leprous.

And yet the king was so interested in what was going on with the prophet Elisha that he even had a leprous man come and tell him. Because it says here in verse 4,. Then the king talked with Gehazi, the servant of the man of God, saying, Tell me, please, all the great things Elisha has done.

He really wanted to know. Now, while the king is having this conversation with Gehazi, what happens? Now it happened, as he was telling the king about how he had restored the dead to life, that there was the woman whose son he had restored to life appealing to the king for her house and for her land.

What a coincidence, right? At the very time Gehazi is telling about this stupendous miracle about raising this woman's life, her son to life, excuse me, the doorbell rings, so to speak. And it's, oh, wouldn't you know, it's the woman.

And she has a request to make to the king. And Gehazi said, My lord, O king, this is the woman. And this is her son, whom Elisha restored to life. And when the king asked the woman, she told him. So the king appointed a certain officer for her saying, Restore all that was her and all the proceeds of the field from that day that she left from the land until now.

Do you see this? Not only did she get her house back, not only did she get her fields back, but any income that those fields had made since the time she was back, it was restored to her. You have to say, in the one sense, is this a great miracle?

I don't think you compare this miracle to bringing her son back from the dead. You can't compare the greatness of them. But nevertheless, isn't this a glorious miracle of God's timing? That's all what it was.

It was just timing. And, you know, aren't those some of the most wonderful miracles that God does in our lives? Miracles of timing. It's not that the events in themselves are so remarkable or so amazing, but how God times them, how God arranges them, makes us just stand back in wonder and say, Lord, you have done a great miracle here.

You did it at the exact time necessary, just as it was with this woman and her need. Well, verse 7 brings us on to another subject where there's a new king who's going to reign in Syria, and it happens in a very interesting way here.

Hazael’s Ambition and the Burden of Prophecy

Look here, verse 7. Then Elisha went to Damascus, and Ben-Hadad, king of Syria, was sick. And it was told him, saying, The man of God has come here. And the king said to Ahazael, Take a present in your hand, and go and meet the man of God, and inquire of the Lord by him, saying, Shall I recover from this disease?

So Ahazael went to meet him and took a present with him of every good thing from Damascus, 40 camel loads. That's a big present. And he came and stood before him and said, Your son, Ben-Hadad, king of Syria, has sent me to you, saying, Shall I recover from this disease?

Well, apparently, at this time, I don't know if you could say there's warm relations between Syria and the northern kingdom of Israel, but at least there's some kind of relations between the king of Syria, Ben-Hadad, and the prophet of God, Elisha.