Naaman

The name Naaman appears in two unrelated places in the Hebrew Scriptures. In the genealogies of Benjamin it belongs to a son and grandson of Jacob's youngest, repeated as the head of a Benjaminite family-name. The name's main weight, however, falls on a Syrian commander a generation after Elijah — the captain of the host of Damascus, healed of leprosy by Elisha through a sevenfold washing in the Jordan, and remembered by Jesus as the only leper of Israel's neighborhood whom Israel's prophet cleansed.

A Benjaminite Name

Naaman first appears as a son of Benjamin in the migration list of the seventy who go down into Egypt: "And the sons of Benjamin: Bela, and Becher, and Ashbel; and the sons of Bela were: Gera and Naaman, Ehi and Rosh, and Muppim; and Gera begot Ard" (Gen 46:21). The same name re-emerges one generation lower in the wilderness census, where Bela's sons are recounted with the family-names that descend from them: "And the sons of Bela were Ard and Naaman: of Ard, the family of the Ardites; of Naaman, the family of the Naamites" (Num 26:40). The chronicler keeps the name in his Benjaminite list at "Bela had sons: Addar, and Gera, and Abihud, and Abishua, and Naaman, and Ahoah" (1 Chr 8:3-4), and lists a further Naaman among the sons of Ehud carried captive to Manahath: "and Naaman, and Ahijah, and Gera, he carried them captive" (1 Chr 8:7).

A Syrian Captain, a Leper

The Naaman who carries the narrative is introduced with a knot of paradoxes: a Syrian commander victorious by the hand of Israel's God, a great man and a leper at once. "Now Naaman, captain of the host of the king of Syria, was a great man with his master, and honorable, because by him Yahweh had given victory to Syria: he was also a mighty man of valor, [but he was] a leper" (2 Kgs 5:1). The clauses press against one another: Yahweh's hand is named as the source of his victories, and his standing before the king of Damascus is openly stated, but the closing bracket fixes a disqualifying disease on the body of the man.

A Captive Maid's Word

The cure begins in the women's quarters of the captain's house. A Syrian raiding party has carried off an Israelite girl, and she serves Naaman's wife: "And the Syrians had gone out in bands, and had brought away captive out of the land of Israel a little maiden; and she waited on Naaman's wife. And she said to her mistress, Oh that my lord were with the prophet who is in Samaria! Then he would recover him of his leprosy" (2 Kgs 5:2-3). The maid's testimony goes from mistress to master to king: "And one went in, and told his lord, saying, Thus and thus said the maiden who is of the land of Israel" (2 Kgs 5:4).

The King's Letter and Israel's Alarm

Damascus moves through diplomatic channels. The king of Syria writes a letter and Naaman travels with a state-gift: "And the king of Syria said, Go now, and I will send a letter to the king of Israel. And he departed, and took with him ten talents of silver, and six thousand [pieces] of gold, and ten changes of raiment" (2 Kgs 5:5). The covering letter reduces the sick general to a slave handed over to be cured: "And he brought the letter to the king of Israel, saying, And now when this letter has come to you, look, I have sent Naaman my slave to you, that you may recover him of his leprosy" (2 Kgs 5:6). The king of Israel reads it as a pretext for war: "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 sends to me to recover a man of his leprosy? But consider, I pray you⁺, and see how he seeks a quarrel against me" (2 Kgs 5:7).

Elisha Sends for Him

Elisha hears of the rent garments and intervenes. "And it was so, when Elisha the man of God heard that the king of Israel had rent his clothes, that he sent to the king, saying, Why have you rent your clothes? Let him come now to me, and he will know that there is a prophet in Israel" (2 Kgs 5:8). The captain arrives at the door of a private house in the prophet's town: "So Naaman came with his horses and with his chariots, and stood at the door of the house of Elisha" (2 Kgs 5:9). Elisha refuses an audience and sends a messenger out with a single instruction: "Go and wash in the Jordan seven times, and your flesh will come again to you, and you will be clean" (2 Kgs 5:10).

