Naaman commands the army of Syria and has just beaten Israel in the field. He also has leprosy, and the one person who knows where his cure is happens to be a Hebrew slave girl waiting on his wife — carried off in one of his own raids. He arrives at Elisha’s door with a fortune in silver and a letter from his king, expecting a ceremony. Elisha does not even come outside. The message is relayed by a servant: go wash in Jordan seven times. Naaman nearly goes home a leper out of pure offended dignity.
A study in 2 Kings 5 · Arthur Baldwin · StandUp4Jesus.Org · 9 min read
Would God My Lord Were With The Prophet
“And the Syrians had gone out by companies, and had brought away captive out of the land of Israel a little maid; and she waited on Naaman’s wife. And she said unto her mistress, Would God my lord were with the prophet that is in Samaria! for he would recover him of his leprosy. … And it came to pass, when the king of Israel had read the letter, that he rent his clothes, and said, Am I God, to kill and to make alive, that this man doth send unto me to recover a man of his leprosy? … Wherefore hast thou rent thy clothes? let him come now to me, and he shall know that there is a prophet in Israel.”
2 Kings 5:2-8
The whole rescue turns on a kidnapped child who wishes her master well. She has every reason to be glad of his disease and none to help him, and she speaks up anyway — “would God my lord were with the prophet.” A slave girl in a pagan kitchen is the missionary in this story; the prophet only performs what her witness set in motion.
Everything above her fumbles it. The king of Syria treats healing as a diplomatic favour to be arranged king-to-king. The king of Israel reads the letter as a pretext for war and tears his robes. Only Elisha is unrattled: send him to me, and he will learn there is a prophet in Israel.
“A slave, far from her home, this little maid was nevertheless one of God’s witnesses, unconsciously fulfilling the purpose for which God had chosen Israel as His people.”
Ellen G. White · Prophets and Kings, p. 244
Are Not Abana And Pharpar Better?
“But Naaman was wroth, and went away, and said, Behold, I thought, He will surely come out to me, and stand, and call on the name of the LORD his God, and strike his hand over the place, and recover the leper. Are not Abana and Pharpar, rivers of Damascus, better than all the waters of Israel? may I not wash in them, and be clean? So he turned and went away in a rage.”
2 Kings 5:11-12
Naaman had scripted the miracle in advance — the prophet on the doorstep, a hand waved over the sore, the name of the LORD invoked with ceremony. What he got was a muddy river he considers beneath the clean streams of home, and instructions delivered by a messenger. His pride is offended on two counts: the cure is too plain, and he was not treated as a great man.
He would have done “some great thing” gladly. It is the smallness of the command that nearly costs him everything — the same reef the gospel still runs people onto. Wash and be clean is offensively easy, and it asks you to do it God’s way rather than your own.
“It would have cost Naaman no great humiliation of soul to descend into one of those streams. But it was only through following the specific directions of the prophet that he could find healing. Willing obedience alone would bring the desired result.”
Ellen G. White · Prophets and Kings, p. 249
Wash, And Be Clean
“And his servants came near, and spake unto him, and said, My father, if the prophet had bid thee do some great thing, wouldest thou not have done it? how much rather then, when he saith to thee, Wash, and be clean? Then went he down, and dipped himself seven times in Jordan, according to the saying of the man of God: and his flesh came again like unto the flesh of a little child, and he was clean. And he returned to the man of God, he and all his company, and came, and stood before him: and he said, Behold, now I know that there is no God in all the earth, but in Israel.”
2 Kings 5:13-15
It is his own servants who talk him down — respectfully (“my father”) and with plain logic. Naaman climbs down off his chariot and his dignity and goes under the water seven times, counting. Nothing at the sixth dip; everything at the seventh. Partial obedience would have left him partly leprous. The skin that comes back is a child’s.
He comes up a monotheist: “there is no God in all the earth, but in Israel.” Jesus points to this exact moment centuries later — “many lepers were in Israel … and none of them was cleansed, saving Naaman the Syrian” (Luke 4:27). A foreigner who acted on the little light he had received more than the covenant people who despised theirs.
“The faith of Naaman was being tested, while pride struggled for the mastery. But faith conquered, and the haughty Syrian yielded his pride of heart and bowed in submission to the revealed will of Jehovah.”
Ellen G. White · Prophets and Kings, p. 249
The Leprosy Of Naaman Shall Cleave Unto Thee
“But he went in, and stood before his master. And Elisha said unto him, Whence comest thou, Gehazi? And he said, Thy servant went no whither. And he said unto him, Went not mine heart with thee, when the man turned again from his chariot to meet thee? Is it a time to receive money, and to receive garments, and oliveyards, and vineyards, and sheep, and oxen, and menservants, and maidservants? The leprosy therefore of Naaman shall cleave unto thee, and unto thy seed for ever. And he went out from his presence a leper as white as snow.”
2 Kings 5:25-27
Elisha refuses Naaman’s silver flatly: a gift of God is not for sale, and he will not let the Syrian go home thinking he bought his skin back. Naaman leaves converted — he even asks for a load of Israelite soil to build an altar on. It is the best possible outcome, and Gehazi ruins the picture by chasing the chariot with a lie in his mouth for a talent of silver and two suits of clothes.
He had stood next to the miracle for years. Everything Heaven offers a man was within reach, and he traded it for wardrobe and a hidden bag of coins — and then lied to the prophet’s face about it. The leprosy Naaman shed passes to the man who wanted the payment. What Naaman gained by humbling himself, Gehazi lost by grasping.
“The best gifts of Heaven had long been within his reach; yet, turning from these, he had coveted instead the base alloy of worldly wealth.”
Ellen G. White · Prophets and Kings, p. 250
