RCL reading for Sunday, February 15, 2009:
Excerpt from The New Revised Standard Version
via Oremus (http://bible.oremus.org)
2 Kings 5:1-14
1 Naaman, commander of the army of the king of Aram, was a great man and in high favour with his master, because by him the Lord had given victory to Aram. The man, though a mighty warrior, suffered from leprosy.
2 Now the Arameans on one of their raids had taken a young girl captive from the land of Israel, and she served Naaman’s wife.
3 She said to her mistress, ‘If only my lord were with the prophet who is in Samaria! He would cure him of his leprosy.’
4 So Naaman went in and told his lord just what the girl from the land of Israel had said.
5 And the king of Aram said, ‘Go then, and I will send along a letter to the king of Israel.’
He went, taking with him ten talents of silver, six thousand shekels of gold, and ten sets of garments.
6 He brought the letter to the king of Israel, which read, ‘When this letter reaches you, know that I have sent to you my servant Naaman, that you may cure him of his leprosy.’
7 When the king of Israel read the letter, he tore his clothes and said, ‘Am I God, to give death or life, that this man sends word to me to cure a man of his leprosy? Just look and see how he is trying to pick a quarrel with me.’
8 But when Elisha the man of God heard that the king of Israel had torn his clothes, he sent a message to the king, ‘Why have you torn your clothes? Let him come to me, that he may learn that there is a prophet in Israel.’
9 So Naaman came with his horses and chariots, and halted at the entrance of Elisha’s house.
10 Elisha sent a messenger to him, saying, ‘Go, wash in the Jordan seven times, and your flesh shall be restored and you shall be clean.’
11 But Naaman became angry and went away, saying, ‘I thought that for me he would surely come out, and stand and call on the name of the Lord his God, and would wave his hand over the spot, and cure the leprosy!
12 Are not Abana and Pharpar, the rivers of Damascus, better than all the waters of Israel? Could I not wash in them, and be clean?’ He turned and went away in a rage.
13 But his servants approached and said to him, ‘Father, if the prophet had commanded you to do something difficult, would you not have done it? How much more, when all he said to you was, “Wash, and be clean”?’
14 So he went down and immersed himself seven times in the Jordan, according to the word of the man of God; his flesh was restored like the flesh of a young boy, and he was clean.
QUESTIONS:
In verse 7, why does the king tear his clothes?
In verse 10, why wash seven times?
In verse 13, why does the servant address his master as "Father"?
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The tale of Naaman's healing by Elisha is a tale well told. In the OT reading in 2Kings 5:1-14 we have irony, suspense and a telling plot twist. The great man is saved by a slave girl. The King garbles the letter and the correspondent king becomes frightened. Elisha gets gossip of the problem and steps forward. The great man balks at the offhanded cure and has to be talked into it by more slaves. He finally realizes he is cured and reacts lavishly.
ReplyDeleteThe Syrian king asks the Isrealite king to do the healing, when the Isrealite slave girl said it was the prophet. This frightens the Isrealite king. why? Could there be a subtext implicit akin to the "King's Evil", a term for scrofula, or struma. This was a disease, now thought to be caused by lymphatic tuberculosis. As early as Roman times this was considered cured by the king's touch. It is not the same as leprosy but in Davidic times perhaps there was less scrupulosity in diagnosis. In Levitical times leprosy was considered to be a skin disease as well as a mold on clothing or houses.
Paul Johnson
St. Paul's Episcopal Church
Leavenworth, Kansas