When the king heard the words of the woman, he tore his clothes. And as he passed by on the wall, the people saw the sackcloth under his clothes next to his skin.
This last paragraph of this chapter should, of right, have been the first of the next chapter, for it begins a new story, which is there continued and concluded. Here is, I. The siege which the king of Syria laid to Samaria and the great distress which the city was reduced to thereby.
Commenting on 2 Kings 6:24-33
And Elisha sat in his house,.... In Samaria: and the elders sat with him; not the elders of the city, or the magistrates thereof, but his disciples, as Josephus says (p), the eldest of them, whom he admitted to greater familiarity and converse with him: and the king sent a man from before him; to execute what he had sworn should be done that day...
had sackcloth within upon his flesh--The horrid recital of this domestic tragedy led the king soon after to rend his garment, in consequence of which it was discovered that he wore a penitential shirt of haircloth. It is more than doubtful, however, if he was truly humbled on account of his own and the nation's sins; otherwise he would not have vowed vengeance on the prophet's life.