2 Kings 5:1-5
The little maid
A girl taken captive from Israel says to her mistress that the prophet in Samaria would recover him. That sentence travels up through the household to the king and becomes a diplomatic mission.
People of the Bible
Naaman
Came with silver, gold and a letter from his king, and was cured by washing seven times in a river he had insulted.
Naaman is commander of the army of Syria, a great man with his master and honourable, and a leper. The information that could help him comes from a captive Israelite girl waiting on his wife, which is the smallest voice in the chapter. He arrives at Elisha’s door with horses and chariots and ten talents of silver, and the prophet does not come out; he sends a servant with an instruction. Naaman is furious at the rivers named and at the lack of ceremony, and it is his own servants who talk him round.
Scroll down to the storyThe movements, in the order the text gives them.
The story of Naaman
- 01
- 02
2 Kings 5:9-12
Are not Abana and Pharpar better
He expects the prophet to come out, stand, call on the name and wave his hand over the place. He is sent a message instead and goes away in a rage.
- 03
2 Kings 5:13-14
If he had bid you do some great thing
His servants reason with him gently. He goes down and dips seven times, and his flesh comes back like the flesh of a little child.
- 04
2 Kings 5:15-19
Two mules’ burden of earth
He offers payment and Elisha refuses in front of him. He asks instead for soil to take home, and for pardon when his duty puts him in the house of Rimmon, and is told to go in peace.
Why it matters
The chapter is built entirely out of people below the line doing the work: a slave girl, a household servant, and a prophet’s messenger. Naaman’s cure costs him nothing but his dignity, and Elisha will not take a penny for it, which is the point Gehazi misses in the next scene. He goes home asking for two mules’ load of Israelite earth so he can worship the LORD on it in a foreign country, and Jesus names him at Nazareth as the one leper who was cleansed.
2 songs
The music
Every song in the catalogue whose passage falls inside these chapters.
