2 Kings 6:4

So he went with them. And when they came to Jordan, they cut down wood.

EXPOSITORY (ENGLISH BIBLE)

Ellicott's Commentary for English Readers

(4) Wood.—Heb., the timber: scil., which they required.

Matthew Henry's Concise Commentary

6:1-7 There is that pleasantness in the converse of servants of God, which can make those who listen to them forget the pain and the weariness of labour. Even the sons of the prophets must not be unwilling to labour. Let no man think an honest employment a burden or a disgrace. And labour of the head, is as hard, and very often harder, than labour with the hands. We ought to be careful of that which is borrowed, as of our own, because we must do as we would be done by. This man was so respecting the axe-head. And to those who have an honest mind, the sorest grievance of poverty is, not so much their own want and disgrace, as being rendered unable to pay just debts. But the Lord cares for his people in their smallest concerns. And God's grace can thus raise the stony iron heart, which is sunk into the mud of this world, and raise up affections, naturally earthly.

Barnes' Notes on the Bible

Take every man a beam - Trees were rare in most parts of Palestine, but plentiful in the Jordan Valley. Jericho was known in early times as "the city of palms" Deuteronomy 34:3; Judges 1:16.

Jamieson-Fausset-Brown Bible Commentary

2. Let us go, we pray thee, unto Jordan—whose wooded banks would furnish plenty of timber.

Matthew Poole's Commentary

No text from Poole on this verse.

Gill's Exposition of the Entire Bible

So he went with them. And when they came to Jordan, they cut down wood. Trees which grew upon the banks of it, to build their house with, at least for the rafters and flooring of it, supposing the walls to be built of stone.

Geneva Study Bible

So he went with them. And when they came to Jordan, they cut down wood.

EXEGETICAL (ORIGINAL LANGUAGES)

Cambridge Bible for Schools and Colleges

4. when they came to Jordan] From what follows we see that they went close to the river. Probably the timber would be best grown at the water’s edge.

Pulpit Commentary

Verse 4. - So he went with them. And when they came to Jordan - i.e. to the river-bank - they cut down wood. They set to work, each felling his tree, and fashioning it into a rough beam. 2 Kings 6:4

Keil and Delitzsch Biblical Commentary on the Old Testament

Elisha Causes an Iron Axe to Float. - The following account gives us an insight into the straitened life of the pupils of the prophets. 2 Kings 6:1-4. As the common dwelling-place had become too small for them, they resolved, with Elisha's consent, to build a new house, and went, accompanied by the prophet, to the woody bank of the Jordan to fell the wood that was required for the building. The place where the common abode had become too small is not given, but most of the commentators suppose it to have been Gilgal, chiefly from the erroneous assumption that the Gilgal mentioned in 2 Kings 2:1 was in the Jordan valley to the east of Jericho. Thenius only cites in support of this the reference in לפניך ישׁבים (dwell with thee) to 2 Kings 4:38; but this decides nothing, as the pupils of the prophets sat before Elisha, or gathered together around their master in a common home, not merely in Gilgal, but also in Bethel and Jericho. We might rather think of Jericho, since Bethel and Gilgal (Jiljilia) were so far distant from the Jordan, that there is very little probability that a removal of the meeting-place to the Jordan, such as is indicated by מקום שׁם נעשׂה־לּנוּ, would ever have been thought of from either of these localities.