2 Kings 6:26 (DBY)

Passage

And it came to pass as the king of Israel was passing by upon the wall, there cried a woman to him saying, Help, my lord O king!

Nearby Context

2 Kings 6:24 And it came to pass after this that Ben-Hadad king of Syria gathered all his army, and went up and besieged Samaria.

2 Kings 6:25 And there was a great famine in Samaria; and behold, they besieged it, until an ass's head was worth eighty silver-pieces, and the fourth part of a cab of dove's dung five silver-pieces.

2 Kings 6:26 And it came to pass as the king of Israel was passing by upon the wall, there cried a woman to him saying, Help, my lord O king!

2 Kings 6:27 And he said, If Jehovah do not help thee, whence should I help thee? Out of the threshing-floor, or out of the winepress?

2 Kings 6:28 And the king said to her, What aileth thee? And she said, This woman said to me, Give thy son, that we may eat him to-day, and we will eat my son to-morrow.

Study Lenses

The verse centers on "came", "pass", "king", "israel", "passing", "upon", "wall", and "cried". It is saying that the verse draws attention to "came" and "pass", so its meaning should be read from those terms before moving to application.

The nearby context moves from verse 25's "And there was a great famine in..." into verse 27's "And he said If Jehovah do not...", so "came" and "pass" belong inside that flow. In 2 Kings context, the local focus is covenant, worship, and faithfulness.

A plain takeaway is to answer the verse's own emphasis on "came" and "pass" with trust shaped by these words, not by a vague optimism outside the passage.