2 Kings 7:3
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? 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?
The verse stands at the beginning of the history running from Joram king of Israel through Jehu and his dynasty to the fall of Israel under Hoshea, and it belongs to the varied events in the life of Elisha, who ministered about sixty years and died under Jehoash in 796 B.C., when Hosea, Jonah and Amos were also prophesying. It falls within the account of Elisha's life and ministry, in which God works notable miracles and reproves and instructs backsliding Israel. It presents four starving leprous men at the entering in and outside of Samaria's gate during the Syrian siege and severe famine.
They were excluded from the city under the law that required lepers to live apart. Their leprosy was incurable by any medicine or skill and could be healed only by divine power. There was no food in the city, and the famine was so severe that begging could not provide food.
Their question expresses a desperate but practical resolve to act rather than wait passively to die: staying where they were meant death and going into the famine-struck city meant death, so as a last resort they decided to surrender to the Syrian army and put themselves at its mercy, reasoning that the Syrians might kill them but might spare and feed them, and that if they were killed they would only die as they expected to die anyway. They went to the Syrian camp and found it deserted with its provisions and supplies left behind. The camp was empty because the Lord had made the Syrians hear a noise like a mighty host coming in battle array, so they fled in haste leaving everything behind, which the lepers discovered when they cautiously approached.
They became the messengers who told the city that the Syrians had fled, their report was confirmed and the people took the Syrians' provisions, so the promised abundance literally came to pass despite unbelief, confirming Elisha's prophecy of food for the city. Their story teaches that people who receive good things should not keep them to themselves but should share the blessing with others. Applied to people who know the good news of salvation, their refusal to sit passively while death is imminent means that while others are spiritually starving and dying without hope, believers must not keep the good news to themselves or spend their lives only securing their own wealth, but should promptly tell others of deliverance. Their desperate condition pictures humanity under sin: sin is like leprosy, lying deep within and infecting the whole race, and it has brought death and sorrow into the world, so their question calls sinners not to remain in despair under sin's fatal outcome but to seek the life and salvation offered through Christ.