5

. . .

The Only God

Surprising Universality and Particularity in 2 Kings 5

In his satirical novel Submission, Michel Houellebecq portrays a dystopian future for France. In the 2022 presidential election the Socialists and the Muslim Brotherhood combine to block the National Front, and for the first time a Muslim takes office as head of state. In education, in particular, there are moves to Islamize institutions: Muslim identity becomes necessary for teaching staff. François, the narrator of the novel, is a middle-aged academic who teaches literature at the University of Paris III–Sorbonne but now finds himself out of a job. Very little that is worthwhile is happening in François’s life apart from periodic sex, mainly with his former Jewish girlfriend, Myriam (moments with whom were, in François’s judgment, “enough to justify a man’s existence”);1 but the political developments mean that she has left France for Israel and shows no signs of returning.

After François has drifted for a while, Robert Rediger, a senior figure at the Sorbonne, attempts to persuade him to rejoin the university. Since this would require François to become a Muslim, Rediger offers him a copy of his bestselling Ten Questions on Islam. The chapter that particularly engages François is on polygamy; he has already admired Rediger’s own polygamous household (which, in line with his sense of what really matters, he depicts as “a forty-year-old wife to do the cooking, a fifteen-year-old wife for whatever else”).2 François ponders and dithers for a while, but he finds the offer of a tripled salary and more than one wife too much to resist. The book concludes with his envisaging the transition he is about to make. He memorizes and formally recites the Shahadah, the foundational affirmation of Muslim identity: “I testify that there is no God but God, and Muhammad is the messenger of God.” His final reflection is that he “has the chance at a second life, with very little connection to the old one. I would have nothing to mourn.”3 illustrates how a disenchanted figure can be brought into a new way of living—though what really persuades François is not the truth of Islam, or a fresh appreciation of ultimate values, but the prospect of better money and more sex, in shameless male chauvinist mode.

Houellebecq’s novel has its own concerns and is characteristic of his oeuvre, with its “decline and fall” tenor and the simultaneous portrayal of the degeneration of Western civilization and of a particular figure within it. For present purposes I would like the story, with François’s formal turning point being the Muslim confession of God, to linger in the background of my reading of a biblical story. My next exploration of “knowing that the LORD is God” considers a story at the heart of which someone from outside Israel comes to make Israel’s pivotal confession of faith. I hope Houellebecq’s story will help sharpen an appreciation of the distinctive tenor of the biblical text.

A Reading of 2 Kings 5

The story of Naaman is one of the famous stories of the Old Testament. Even though it is more challenging to understand than may initially appear,4 I propose to plunge straight into a reading and subsequent reflection on it.5 Its literary context is the cycle of stories about Elisha and his prophetic ministry in the Northern Kingdom of Israel.

1Naaman, commander of the army of the king of Aram, was a great man and in high favor with his master, because by him the LORD had given victory to Aram.6 The man was a mighty warrior—with a skin disease.7 (2 Kings 5:1)

Naaman is portrayed glowingly. He is the chief of staff to the Aramean king and highly esteemed by the king, because his success as military commander had brought victorious peace to the Arameans. Yet the positive picture of Naaman ends on a surprisingly downbeat note: he has an affliction in the form of a skin disease.

■   The term for this affliction—the Hebrew noun tsāraʿat, together with its related verbal form (as used here)—poses problems for a translator. The time-honored translation, which has a certain “biblical” resonance to it, is “leprosy.” However, the Hebrew term covers a range of skin diseases, as depicted in Lev. 13–14 (where even a house can be affected). The condition known to modern medicine as Hansen’s disease, which is still common in contexts of poverty and deprivation, would have been only one among many possible referents. The only specific note about the nature of the disease in this particular story—where it seems not to diminish Naaman’s abilities or impede normal social interactions—comes at the end, when Gehazi acquires the affliction that Naaman had had, and his condition is said to be “like snow” (2 Kings 5:27b; so also the hand of Moses, Exod. 4:6; and Miriam, Num. 12:10). Such whiteness is not characteristic of leprosy proper, even though skin discoloration is. Modern medicine is not in a position to identify the disease envisaged in 2 Kings 5, even though suggestions such as psoriasis or eczema are common. Modern biblical translations which retain “leprosy” (e.g., NEB, JB, NRSV, NJPS, and some commentators—e.g., John Gray and Marvin Sweeney)8 usually add a note to clarify that the biblical term envisages a wider range of skin afflictions than “leprosy” in a modern medical sense.

