Charles Ellicott Commentary 2 Kings 2:19

"And the men of the city said unto Elisha, Behold, we pray thee, the situation of this city is pleasant, as my lord seeth: but the water is bad, and the land miscarrieth." — 2 Kings 2:19 (ASV)

The men of the city. — It was not “the sons of the prophets,” but the citizens who put the prophet’s miraculous powers to the test.

The situation of this (the Hebrew for “this” is the) city is pleasant (the Hebrew for “pleasant” is good). — Jericho, the city of palms (Deuteronomy 34:3), had a fine position, “rising like an oasis from a broad plain of sand.”

The water is naught. — The Hebrew for this is bad. “Naught” means “bad” or “worthless” (that is, similar to an older, now archaic, meaning of “naughty”).

And the ground barren. — 2 Kings 2:21 (which contains the phrase from thence) shows that the water, not the soil, was the cause of the evil complained of.

In this context, “the ground,” or more accurately, the land, is understood to refer to its inhabitants, including the animals. The statement means either that “the country bears dead births” or that “the country has many miscarriages” (the Hebrew verbal stem pi’el may be either factitive [causing an action] or intensive [emphasizing an action]). (Malachi 3:11).

The use of different waters is said to have good and bad effects on conception and parturition (this is not merely “a popular superstition,” as Reuss suggests). Therefore, translating the phrase as “the ground is barren” or “unfruitful”—in the sense of unproductive soil—is incorrect.