2 Kings 6:27

2Ki 6:27 And he said, If the LORD do not help thee, whence shall I help thee? out of the barnfloor, or out of the winepress?

Ver. 27. If the Lord do not help thee.] Or - by way of angry imprecation - Let not the Lord save thee; that is, God confound thee; {a} Dii te perdant, Dii tibi male faxint, said the heathens in like case. {b}

{a} Dispereas.

{b} Vatab.

John Trapp, A Commentary or Exposition upon All the Books of the Old and New Testament (1647–1656) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.

Meaning, any kind of vittle, as corn and wine, etc.

Geneva Bible (1599) marginal notes — public domain. Text via Bolls.life.

Verse 27. If the Lord do not help thee] Some read this as an imprecation, May God save thee not! how can I save thee?

Adam Clarke's Commentary on the Bible (1810–1826) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword/MySword module.

(27) If the Lord do not help thee.—This is right. The marginal rendering, “Let not the Lord help thee!”—i.e., “May the Lord destroy thee!” would be possible in another context. Another rendering is, “Nay (i.e., do not supplicate me), let the Lord help thee!”

Out of the barnfloor.—Comp. Hosea ix 2.: “The floor and the winepress shall not feed them, and the new wine shall fail in her.” Jehoram, in the irony of despair, reminds the woman of what she well knows—viz., that the corn and wine, the staple foods of the time, are long since exhausted. The words, “If the Lord do not help thee,” may be compared with 2Ki_3:10, “Alas! that the Lord hath called,” &c. The character of Jehoram is consistently drawn. But perhaps the point is: “Jehovah alone is the giver of corn and wine (Hos_2:8-9). Appeal not to me for these.”

A Bible Commentary for English Readers, edited by Charles John Ellicott (1878–1897) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.

27. If the Lord do not help thee] There is some difficulty here. The word rendered ‘if … not’ is that which in Hebrew is generally put with an imperative = ‘Let not’. So that the sense would be ‘May the Lord not help thee’. So the LXX. But such a wish could hardly have come at such a time into the king’s mind. The R.V. (marg.) attempts to keep the imperative force thus, ‘Nay, let the Lord help thee’. This comes a little nearer the sense of the English versions. But there is no warrant for separating the negative particle in this way from its verb. Perhaps it is best to explain the negative particle, as if the verb belonging to it were suppressed. Thus ‘Do not (cry to me); the Lord must help thee; for I cannot’. In this way the sense given in the English versions would be the correct force of the words.

out of the barnfloor, or out of the winepress?] i.e. with anything to eat or to drink. The supply of both was utterly spent, as the whole city knew. For the expression cf. Hos_9:2.

The Cambridge Bible for Schools and Colleges (gen. ed. J. J. S. Perowne; Cambridge University Press, 1878–1918) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.

So we boiled my son, and did eat him,.... Thus what was predicted, by way of threatening, began to be accomplished, Deu 28:53; see Gill on Deu 28:53, and of which there were other instances of a like kind at the siege of Jerusalem, both by Nebuchadnezzar and Vespasian:

and I said unto her on the next day; after her child had been wholly ate up:

give thy son, that we may eat him; according to agreement:

and she hath hid her son; either to save him alive, or to eat him herself alone.

John Gill's Exposition of the Whole Bible (1746–1763) — public domain (CC PDM 1.0). Text via the HelloAO Bible API.

If the Lord do not help - The translation in the text is decidedly better than the marginal rendering. Some prefer to render - “Nay ... let Jehovah help thee. Whence, shall I help thee?”

Out of the barnfloor ... - The king means that both were empty - that he had no longer any food in store; and therefore could not help the woman. Compare Hos 9:2.

Albert Barnes' Notes on the Bible (1834–1885) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword/MySword module.

CHAPTER VI.

