2 Kings 8:7

ELISHA IN DAMASCUS; THE KING INQUIRED OF HIM

"And Elisha came to Damascus; and Benhadad the king of Syria was sick; and it was told him, saying, The man of God is come hither. And the king said unto Hazael, Take a present in thy hand, and go, meet the man of God, and inquire of Jehovah by him, saying, Shall I recover of this sickness? So Hazael went to meet him, and took a present with him, even of every good thing of Damascus, forty camels' burden, and came and stood before him, and said, Thy son Benhadad king of Syria hath sent me to thee, saying, Shall I recover from this sickness?"

That Elisha was honorably received in Damascus at that time might have been due to his fame that resulted from the healing of Naaman. Certainly, something had changed from that situation in which Benhadad sought to capture him (2 Kings 6:13ff). "Not only in Israel, but also in the neighboring nations, Elisha was well known and respected as God's man."[8]

"And the king said unto Hazael" (2 Kings 8:8). This character should not be confused with the father of Benhadad, who was called the son of Hazael (2 Kings 13:3). This Hazael was the "son of a nobody,"[9] who murdered Benhadad and seized his throne.

"Hazael ... took a present with him ... forty camels' burden ... Shall I recover of this sickness?" (2 Kings 8:9). "One camel's burden is six hundred pounds";[10] but, "This affair must be judged according to Oriental custom of making a grand display with the sending of presents, employing as many men or beasts of burden as possible to carry them, each one of them carrying only a single article."[11]

"Shall I recover of this sickness?" That the king of Syria would bring such a question before Elisha is a strong indication that the Gentiles, generally, throughout that whole era, were aware of the True God's existence and of the worthlessness of the pagan deities of the peoples.

The exact date of this event is not known; however, "The inscriptions of Shalmanezer III, record his victory over Benhadad in 846 B.C. and another victory over Hazael, whom he described as `a nobody who seized the throne,' in the year 842 B.C. This would have been during the reign of Jehoram in Judah, about three years before Jehu seized the throne of Israel."[12]

A number of scholars suppose that Elisha anointed Hazael king over Syria on this trip, but there is nothing here to support such a view. God had commanded Elijah at Horeb to anoint Hazael (1 Kings 19:15); and there are two ways of understanding what happened: (1) Either Elijah went to Damascus and anointed him without any Scriptural record of it being recorded, or (2) Elijah transferred the obligation to Elisha who anointed him without any record of it being placed in the Bible. LaSor assumed that, "Elisha's doing so was the purpose of this visit."[13] Honeycutt also wrote that, "The anointings, both of Hazael and of Jehu, were fulfilled by Elisha."[14] The Lord has not revealed to us everything that happened, because such information, if we had it, would be of no value. The purpose of the sacred author was that of revealing the manner of God's triumph over paganism.