Naaman the Syrian

Naaman the Syrian.

By the Rev. Dr. Plumer.

Nearly nine hundred years before the coming of Christ, Syria was a great kingdom. One of its leading men was Naaman, a good soldier and a great man with the king, but he had a dreadful disease—the leprosy; so that his fame and his talents did not keep him from being a pitiable object.

In wars between the two nations, a little girl had been carried captive from the land of Israel into Syria. She waited on Naaman's wife. The child seems to have been amiable and intelligent. She saw her master's affliction, and said she wished he would see a prophet in her native land; she was sure that this prophet could heal him.

Where men's temporal comfort and interests are concerned, a word is often enough. It was so here. What the little maid said was reported. The king of Syria wrote a letter to the king of Israel; he was very anxious that his great captain and counsellor should be healed. And Naaman took his journey to Samaria, then the capital of the land of Israel. Nor did he go without a gift, for he took with him ten talents of silver and six thousand pieces of gold and ten changes of raiment. The hope of relief decided him to go. His pride of rank led him to travel in magnificent style.

When Naaman reached Samaria, he gave his master's letter to the king of Israel. It was awkwardly written, and called on the king to work the cure which the maid had said could be wrought by the prophet. So the king of Israel was troubled. He thought his neighbour sought a quarrel with him. He said, "Am I God, to kill and to make alive?" The leprosy could be healed by no power but that which raised the dead, and the king seems not to have known, or to have forgotten, that Elisha was the prophet of the Lord and could work miracles; so he was distressed and rent his clothes. He knew less of the state of religion in his own land than a little captive maid in Syria.

But Elisha learned that his king was in trouble, and sent this message: "Wherefore hast thou rent thy clothes? Let Naaman come now to me, and he shall know that there is a prophet in Israel." This message decided the leprous captain to visit Elisha. So he came in great pomp and stood at the door of Elisha's house. He made known his errand, but the prophet did not even come out to him, but sent him word: "Go and wash in Jordan seven times, and thy flesh shall come again to thee, and thou shalt be clean." Elisha knew his man, and would not puff him up any more by paying him court. This treatment made Naaman very wroth, and he went away, saying, "Behold, I thought he will surely come out to me, and stand, and call on the name of the Lord his God, and strike his hand over the place, and recover the leper. Are not Abana and Pharpar, 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."

What fools men are! They prescribe to God Himself; they are so proud that they will not do the simplest things God requires. It was the Lord who spake by Elisha. He was testing the obedience, and humbling the pride, and bending the will of the proud leper. At one time it looked as if the test would be too severe. Naaman had formed his plans, and wished to prescribe to Jehovah. When Elisha told him what to do, he was offended at the simplicity of the means, and fell into a passion; he felt the slight put upon him and upon his country; he probably knew that water was thought to inflame leprosy. Then Jordan was a small stream; its waters were turbid and had never healed any one of the leprosy; if any water could effect a cure, the Barrady and Orontes, here called by other names, seemed to the leper to be far better than the Jordan. If money and pomp and gifts and pride and self-will would secure God's blessing, many would have it who hate humility and obedience.

But God's purposes will be accomplished. He knows all things; He controls all hearts; He makes Naaman's servants reprove and advise him; and He causes Naaman to listen to them. The king's heart is in the hand of the Lord, as the rivers of water: He turneth it whithersoever He will. Naaman's servants came near and spoke to him tenderly, respectfully, and urgently: "My father, if the prophet had bid thee do some great thing, wouldst thou not have done it? How much rather then, when he saith, Wash and be clean?" By God's blessing, this good advice prevailed, and Naaman did as he was bidden; he dipped himself seven times in Jordan. It was an act of humiliation; it went very much against the grain; he had virtually said he would not. He was a proud and foolish man when anything seemed to touch his dignity, but by God's mercy to him the advice of his servants prevailed, and he used the prescribed means. He might have done anything else, yea, everything else, but that would have availed nothing; he must wash in Jordan or remain a leper, a loathing to all, even to himself.

Obeying, he was healed; then he was filled with gladness. He had made trial of the means; the result was all he had hoped for. The glow of health was felt again; his heart bounded with joy. Second thoughts are sometimes the best. He had said he would not wash in Jordan, but he got a better mind; he made trial of the remedy, and he was cured.