Since the text speaks of a disfiguring skin disease whose precise nature is unknown, I opt for the slightly cumbersome “skin disease” and will change the NRSV accordingly throughout.  ■

The other surprising note in this introduction is that Naaman was the human agent by whom “the LORD had given victory to Aram”—an observation which presumably reflects the perspective of the narrator rather than of Naaman himself or his king.9 The surprise is hardly that the LORD is active beyond Israel,10 for that is apparent elsewhere in the storyline of Kings (e.g., 1 Kings 17), is deeply rooted in the tradition of the exodus from Egypt, and would be taken for granted by a reader of the canonical text, which begins with the one God as Creator of all. Rather, His giving victory to Aram was apparently at Israel’s expense, symbolized by the presence of the Israelite slave girl in Naaman’s household as mentioned in the next verse.11 That is, the story makes clear at the outset that, whatever the LORD’s special relationship with Israel, He does not necessarily act in accordance with Israel’s wishes and preferences; the LORD’s actions cannot be presumed upon.

2Now the Arameans on one of their raids had taken a young girl captive from the land of Israel, and she served Naaman’s wife. 3She said to her mistress, “If only my lord were with the prophet who is in Samaria! He would cure him of his skin disease.” 4So Naaman went in and told his lord just what the girl from the land of Israel had said. (2 Kings 5:2–4)

A young girl, probably in her early teens12 and from somewhere in northern Israel (i.e., presumably not far from Aram), had been captured on an Aramean raid.13 For her, after this raid, initially life might appear to have ended. To be enslaved and taken into exile could readily feel like a living death. In terms of the archetypal story of Cain and Abel, she is someone unfavored who has to make the most of a situation not of her choosing.14 She finds herself, however, in what appears to be a good home. Here she wants, and is able, to give good advice. Whatever she may or may not know about prophecy (the prophet as someone sent by God to speak and act for God), she knows of the prophet as someone in whom the power of God might be encountered in a life-giving way. So she speaks confidently along these lines. Both Naaman’s wife and Naaman himself are willing to heed her, and Naaman acts on her words.

■   The young woman has only this one brief moment of opportunity (as the narrator tells it) involving nothing more spectacular than a few words, but she nonetheless makes a telling difference. Unsurprisingly, then, she is paradigmatic for many commentators of making the most, under God, of whatever opportunity life brings, however limited it may seem. Gregory Mobley nicely expands a point about “the wisdom of the little people” into a larger concern of Kings overall:

This contrast between the clichéd formulaic texture of the accounts about the rote mendacities, petty corruptions, cruel injustices, and bungling statecraft of the big shots, and the vivid, quirky folktales about the little people—lepers, Syrian house slaves, rural juvenile delinquents, family farmers, roving bands of itinerant, undomesticated seers and the informal network of women who fed and sheltered them—may hold theological significance itself. The meek inherited and kept vital the traditional faith of Israel throughout the monarchical era.15  ■

5And the king of Aram said, “Go then, and I will send along a letter [sēpher] to the king of Israel.” He went, taking with him ten talents of silver, six thousand shekels of gold, and ten sets of garments. 6He 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 skin disease.” 7When 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 skin disease? Just look and see how he is trying to pick a quarrel with me.” (2 Kings 5:5–7)

The practicalities of the situation need attending to. Naaman’s going to see his king would, one imagines, be primarily to request a leave of absence, but no doubt also to make clear to his master that he wants to travel to neighboring Israel for a good reason (and so is doing nothing underhanded or perhaps even traitorous).

Interestingly, the king of Aram is nowhere named, and neither is the king of Israel when he comes on stage. One can of course conjecture about their identities.16 But perhaps a tacit point in the story is that the kings—those figures of power who usually give their names to the framing and telling of history17—are not the significant figures in this story. They are incidental.

