Resolved to surrender, the lepers “rose up in the twilight” or the dusk of evening. They drug their hideously decaying bodies across the plain under the cover of darkness “to the uttermost part of the camp of Syria.”

I love the way verse 5 ends, “behold (to their surprise) was no man there.” They found the camp completely deserted. Verse 7 says the Syrians had fled and “left the camp intact.” The starving lepers looked about and saw tents, horses, donkeys, weapons, gold, silver and most importantly food in abundance.

What happened? As the four lepers drug their putrefying flesh across the plain, today’s verse happens! They believed this sound could only have come from the armies of the Hittites and the Egyptians and that the Israelites must have hired them to fight for them. Therefore, they arose and fled in the twilight… and fled for their life.

As a point to ponder, could it be that God supernaturally amplified and augmented the sound of four lepers walking so that it sounded like two mighty armies?

Our starving leper friends now found themselves alone in overwhelming luxury and the wealth of the deserted camp. They gorged themselves on the Lord’s provision.

They went in one tent where they ate and drank and then “carried thence silver and gold and raiment (clothing) and went and hid it.” After this they “came again and entered into another tent” and repeated the process. It seems they intended to continue this from tent to tent. Reality then sat in. We are not doing right! What?