(14) That thou shouldest surely recover.--Rather, Thou wilt certainly live, repeating Elisha's actual words, but not the tone and gesture which accompanied them.
Verse 14. - So he departed from Elisha, and came to his master; who said to him, What said Elisha to thee? And he answered, He told me that thou shouldest surely recover. This, as already observed, was giving half Elisha's answer, and suppressing the other half. The suppressio veri is a suggestio falsi; and the suppression was Hazael's act, not Elisha's. Had Hazael repeated the whole of Elisha's answer, "Say unto him, Thou shalt surely recover; howbeit the Lord hath showed me that he shall surely die;" - Benhadad might have been puzzled, but he would not have been deceived.
8:7-15 Among other changes of men's minds by affliction, it often gives other thoughts of God's ministers, and teaches to value the counsels and prayers of those whom they have hated and despised. It was not in Hazael's countenance that Elisha read what he would do, but God revealed it to him, and it fetched tears from his eyes: the more foresight men have, the more grief they are liable to. It is possible for a man, under the convictions and restraints of natural conscience, to express great abhorrence of a sin, yet afterwards to be reconciled to it. Those that are little and low in the world, cannot imagine how strong the temptations of power and prosperity are, which, if ever they arrive at, they will find how deceitful their hearts are, how much worse than they suspected. The devil ruins men, by saying they shall certainly recover and do well, so rocking them asleep in security. Hazael's false account was an injury to the king, who lost the benefit of the prophet's warning to prepare for death, and an injury to Elisha, who would be counted a false prophet. It is not certain that Hazael murdered his master, or if he caused his death it may have been without any design. But he was a dissembler, and afterwards proved a persecutor to Israel.
So he departed from Elisha, and came to his master,.... Benhadad king of Syria:
who said to him, what said Elisha to thee? concerning his recovery, which was the thing uppermost in his mind, and he was eagerly desirous to know how it would be:
and he answered, he told me that thou shouldest surely recover; which was false; for he only said that he "might", and not that he should; and he concealed what he also declared, that though he might recover of his disease, yet that he should surely die in another way.
who said to him, what said Elisha to thee? concerning his recovery, which was the thing uppermost in his mind, and he was eagerly desirous to know how it would be:
and he answered, he told me that thou shouldest surely recover; which was false; for he only said that he "might", and not that he should; and he concealed what he also declared, that though he might recover of his disease, yet that he should surely die in another way.