The kings are not only marginal, but they are also uncomprehending, and comically so. The incomprehension appears to begin with the king of Aram when he sends Naaman to the king of Israel with a royal letter. One might expect this to be a letter of recommendation requesting safe passage and any appropriate assistance, with an assurance of peaceful intent. We are told only, however, that it contains a request to the Israelite king to “cure him [Naaman] of his skin disease.” This is open to more than one reading. It could be a request for permission to let Naaman find healing somewhere in the land of Israel, under the auspices of its king—in other words, “I am sending him to you so that you will enable him to find the healing that he is seeking.” But the apparent lack of any mention of a “prophet in Samaria,” as specified by the slave girl, suggests that, if that were the import of the letter, then it was at least poorly worded and that the Aramean king was uncertain how to couch his unusual request. Moreover, the treasure which accompanies the Aramean king’s favored general is so vast that it is suggestive not just of a gift or of remuneration for the prophet but also of a symbolic gesture of power meant to impress the king of Israel with the wealth of his northern neighbor and perhaps also serve as a political sweetener.18 In addition, Naaman travels with a military retinue (as will be noted in vv. 9, 15).

At any rate, the Israelite king reads the letter suspiciously. He sees it as a ludicrous request to perform a healing himself (though it is ironic that his words about God giving death or life, which he utters in uncomprehending irritation, are indeed validated within the story when he is not around). He reckons that the only reason for such a request is that it is a pretext to renew hostilities when he fails to respond positively to the Aramean king’s letter and its accompanying bounty. In any case, each king seems ill at ease with the notion of an afflicted man seeking a prophet with a view to healing, and each in one way or another transposes the issue into more familiar (to them) categories of power politics.

8But 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.” 9So Naaman came with his horses and chariots, and halted at the entrance of Elisha’s house. (2 Kings 5:8–9)

Local news travels fast, and the slave girl’s “prophet in Samaria,” now identified as none other than Elisha, intervenes. His message to the king is succinct: the king’s dismay, symbolized by tearing his clothes, is unwarranted. If the Aramean general will but come to Elisha, he will learn that there is indeed a prophet in Israel; and perhaps, by implication, the king too will learn, or be reminded of, something he ought to have known when he read the letter. At any rate, Naaman with his retinue does go to Elisha, and the scene is set for his encounter with the Israelite prophet.

10Elisha sent a messenger to him, saying, “Go, wash in the Jordan seven times, and your flesh shall be restored and you shall be clean.” 11But Naaman became angry and went away, saying, “See here!19 I thought to myself20 that 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 skin disease! 12Are 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. 13But 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’?” 14So 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. (2 Kings 5:10–14)

Elisha acts surprisingly. He ignores conventional courtesies and does not come out to greet his visitor and speak face-to-face. The natural symbolic significance of this is a lack of interest or rejection (or, conceivably, playing hard to get). Yet the sending of a messenger in his place suggests that this is not the meaning of Elisha’s (in)action. Rather, the purpose of Elisha’s nonappearance could be to challenge and unsettle some of the assumptions that Naaman is likely to have held—as might be inferred both from Naaman’s immediate response and from the subsequent exchange in which Elisha refuses any of Naaman’s vast treasure.21 Sending an ordinary person to speak to Naaman might also be symbolically on a par with the surprising message that is conveyed. Washing or bathing in water sounds inadequate for dealing with a skin disease, which would already have proved resistant to the obvious treatment of being washed and wiped. Of course, washing “seven times” indicates that this would not be a regular washing, but one that is symbolically charged (even if the precise symbolic significance of “seven times” is left open);22 and it would be in a river in Israel, which might perhaps symbolize entry into Israel’s world (as in Josh. 3–4). Whatever the case, it is a mundane action that is not in line with what one might expect to be required for a special healing—as Naaman does not hesitate to point out.

Naaman’s angry response indicates that in his own way he is as poorly attuned to the prophet in Israel as are the two kings. Of course, on one level, his expectations are entirely reasonable. Invocation of the deity (“call on the name of the LORD”) is a primary religious act, especially appropriate at times of heightened significance (one thinks, for example, of Samuel invoking the LORD before Israel fights the Philistines, or of Elijah invoking the LORD on Mount Carmel).23 A posture of standing in prayer with arms outstretched is well attested (one thinks, for example, of Solomon at the dedication of the temple, or perhaps of Moses with his arms raised as Israel fights Amalek).24 The exact meaning of “the spot” over which Elisha should wave his hand25—whether the space outside the house or Naaman’s infected body—is not clear, but the general sense of Naaman’s declaration is straightforward: prophetic presence, prayer, and directed action should bring healing. Moreover, if the mundane act of washing is required, why should it be in the Jordan, which (despite its resonant fame down the ages) is not, and probably never was, an impressive river?26 Naaman also cannot resist the chauvinistic observation that the local rivers around Damascus are “better” than any or all of the waters of Israel;27 but part of his point may be that washing in a river in the absence of Elisha could just as well be done at home as in Israel. Naaman presumably feels either that he is being mocked by Elisha or that Elisha is a charlatan who is wasting his time.

