What Does 2 Kings 8:7 Mean in the King James?
And Elisha came to Damascus; and Ben-hadad the king of Syria was sick; and it was told him, saying, The man of God is come hither.
The analysis reads the King James wording.
King James Version The King James Version, first published in 1611. Selah Verse shows the standard text.
THE KEY
The Hebrew root behind “sick” also reaches toward “entreat,” so the king’s bodily weakness is already turning toward a plea.
THE MEANING
Your rank and strength do not place your body beyond vulnerability. As the king hears that Elisha has arrived, weakness opens the scene to a word outside his command. The moment remains unresolved: the man of God is here, but no healing is promised yet.
WHAT THIS UNDOES
The lie this verse undoes is that authority can make a person self-sufficient: even a king’s body enters need.
THE ROOT
חֹלֶה
ḥōleh
GROWS FROM
חלה
ḥ-l-h
Become weak or sick; in another form, entreat or appeal.
English gives “sick” only as a bodily condition, but the Hebrew root family also reaches toward entreating. It lets weakness and appeal touch: a king who commands a realm is already at the edge of asking for help.
ALSO GROWS
ḥŏlî: Sickness, illness
חֳלִי
The next verse uses this noun for the king’s “disease,” carrying the root of his weakness into the question he sends.
wayḥal: He entreated, appealed
וַיְחַל
This form shows the root’s appeal sense, joining being brought low with pleading for another’s intervention.
אֱלִישָׁע
ʾĔlîšāʿ
GROWS FROM
ישע
y-š-ʿ
Deliver, bring out into spaciousness; Elisha’s name carries “My God is deliverance.”
Elisha’s name puts deliverance into the scene before he speaks. His arrival brings that possibility near, while the verse leaves the king’s recovery unresolved.
ALSO GROWS
yāšaʿ: Deliver, bring out
יָשַׁע
This verb holds the action inside Elisha’s name: deliverance is something that brings a person out.
yəšûʿāh: Deliverance
יְשׁוּעָה
This noun makes explicit the quality carried by Elisha’s name, present in the scene without yet guaranteeing an outcome.
THE PATTERN
Illness can turn even people of rank toward a word beyond their command.
At that time Abijah the son of Jeroboam fell sick. And Jeroboam said to his wife, Arise, I pray thee, and disguise thyself, that thou be not known to be the wife of Jeroboam; and get thee to Shiloh: behold, there is Ahijah the prophet, which told me that I should be king over this people. And take with thee ten loaves, and cracknels, and a cruse of honey, and go to him: he shall tell thee what shall become of the child.Now Naaman, captain of the host of the king of Syria, was a great man with his master, and honourable, because by him the LORD had given deliverance unto Syria: he was also a mighty man in valour, but he was a leper.So Jesus came again into Cana of Galilee, where he made the water wine. And there was a certain nobleman, whose son was sick at Capernaum. When he heard that Jesus was come out of Judæa into Galilee, he went unto him, and besought him that he would come down, and heal his son: for he was at the point of death.THE THREAD
And the king said unto Hazael, Take a present in thine hand, and go, meet the man of God, and enquire of the LORD by him, saying, Shall I recover of this disease?The next verse calls this condition “this disease,” using חֳלִי (ḥŏlî), from the same root חלה (ḥ-l-h) behind “sick” here. The shared word-family moves from the king’s weakness to the question he sends through Hazael.
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