When they came down to him; either in the city, into which they easily got admission, when they declared that the only end of their coming was to take Elisha; or in the field without the city, whither he went to meet them.
He smote them with blindness; not with a total blindness, that they could see nothing, for then they would not have followed him; but with a partial blindness, that they could not distinctly discern the man they sought; which might be by some alteration made by God in their brain, or in the air. See Poole "Gen_19:11".