2 Kings 3:13 Explained in Context

Selected verse

Verse 13. And Elisha said unto the king of Israel, What have I to do with thee? get thee to the prophets of thy father, and to the prophets of thy mother. And the king of Israel said unto him, Nay: for the LORD hath called these three kings together, to deliver them into the hand of Moab.

King James Version — public domain in the United States · Bible text and permissions

Quick Meaning

This verse advances the thought unit through its next reported action, speech, or consequence: “And Elisha said unto the king of Israel, What have I to do with thee? get thee to….” Its responsible meaning belongs to the complete movement “The armies run out of water and seek Elisha.”

Read It With

2 Kings 3:9–14

Read 2 Kings 3:13 with 3:9–14. The selected wording supplies one step in the thought unit through its next reported action, speech, or consequence; the surrounding verses supply the causes, responses, and outcome summarized here: After seven days without water, Jehoram interprets disaster, Jehoshaphat asks for a prophet, and Elisha receives them while rebuking Israel's king.

Why This Verse Appears Here

Within “The armies run out of water and seek Elisha,” 2 Kings 3:13 advances the thought unit through its next reported action, speech, or consequence through the wording “And Elisha said unto the king of Israel, What have I to do with thee? get thee to….” Its placement is governed by this reviewed relationship: 2 Kings 3:1–8 establishes this prior movement: Jehoram receives a mixed royal evaluation, Mesha withholds tribute, and Israel, Judah, and Edom take the wilderness route toward Moab. 2 Kings 3:9–14 responds to the pressure, need, word, or action already established; that evidenced relationship, rather than database adjacency alone, explains its placement.

Read 2 Kings 3:9–14 together

Why these verses belong together: 2 Kings 3:9–14 forms one scene or regnal notice: After seven days without water, Jehoram interprets disaster, Jehoshaphat asks for a prophet, and Elisha receives them while rebuking Israel's king.

Verse 9. So the king of Israel went, and the king of Judah, and the king of Edom: and they fetched a compass of seven days’ journey: and there was no water for the host, and for the cattle that followed them.

Verse 10. And the king of Israel said, Alas! that the LORD hath called these three kings together, to deliver them into the hand of Moab!

Verse 11. But Jehoshaphat said, Is there not here a prophet of the LORD, that we may enquire of the LORD by him? And one of the king of Israel’s servants answered and said, Here is Elisha the son of Shaphat, which poured water on the hands of Elijah.

Verse 12. And Jehoshaphat said, The word of the LORD is with him. So the king of Israel and Jehoshaphat and the king of Edom went down to him.

Verse 14. And Elisha said, As the LORD of hosts liveth, before whom I stand, surely, were it not that I regard the presence of Jehoshaphat the king of Judah, I would not look toward thee, nor see thee.

What Remains True

Divine mercy is received as gift rather than technique, entitlement, payment, spectacle, or a measure used to blame people whose outcome differs. This unit tests that truth through the narrated movement: After seven days without water, Jehoram interprets disaster, Jehoshaphat asks for a prophet, and Elisha receives them while rebuking Israel's king. In 2 Kings 3:13, the concrete line “And Elisha said unto the king of Israel, What have I to do with thee? get thee to…” keeps that truth accountable to narrated evidence.

How It Can Shape Life

The evidence to keep visible in this verse is “And Elisha said unto the king of Israel, What have I to do with thee? get thee to….” Offer practical care without selling a formula, promising an extraordinary result, replacing qualified help, or assigning spiritual fault when the hoped-for outcome does not occur. This response follows from the unit's own sequence: After seven days without water, Jehoram interprets disaster, Jehoshaphat asks for a prophet, and Elisha receives them while rebuking Israel's king.

Continue in Context

The full thought-unit study remains the final contextual authority for this Verse Lens.

Read 2 Kings 3:9–14 — The armies run out of water and seek Elisha

Sources used for this Verse Lens

How certain is this explanation? strong

These are the sources used directly for this lens. Language, grammar, disagreements, and the complete source shelf remain attached to the full thought-unit research record.

Biblical text

King James (Authorized) Version — eng-kjv2006

eBible.org and CrossWire Bible Society

USFM archive eng-kjv2006_usfm.zip; source files dated 2026-08-19; downloaded 2026-08-24; archive SHA-256 aec1b3b26c622fd3d963d2bbac963016b9513246ffbfa20da00bb100372ea007; normalized corpus SHA-256 09aef51d90488aa7b9722b3fd9a93f4b25f6bf2064c5fd798fb39673c300ddf2.

Supports: Exact reader-facing KJV wording, paragraph metadata, supplied-word markup, and complete verse coverage for this thought unit.

Exact location: 2 Kings 3:9–14, pinned eng-kjv2006 USFM corpus

Open source ↗

hebrew text and morphology

Open Scriptures Hebrew Bible: 2 Kings

Open Scriptures

Open Scriptures, release 2.2

Supports: Hebrew wording, morphology, names, royal formulas, clause relationships, older-English controls, and translation limits.

Exact location: Open Scriptures MorphHB v.2.2, commit 6a5db284c715c18b239422e57bb89684e6a19f00, wlc/2Kgs.xml, Masoretic words and morphology for 3:9–14

Open source ↗

translation and translator notes

NET Bible: 2 Kings with translators' notes

Biblical Studies Press

Biblical Studies Press, 2006

Supports: A unit-bounded translation comparison plus only the lexical, grammatical, textual, historical, or older-English notes actually printed for these verses; silence is not treated as evidence.

Exact location: NET Bible 2 Kings PDF, printed pp. 629–631, translation and translator notes for 3:9–14

Open source ↗

Open the complete thought-unit research record