Naaman Healed of Leprosy
Naaman commands the army of Aram and has a skin disease. The person who knows where to send him is the least powerful character in the story: a captured Israelite girl serving his wife.
He arrives with horses, chariots and a fortune in silver, gold and clothing, and is met not by Elisha but by a messenger with an instruction to wash seven times in the Jordan. Naaman is furious — he expected a ceremony, and the rivers of Damascus are better than any water in Israel. His servants talk him round with plain sense: if the prophet had asked something difficult you would have done it.
He washes and is healed, and returns to press payment on Elisha, who refuses all of it. Elisha's servant Gehazi then chases the caravan and takes some secretly, and the disease passes to him.
Where in scripture
[1] Now Naaman, captain of the army 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] 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. [3] She said to her mistress, “I wish that my lord were with the prophet who is in Samaria! Then he would heal him of his leprosy.” [4] Someone went in, and told his lord, saying, “The maiden who is from the land of Israel said this.” [5] The king of Syria said, “Go now, and I will send a letter to the king of Israel.” He departed, and took with him ten talents of silver, and six thousand pieces of gold, and ten changes of clothing. …
2 Kings 5:1–27 — opening verses
[24] He said, “Most certainly I tell you, no prophet is acceptable in his hometown. [25] But truly I tell you, there were many widows in Israel in the days of Elijah, when the sky was shut up three years and six months, when a great famine came over all the land. [26] Elijah was sent to none of them, except to Zarephath, in the land of Sidon, to a woman who was a widow. [27] There were many lepers in Israel in the time of Elisha the prophet, yet not one of them was cleansed, except Naaman, the Syrian.”
Luke 4:24–27
Scripture quotations are from the World English Bible, a public-domain translation.
