Verse 19
And the men of the city said unto Elisha ,.... The inhabitants of Jericho, perceiving him to be a prophet, and endowed with a power of working miracles:
behold, I pray thee, the situation of this city is pleasant, as my lord seeth ; in a plain, surrounded with gardens and orchards, with vineyards, oliveyards, and groves of palm trees, and other odoriferous ones:
but the water is naught, and the ground barren ; that is, that part of it where this water was, or ran, for from thence it became barren; or "caused to miscarry", as the word signifies F17 משכלת "orbans", Montanus, Vatablus; "facit abortum", Junius & Tremellius, Piscator. ; not only trees cast their fruit, which it watered, but women became abortive that drank of it, as Josephus says F18 De Bello Jud. l. 4. c. 8. sect. 3. , and so cattle. Abarbinel thinks it was so from the times of Joshua, being cursed by him; but, if so, it would not have been inhabited again; rather this was owing to a new curse, upon its being rebuilt; though this might affect only a small part of the ground, not the whole, as before observed.
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