Naaman’s servants respond to him with admirable common sense. As Robert Alter nicely puts it, “They intuit that the ostensibly simple command to dip seven times in the Jordan is actually the direction for a miraculous cure.”28 They gently deflate the note of chauvinistic irritation in their master’s words by pointing out that, although he is of course a man accustomed to great undertakings, the performance of a simple task is not demeaning. If there is a simple thing to do, then he should simply do it. Their words are somewhat like the words of Naaman’s Israelite slave girl in that nonpowerful people who remain nameless in the story nonetheless play a crucial role within it.29 Although, of all the Arameans, only Naaman’s name is passed down to posterity, his is not a solo performance. These servants get through to their master and restore his own good sense. Naaman now goes to the Jordan and is healed.30 We are told nothing about what his immersion in the Jordan and the restoration of his skin felt like to him. What matters is that his obedience to the prophet’s words realizes the prophet’s promise.31

15Then he returned to the man of God, he and all his company; he came and stood before him and said, “Now I know that there is no God in all the earth except in Israel; please accept a present from your servant.” 16But he said, “As the LORD lives, whom I serve, I will accept nothing!” He urged him to accept, but he refused. (2 Kings 5:15–16)

Naaman returns to Elisha, presumably both chastened and joyful. His words are momentous, as his view of reality has changed.32 Here in Israel he has encountered the true God, and there is no true God elsewhere. The universality of the one God is combined with the particularity of the context in which this one God is known. The precise wording and significance of this confession of faith merit fuller scrutiny, and we will return to it.33 For the present, the significant thing is that Naaman’s words align him with Israel’s core understanding of God as expressed in the first commandment and the Shema: there are to be “no other gods” alongside the LORD and “the LORD is the one and only” (ʾeḥād).34 His sharing of Israel’s core confession makes him, in a certain sense, part of Israel (and bears obvious resemblance to saying the Shahadah and becoming a Muslim).

What follows from this? Naaman’s immediate instinct is to express his gratitude to Elisha with a tangible gift. (Even if some of his vast treasure might have been left with the king of Israel as a strategic goodwill gesture, he would still hardly be short of talents, shekels, and garments.) Reciprocity was a natural and widespread instinct and practice in the ancient world, and Naaman acts accordingly. But Elisha declines, and does so not with a polite “No, thank you” but with an appeal to the God to whom he is accountable. As a matter of principle, he will accept nothing from Naaman. This presumably puzzles Naaman, who perhaps thinks that this is a formal politeness which he needs to push past, so he tries again. But Elisha stands firm.

His refusal is not explained. But even though it can be important to respect a narrator’s silence, sometimes it is important to enter imaginatively into the unexpressed thought of a character; and I suggest that we do so here. Most likely, Elisha’s concern is to avoid any idea that somehow God’s favor can be bought.35 If Elisha were to accept even a small part of Naaman’s treasure, he would become wealthy. The suspicious might suppose that Elisha helped Naaman because he knew how well he would do out of it.36 Or they might suppose that only those with the kind of riches that Naaman had could expect anything from God or His prophet. A straightforward gift of gratitude on one level might be too open to misinterpretation on another level; so Elisha declines. The issue of not seeking reward will also recur later in the story. Elisha’s implicit understanding of the dynamics of the occasion surely merits the Christian shorthand summary term: grace.37

17Then Naaman said, “If not, please let two mule-loads of earth be given to your servant; for your servant will no longer offer burnt offering or sacrifice to other gods but only to the LORD.38 18But may the LORD pardon your servant on one count: when my master goes into the house of Rimmon to worship there, leaning on my arm, and I bow down in the house of Rimmon, when I do bow down in the house of Rimmon, may the LORD pardon your servant on this one count.” 19He said to him, “Go in peace.” (2 Kings 5:17–19a)

