2 Kings 7:3-11
"3 Now there were four men who were lepers at the entrance to the gate. And they said to one another, “Why are we sitting here until we die? 4 If we say, ‘Let us enter the city,’ the famine is in the city, and we shall die there. And if we sit here, we die also. So now come, let us go over to the camp of the Syrians. If they spare our lives we shall live, and if they kill us we shall but die.” 5 So they arose at twilight to go to the camp of the Syrians. But when they came to the edge of the camp of the Syrians, behold, there was no one there. 6 For the Lord had made the army of the Syrians hear the sound of chariots and of horses, the sound of a great army, so that they said to one another, “Behold, the king of Israel has hired against us the kings of the Hittites and the kings of Egypt to come against us.” 7 So they fled away in the twilight and abandoned their tents, their horses, and their donkeys, leaving the camp as it was, and fled for their lives. 8 And when these lepers came to the edge of the camp, they went into a tent and ate and drank, and they carried off silver and gold and clothing and went and hid them. Then they came back and entered another tent and carried off things from it and went and hid them.
9 Then they said to one another, “We are not doing right. This day is a day of good news. If we are silent and wait until the morning light, punishment will overtake us. Now therefore come; let us go and tell the king's household.”10 So they came and called to the gatekeepers of the city and told them, “We came to the camp of the Syrians, and behold, there was no one to be seen or heard there, nothing but the horses tied and the donkeys tied and the tents as they were.” 11 Then the gatekeepers called out, and it was told within the king's household."
It was given to the four lepers outside the city gates to discover how the Lord wrought the miraculous deliverance and opened the windows of heaven to feed His hungry people. And what a surprising deliverance it was! In the last chapter we read how He closed their eyes to the obvious, and now He opened their ears to something that was not there! - Or did He? Would it not be truer to say that what the Syrians heard was the sound of the chariots and horses that Elisha and the young men saw in their hour of peril? The hosts of God are not only for the protection of His people, but also for the discomfiture of His foes. The lepers must have thought they were dreaming, but the taste of the precious food must soon have convinced them that this was a real and substantial miracle, and they took their fill. How gracious of the Lord to arrange for such outcasts to discover His bountiful provision! Their reaction however is even more important, especially in the illustration it gives of our responsibilities in the gospel (9). They regarded it as their duty to bring the good news of their discovery to the people within the city, and in like manner, when we have discovered for ourselves the unsearchable riches of Christ we owe it to the world to spread the good tidings. It is inexcusable to hold our peace in such a situation. The unreasonableness of not telling and sharing is seen very clearly in the case of the lepers. Would that it were seen as clearly in the far greater issues of gospel-witness!