Naaman is commander of the army of Aram, highly regarded and successful, and also a leper. A young Israelite servant girl, captured in a raid and now serving Naaman’s wife, mentions that a prophet in Samaria could heal him, and Naaman takes the suggestion seriously enough to travel there with a letter from his king and a fortune in silver, gold, and clothing.

When he arrives at Elisha’s house, the prophet does not even come out to meet him.

He Expected a Performance Worthy of His Rank

“I thought that he would surely come out to me and stand and call on the name of the Lord his God, wave his hand over the spot and cure me of my leprosy.” Naaman had already scripted the healing in his head, complete with ceremony and personal attention matching his status. Elisha instead sends a messenger with instructions and never appears in person at all.

The Instructions Insulted His Sense of Home

Told simply to wash in the Jordan seven times, Naaman is furious: “Are not Abana and Pharpar, the rivers of Damascus, better than all the waters of Israel? Couldn’t I wash in them and be cleansed?” His objection is not that the instruction seems impossible. It is that it seems beneath him, both in its simplicity and in its choice of a river from a country he does not respect.

His Own Servants Talked Him Down From Walking Away

“My father, if the prophet had told you to do some great thing, would you not have done it? How much more, then, when he tells you, ‘Wash and be cleansed’!” It is not a king or a prophet who reasons with Naaman in this moment, but his own servants, pointing out the plain inconsistency in a man willing to attempt something hard but not something simple.

The Healing Came Only After He Did the Small, Undignified Thing

Naaman goes down and dips himself in the Jordan seven times, exactly as instructed, and “his flesh was restored and became clean like that of a young boy.” Nothing about the method was adjusted to suit his rank. The cure was on the other side of an instruction he very nearly refused for being too plain.

“So he went down and dipped himself in the Jordan seven times, as the man of God had told him, and his flesh was restored and became clean like that of a young boy.”
2 Kings 5:14

He arrived expecting a display commensurate with his reputation. He was healed the moment he stopped needing one.