2 Kings 8:10

Thou mayest certainly recover. The Hebrew text contains a negative. Thus the passage may be translated, “Thou shalt definitely not recover,” though with some difficulties of Hebrew construction. The sentence has been corrected in the margin of the Hebrew Bible to read, “Thou shalt surely recover.” The alteration was effected by changing the Hebrew negative lo’ to lo, “unto him.” All the ancient versions and a number of Hebrew manuscripts agree with this marginal reading. Thus it seems necessary to account in some way for the contradiction between this statement and the immediately following prediction, “He shall surely die.” Several explanations have been offered; the following appears the most reasonable: Elisha was giving the king assurance that his sickness was not unto death. The disease itself was not fatal, and as far as that was concerned he would certainly live. That is the message Hazael was directed to take back to Benhadad. The question the king had asked was whether he would recover from his disease, and on that point the answer was clear — his disease was not such that it would bring about his death — he could live.