A Captive Girl Encourages Naaman to Seek Healing

Naaman heard what the maid had said to her mistress. After getting permission from the king, he went in search of healing, taking “ten talents of silver, six thousand shekels of gold, and ten changes of clothing.” He also carried a letter from the king of Syria to the king of Israel: “I have sent Naaman my servant to you, that you may heal him of his leprosy.”RR 91.6

When the king of Israel read the letter, “he tore his clothes and said, ‘Am I God, to kill and make alive, that this man sends a man to me to heal him of his leprosy? Therefore please consider, and see how he seeks a quarrel with me.’”RR 92.1

News of these developments reached Elisha, and he sent word to the king: “Why have you torn your clothes? Please let him come to me, and he shall know that there is a prophet in Israel.”RR 92.2

“Then Naaman went with his horses and chariot, and he stood at the door of Elisha’s house.” Through a messenger the prophet told him, “Go and wash in the Jordan seven times, and your flesh shall be restored to you, and you shall be clean.”RR 92.3

Naaman had expected to see some wonderful display of power from heaven. “I said to myself, ‘He will surely come out to me, and stand and call on the name of the Lord his God, and wave his hand over the place, and heal the leprosy.’” When Elisha’s messenger simply told him to wash in the Jordan, it wounded his pride: “‘Are not the Abana and the Pharpar, the rivers of Damascus, better than all the waters of Israel? Could I not wash in them, and be clean?’ So he turned and went away in a rage.”RR 92.4

The rivers Naaman mentioned were beautified by surrounding groves, and many people flocked to the banks of these pleasant streams to worship their idols. Naaman would not have needed any humility to go down into one of those streams to wash. But only by following the prophet’s specific directions could he find healing.RR 92.5

Naaman’s servants urged him to carry out Elisha’s directions: “If the prophet had told you to do something great, would you not have done it? How much more then, when he says to you, ‘Wash, and be clean?’” The proud Syrian yielded his pride and dipped himself seven times in Jordan, “according to the saying of the man of God.” And God honored his faith: “His flesh was restored like the flesh of a little child, and he was clean.”RR 92.6

Gratefully “he returned to the man of God, he and all his aides,” and acknowledged, “Now I know that there is no God in all the earth, except in Israel.”RR 92.7

In keeping with the custom of those days, Naaman asked Elisha to accept a costly present. But the prophet refused. It was not fitting for him to take payment for a blessing given by God. “So he departed from him.”RR 92.8