And there were four leprous men at the entering in of the gate: and they said one to another, Why sit we here until we die?
Parallel translations
- WEB Now there were four leprous men at the entrance of the gate. They said to one another, “Why do we sit here until we die?
- BSB Now there were four men with leprosy at the entrance of the city gate, and they said to one another, “Why just sit here until we die?
- NKJV Now there were four leprous men at the entrance of the gate; and they said to one another, “Why are we sitting here until we die?
- NASB Now there were four leprous men at the entrance of the gate; and they said to one another, “Why are we sitting here until we die?
- NLT Now there were four men with leprosy sitting at the entrance of the city gates. “Why should we sit here waiting to die?” they asked each other.
Scripture taken from the New King James Version®. Copyright © 1982 by Thomas Nelson. Used by permission. All rights reserved.
Scripture quotations taken from the (NASB®) New American Standard Bible®, Copyright © 1960, 1971, 1977, 1995, 2020 by The Lockman Foundation. Used by permission. All rights reserved. lockman.org
Scripture quotations are taken from the Holy Bible, New Living Translation, copyright © 1996, 2004, 2015 by Tyndale House Foundation. Used by permission of Tyndale House Publishers, Carol Stream, Illinois 60188. All rights reserved.
Quick answer
Four lepers at the gate reason that staying means certain death. Their desperation drives them toward an unlikely deliverance.
Overview
Excluded from the city by their disease, the lepers face starvation either way. Their plain reckoning, 'Why do we sit here until we die?', moves them to act. God will use these outcasts, the lowest in society, as the first to discover salvation. It shows the Lord working deliverance through the marginal and despised.
Cross-references & the web
Cross-references · 8
- Lev 13:45–46And the leper in whom the plague is, his clothes shall be rent, and his head bare, and he shall put a covering upon his upper lip, and shall cry, Unclean, unclean.
- Num 5:2–4Command the children of Israel, that they put out of the camp every leper, and every one that hath an issue, and whosoever is defiled by the dead:
- 2 Kgs 7:4If we say, We will enter into the city, then the famine is in the city, and we shall die there: and if we sit still here, we die also. Now therefore come, and let us fall unto the host of the Syrians: if they save us alive, we shall live; and if they kill us, we shall but die.
- Num 12:14And the LORD said unto Moses, If her father had but spit in her face, should she not be ashamed seven days? let her be shut out from the camp seven days, and after that let her be received in again.
- 2 Kgs 5:1Now 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.
- 2 Kgs 8:4And the king talked with Gehazi the servant of the man of God, saying, Tell me, I pray thee, all the great things that Elisha hath done.
- Jer 8:14Why do we sit still? assemble yourselves, and let us enter into the defenced cities, and let us be silent there: for the LORD our God hath put us to silence, and given us water of gall to drink, because we have sinned against the LORD.
- Jer 27:13Why will ye die, thou and thy people, by the sword, by the famine, and by the pestilence, as the LORD hath spoken against the nation that will not serve the king of Babylon?
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Christ at the center
Amid the long decline toward exile, the promise to David's house refuses to die; the flickering lamp kept burning anticipates the coming King who will not fail or be cut off.
How 2 Kings 7:3 points to him is part of the one story that runs through all Scripture — meet Jesus at the heart of the web, or follow a trail that traces him from Genesis to Revelation.
Original language
Each word below is tagged with its Strong’s number — tap one to see the underlying Hebrew word, its meaning, and every verse that uses it.