The Four Outcasts and Deliverance

"To morrow about this time shall a measure of fine flour be sold for a shekel, and two measures of barley for a shekel, in the gate of Samaria." The officer: "Behold, if the LORD would make windows in heaven, might this thing be?" "Behold, thou shalt see it with thine eyes, but shalt not eat thereof."

Four leprous men at the gate: "Why sit we here until we die?… let us fall unto the host of the Syrians: if they save us alive, we shall live; and if they kill us, we shall but die." At twilight the camp is empty. "The Lord had made the host of the Syrians to hear a noise of chariots, and a noise of horses… Lo, the king of Israel hath hired against us the kings of the Hittites, and the kings of the Egyptians."

They eat, drink and hide silver and gold, then stop: "We do not well: this day is a day of good tidings, and we hold our peace." They tell the gatekeepers. The king suspects a trap; scouts follow the trail of abandoned garments to the Jordan. The people plunder the camp; flour and barley sell at Elisha's price. The officer, set over the gate, is trampled by the crowd and dies, "as the man of God had said."

Hittites and Egyptians

In the 9th century BC, "Hittites" meant the Neo-Hittite kingdoms of northern Syria and southern Turkey (such as Hamath and Carchemish), which Assyrian texts also call Hatti. The Arameans feared a coalition of these and Egypt.

Qumran

The papyrus scroll 6QpapKings (6Q4) is reported to preserve bits of 2 Kings 7:8–10 and 7:20–8:5 among other passages. Its surviving letters versus reconstructed text have not been checked by the site.

Excluded and essential

People with tsara'at lived outside the camp (Leviticus 13:46). The four outcasts are the first to see the deliverance and choose to share it.