Bible Strands
2 Kings 8:1
Now Elisha had said to the woman whose son he had restored to life, “Arise, you and your household; go and live as a foreigner wherever you can. For the LORD has decreed that a seven-year famine will come to the land.”
Berean Standard Bible
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Study note
Setting — Elisha addresses the woman whose son he previously restored to life, ordering her and her household to flee as foreigners before a divinely decreed seven-year famine strikes the land.
The words — הֶחֱיָה (he.che.Yah) records the prior restoration of the boy to life, while דִּבֶּר (di.Ber) marks the formal prophetic utterance that initiates the evacuation order.
The thread — The famine decree parallels the land famine in Ruth 1:1 and the withheld food supply in Psalms 105:16, while the woman’s temporary exile as a foreigner mirrors the displacement pattern in Ruth 1:1.
Why it lands — The text requires immediate compliance with prophetic warning, instructing readers to execute divine directives on hardship before the crisis reaches them.
Drafted by a language model from the text, its original words and its cross-references, then checked against them. It can still be wrong: open the verse in the app to report it.
The Hebrew words
King James Version
Then spake Elisha unto the woman, whose son he had restored to life, saying, Arise, and go thou and thine household, and sojourn wheresoever thou canst sojourn: for the Lord hath called for a famine; and it shall also come upon the land seven years.
Cross-references
- Ruth 1:1 In the days when the judges ruled, there was a famine in the land. And a certain man from Bethlehem in Judah, with his wife and two sons, went to reside in the land of Moab.
- 2 Kings 4:31 Gehazi went on ahead of them and laid the staff on the boy’s face, but there was no sound or response. So he went back to meet Elisha and told him, “The boy has not awakened.”
- Psalms 105:16 He called down famine on the land and cut off all their supplies of food.
- Haggai 1:11 I have summoned a drought on the fields and on the mountains, on the grain, new wine, and oil, and on whatever the ground yields, on man and beast, and on all the labor of your hands.”
- Genesis 12:10 Now there was a famine in the land. So Abram went down to Egypt to live there for a while because the famine was severe.
- 2 Kings 4:18 And the child grew, and one day he went out to his father, who was with the harvesters.
- Genesis 41:27 Moreover, the seven thin, ugly cows that came up after them are seven years, and so are the seven worthless heads of grain scorched by the east wind—they are seven years of famine.
- Leviticus 26:26 When I cut off your supply of bread, ten women will bake your bread in a single oven and dole out your bread by weight, so that you will eat but not be satisfied.
- 1 Kings 17:1 Now Elijah the Tishbite, who was among the settlers of Gilead, said to Ahab, “As surely as the LORD, the God of Israel, lives, before whom I stand, there will be neither dew nor rain in these years except at my word!”
- 1 Kings 18:2 So Elijah went to present himself to Ahab. The famine was severe in Samaria,