Charles Ellicott Commentary 2 Kings 5

ELISHA HEALS NAAMAN THE SYRIAN’S LEPROSY, AND PUNISHES GEHAZI WITH IT.

Now. — The construction implies a break between this narrative and the preceding one. Whether the events related belong to the time of Jehoram or the dynasty of Jehu is not clear. Evidently, it was a time of peace between Israel and Syria.

Naaman (beauty). — A title of the sun-god (See Note on Isaiah 17:10).

A great man with his master. — Literally, before his lord .

Honourable. — In special favor. Literally, lifted up of face (Compare 2 Kings 3:14, Note; Isaiah 3:3).

By him the Lord had given deliverance to Syria. — Notice the high prophetic view that it is Jehovah, not Hadad or Rimmon, who gives victory to Syria as well as Israel .

It is natural to think of the battle in which Ahab received his mortal wound (1 Kings 22:30 and following). The Midrash makes Naaman the man who “drew the bow at a venture” on that occasion. The “deliverance” was victory over Israel.

He was also a mighty man in valor, but he was a leper. — Literally, and the man was a brave warrior, stricken with leprosy. His leprosy need not have been so severe as to incapacitate him for military duties. The victor over Israel is represented as a leper who has to seek, and finds, his only help in Israel (Thenius).

The Syrians. — Hebrew, Aram, the word rendered “Syria” in 2 Kings 5:1.

By companies. — Or, in troops, referring to a marauding incursion made at some time prior to the events here recorded.

Brought away captive ... a little maid. — Compare the reference in Joel 3:6 to the Phoenician traffic in Jewish slaves.

Would God. — O that! ’Ahalê here; in Psalms 119:5, ’Ahalay. The word seems to follow the analogy of ’ashrê, “O the bliss of!” (Psalms 1:1). It perhaps means “O the delight of!” the root ’ahal being assumed equivalent to the Arabic halâ, Syriac halî, “dulcis fuit.”

For he would recover him. — Then he would receive him back. (Compare to Numbers 12:14-15.) In Israel lepers were excluded from society. Restoration to society implied restoration to health. Hence the same verb came to be used in the sense of healing as well as of receiving back the leper. Thenius, however, argues that as the phrase “from leprosy” is wanting in Numbers 12:0, the real meaning is, “to take a person away from leprosy,” to which he had been, as it were, delivered up.

And one went in. — And he (i.e., Naaman) went in: that is, into the palace. Some manuscripts: “and she went in and told.”

Thus and thus. — To avoid repetition of her actual words.

Go to, go. — Depart (there), enter (the land of Israel).

A letter. — Written, probably, in that old Aramean script of which we have examples on Assyrian seals of the eighth century B.C., and which closely resembled the old Phoenician and Hebrew characters, as well as that of the Moabite stone (2 Kings 1:1, Note).

With him. — In his hand. (Compare the expression “to fill the hand for Jehovah”—that is, with presents; 1 Chronicles 29:5.)

Changes of raiment. — Or, holiday suits. Reuss, habits de fête. (See the same word, halîphôth, in Genesis 45:22.) Curiously enough, similar expressions (nahlaptum, hitlupatum) were used in a similar sense by the Assyrians (Schrader).

Ten talents of silver. — About £3,750 in our money. The money talent was equivalent to sixty minas, the mina to fifty shekels. The shekel came to about 2s. 6d. of our money.

Six thousand pieces of gold. — Hebrew, six thousand (in) gold: that is, six thousand gold shekels, equal to two talents of gold, about £13,500. The gold shekel was worth about 45s. of our currency. The total sum appears much too large, and the numbers are probably corrupt, as is so often the case.