Save (salvat.) Many ancient manuscripts read salvet, conformably to the Hebrew and Septuagint, as if the king cursed the woman: "Let not the Lord save thee," Josephus [Antiquities?] ix. 4. Others place the stops differently: "He said, no: the Lord save thee." (Calmet) --- He is the author of life. (Menochius)

George Leo Haydock (1774–1849), Haydock's Catholic Family Bible and Commentary, 1859 edition — public domain. Excludes Psalms (Douay-Rheims chapter numbering differs from Protestant) and Deuterocanonical books (Catholic canon only).

If the Lord do not help thee, or, let not God help thee, as some both ancient and late interpreters render the words. So they are words of impatience, and rage, and a formal curse, wishing that God would not help her, as he could not, as Josephus, amongst others, understand it; which agrees too well with the character of the man, an infidel, and an idolater, and a wicked man, and at this time in a great rage, as appears from 2Ki 6:31. Or they may be rendered thus, No; (as this Hebrew particle is sometimes used, as Job 20:17; Psa 24:5; Psa 41:2; 50:3; Pro 3:3,5; 31:4) let the Lord help thee. So it may be taken, either, first, As a direction: No; do not cry to me, but to God, for help: God help thee, for I cannot. Or rather, secondly, As a profane scoff: No; come not to me, but go to him to whom Elisha directs you; pray to the Lord: you see how ready he is to help you, by his suffering you to come to this extremity; wait upon God for relief, as Elisha adviseth me; but I will wait no longer for him, 2Ki 6:33, and I will take a course with Elisha for thus abusing both me and my people with vain hopes. Or thus, The Lord (on whom forsooth thou and I are commanded to wait for help) will not help thee, as he could easily do, and would do, if he were so good as Elisha pretends; whence then shall I help thee?

Out of the barn-floor, or out of the winepress? Dost thou ask of me corn or wine, which I want for myself?

Matthew Poole's English Annotations on the Holy Bible (1683–1685) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword/MySword module.

27. Out of the barnfloor — Can I gather up grain for thee from the smooth rock or cleanly swept surface of the threshingfloor, or fruit from the empty and deserted winepress? Have I power to turn stones into bread?

Daniel D. Whedon (gen. ed.), Commentary on the Old and New Testaments (1874–1909) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.

And he said, If the Lord do not help thee. This is probably the true mean-tug. The king is not so brutal as to "curse" the woman (ejphrasato aujth ton, Josephus, "Ant. Jud:," 9:4. neither does he take upon himself to tell her that God will not save her (Maurer). He merely refers her to God, as alone competent to do what she asks. Whence shall I help thee? Whence, i.e. , dost thou suppose that I can save thee? Out of the barnfloor, or out of the winepress? Dost thou suppose that I have stores of food at my disposal? An overflowing barnfloor, where abundant corn is garnered, or a winepress full of the juice of the grape? I have nothing of the kind; my stores are as much exhausted as those of the meanest of my subjects. I cannot save thee.

The Pulpit Commentary (1880–1919), ed. H.D.M. Spence-Jones & Joseph S. Exell — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.

Whence shall I help thee - Dost thou ask of me corn or wine, which I want for myself? If God does not, I cannot help thee. Creatures are helpless things without God. Every creature is all that, and only that which God makes it to be.

John Wesley, Explanatory Notes Upon the Whole Bible (1754–1765) — public domain. Text via the GEBible commentary corpus.

He said

"The king of Israel answered the woman,"

If Yahweh does not help you, how can I help you?

The king uses this rhetorical question to tell the woman that he cannot help her. This can be written as a statement. AT: "If Yahweh is not helping you, then I cannot help you." (See: Rhetorical Question)

Is there anything coming from the threshing floor or winepress?

The king uses this rhetorical question to emphasize that there is no food available. Here the threshing floor refers to grain and the winepress refers to wine. This can be written as a statement. AT: "There is nothing coming from the threshing floor or the winepress." or "There is no food to harvest or any grapes to make wine to drink." (See: Rhetorical Question)

The king continued

"The king said." This means that they continued talking.

we boiled

"we cooked"

translationWords

Yahweh

thresh

winepress

trouble

unfoldingWord translationNotes — © Distant Shores Media and the Door43 World Missions Community, licensed CC BY-SA 4.0. Source: git.door43.org/Door43/en_tn.