Naaman's Anger

The order offends both Naaman's expectation of ceremony and his pride of place. "But Naaman was angry, and went away, and said, Look, I thought, He will surely come out to me, and stand, and call on the name of Yahweh his God, and wave his hand over the place, and recover the leper" (2 Kgs 5:11). His objection turns next on the Jordan itself, weighed against the rivers of his own city: "Are not Abanah and Pharpar, the 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 Kgs 5:12).

The Slaves' Counsel

His own slaves talk him back. They put the matter in a small-to-great form: "My father, if the prophet had bid you do some great thing, wouldn't you have done it? How much rather then, when he says to you, Wash, and be clean?" (2 Kgs 5:13). Naaman submits, and the prescribed sevenfold washing in the Jordan reverses his disease into the body of a child: "Then he went down, and dipped [himself] seven times in the Jordan, according to the saying of the man of God; and his flesh came again like the flesh of a little child, and he was clean" (2 Kgs 5:14).

The Confession

The cleansed captain returns to Elisha and makes the confession that the chapter has been moving toward: "And he returned to the man of God, he and all his company, and came, and stood before him; and he said, Look now, I know that there is no God in all the earth, but in Israel: now therefore, I pray you, take a present of your slave" (2 Kgs 5:15). Elisha refuses the gift on oath: "But he said, As Yahweh lives, before whom I stand, I will receive none. And he urged him to take it; but he refused" (2 Kgs 5:16).

Two Mules' Burden of Earth

Naaman then asks for two mules' loads of Israelite soil to take home, and asks pardon in advance for the one liturgical act his office will still require of him in Damascus: "And Naaman said, If not, yet, I pray you, let there be given to your slave two mules' burden of earth; for your slave will from now on offer neither burnt-offering nor sacrifice to other gods, but to Yahweh. In this thing Yahweh pardon your slave: when my master goes into the house of Rimmon to worship there, and he leans on my hand, and I bow myself in the house of Rimmon, when I bow myself in the house of Rimmon, Yahweh pardon your slave in this thing" (2 Kgs 5:17-18). Elisha's reply is brief and unconditional: "And he said to him, Go in peace. So he departed from him a little way" (2 Kgs 5:19).

Gehazi's Pursuit

Gehazi the attendant covets what his master refused. "But Gehazi the attendant of Elisha the man of God, said, Look, my master has spared this Naaman the Syrian, in not receiving at his hands that which he brought: as Yahweh lives, I will run after him, and take somewhat of him" (2 Kgs 5:20). The pursuit, the lie, and the over-payment are set out in detail: "So Gehazi followed after Naaman. And when Naaman saw one running after him, he dismounted from the chariot to meet him, and said, Is all well? And he said, All is well. My master has sent me, saying, Look, even now there have come to me from the hill-country of Ephraim two young men of the sons of the prophets; give them, I pray you, a talent of silver, and two changes of raiment. And Naaman said, Be pleased to take two talents. And he urged him, and bound two talents of silver in two bags, with two changes of raiment, and laid them on two of his attendants; and they bore them before him" (2 Kgs 5:21-23). Gehazi hides the goods at the hill: "And when he came to the hill, he took them from their hand, and bestowed them in the house; and he let the men go, and they departed" (2 Kgs 5:24).

The Leprosy Transferred

Gehazi presents himself to his master and lies again: "But he went in, and stood before his master. And Elisha said to him, Where did you come from, Gehazi? And he said, Your slave went no where" (2 Kgs 5:25). Elisha's answer turns on the prophet's accompanying sight of the bargain on the road: "Didn't my heart go [with you], when the man turned from his chariot to meet you? Is it a time to receive silver, and to receive garments, and oliveyards and vineyards, and sheep and oxen, and male slaves and female slaves?" (2 Kgs 5:26). The price for grasping at Naaman's gift is the transfer of Naaman's disease: "The leprosy therefore of Naaman will stick to you, and to your seed forever. And he went out from his presence a leper [as white] as snow" (2 Kgs 5:27).

A Sign for Israel's Neighbors

Generations later, Jesus opens his ministry at Nazareth by reaching back to this narrative as a precedent for grace going out beyond Israel: "And there were many lepers in Israel in the time of Elisha the prophet; and none of them was cleansed, but only Naaman the Syrian" (Luke 4:27). The Syrian commander's bath in the Jordan is held up as the pattern of an outsider receiving what insiders, on the prophet's own doorstep, do not.