the prophet, whom they had been sent to capture, led them as captives back to Samaria. Forgetting that mercy is due to the vanquished, the king of Israel, in a paroxysm of revenge, cried out, “My father, shall I smite them? shall I smite them?” More humane than his royal master, the kind-hearted Elisha replied, “Thou shalt not smite them: wouldst thou smite them whom thou hast taken captive with thy sword and with thy bow? Set bread and water before them, that they may eat and drink, and go to their master.”[501] Benhadad, enraged at his failure to capture the man whom he supposed was the cause of his ill success, sought to accomplish by famine what he had failed to do by the sword. Investing the city on every side, he reduced the citizens to the greatest necessity. It was during the horrors of the long and fearful famine which followed that, as the King of Israel passed along the wall, “there cried a woman unto him, saying, Help, my lord, O king. And he said unto her, What aileth thee? And she answered, This woman said unto me, Give thy son, that we may eat him to-day, and we will eat my son to-morrow. So we boiled my son and did eat him; and I said unto her on the next day, Give thy son that we may eat him; and she hath hid her son.” Rending his clothes at a spectacle so mournful, and erroneously attributing the famine to Elisha, the king swore, “God do so, and more also to me, if the head of Elisha, the son of Shaphat, shall stand on him this day.” Conscious of his innocence and undaunted at the threat, the prophet sat calmly in his house; and, contrary to all human probability, but knowing what would befall the enemy that night, he said to the executioner, “To-morrow about this time shall a measure of fine flour be sold for a shekel, and two measures of barley for a shekel, in the gate of Samaria.” Terrified by a supernatural noise, that night the Syrians abandoned their well-provisioned camp and fled for safety. Four lepers, who had lingered outside of the city, dying of hunger, in the desperation of despair resolved to enter the enemy’s camp and ask for bread; but, to their surprise, the camp was empty of men, but full of the spoils of war. Lepers though they were, they hastened back to the city with the glad tidings of plenty, and that day were fulfilled the prophetic words of Elisha.[502] Illustration: SAMARIA.