Naaman goes along with Elisha’s refusal of any gift, even though he is disappointed; his “if not” implies that Elisha’s acceptance of his gift would have conferred a favor on him. But if that favor cannot be granted, he will ask for a different one instead.39 This alternative favor relates to a practical problem that Naaman now faces. His recognition of the LORD makes him, in a certain sense, part of Israel. Yet he remains an Aramean, with a family in Damascus and a life that entails responsibilities at the highest level. So he comes up with a proposal whose likely significance in the culture of the ancient world is hard to grasp in the differently configured culture of modernity: he asks for some earth.40 This will enable him to make a division between what he does for himself, in his own right, and what he does in his public responsibilities as chief of staff to the king. Whatever the precise significance of the earth (which is of sufficient quantity that more than one mule will be needed to carry it),41 the intent of Naaman’s words in verse 17 is clear: his own future actions that express devotion and allegiance will be directed solely to the LORD. He will offer sacrifices on a specially constructed altar, which will either be made from the earth that he wants to take or placed upon such earth.42 This altar will presumably be located somewhere in the precincts of his home, where he has control over the space. In that way he will express his recognition of the LORD as the true God.

Naaman’s responsibilities as chief of staff, however, require him to closely accompany his (most likely) elderly king, who in his growing infirmity needs at times to be physically supported by Naaman.43 When the king goes to worship in the temple of the national deity of Aram,44 and he is no longer able easily to bow and/or prostrate himself and get up again and so needs Naaman’s assistance (“leaning on his arm”), Naaman will need to bow and/or prostrate himself beside his king. The intentionality and directedness of the worship will be the king’s and not Naaman’s, but Naaman will still need to perform the formal actions as part of his responsibility to the king. Naaman will thus bow down in two contexts: one at home which expresses his intentionality, and another in public which does not express his intentionality and in which he quite literally does no more than “go through the motions.” Such a division will enable him both to retain his Aramean responsibilities and to express his Israel-oriented allegiance and worship. His asking for the LORD’s pardon is an idiomatic way of asking whether such an arrangement, which could easily be misconstrued, is acceptable: Is this a favor that Elisha can bestow? Elisha apparently does bestow the favor, which is a natural, though not necessary, inference from his “Go in peace.”45 Thus, in effect, Elisha gives Naaman’s proposed arrangement his blessing.46

But when Naaman had gone from him a short distance, 20Gehazi, the servant of Elisha the man of God, thought, “My master has let that Aramean Naaman off too lightly by not accepting from him what he offered. As the LORD lives, I will run after him and get something out of him.” 21So Gehazi went after Naaman. (2 Kings 5:19b–21a)

Elisha’s construal of the healing of Naaman as an act of grace that has nothing to do with money is not shared by his servant Gehazi. Gehazi sees a missed opportunity to make the most of their wealthy visitor. “Aramean” on Gehazi’s lips in this context seems to carry the slightly contemptuous nuance of the epithet “foreigner,” someone of whom a canny Israelite can readily take advantage. He makes this a matter of principle by invoking the LORD (v. 20) in the same way that Elisha had done (v. 16)—though thereby he paradigmatically breaks the third commandment by taking the LORD’s name in vain. Whereas Elisha’s invocation served to align himself with the LORD’s priorities by displaying divine grace and taking nothing for himself, Gehazi seeks to harness the LORD to his priorities and thereby enrich himself.

When Naaman saw someone running after him, he jumped down from the chariot to meet him and said, “Is everything all right?” 22He replied, “Yes, but my master has sent me to say, ‘Two members of a company of prophets have just come to me from the hill country of Ephraim; please47 give them a talent of silver and two changes of clothing.’” 23Naaman said, “Please accept two talents.” He urged him, and tied up two talents of silver in two bags, with two changes of clothing, and gave them to two of his servants, who carried them in front of Gehazi. 24When he came to the citadel, he took the bags from them, and stored them inside; he dismissed the men, and they left. (2 Kings 5:21b–24)

Gehazi easily deceives a still-grateful Naaman, who is anxious that someone running after him may well indicate that something is not right. Gehazi makes his lie more plausible by not attempting to contradict Elisha’s implicit message to Naaman that his healing was an act of grace. Although Gehazi himself rejects the propriety of such an understanding, he does not even hint at this to Naaman. Rather, he pitches his request in a low key as a petition concerning an unanticipated need: Could Naaman help Elisha show hospitality to two religiously significant (and likely impoverished)48 visitors? Naaman is only too willing to help and offers twice as much money as Gehazi had asked for. Gehazi makes a token refusal (Naaman has to “urge” him) but is soon on his way back home with his booty, which is even being carried for him by an honorific escort.

25He went in and stood before his master; and Elisha said to him, “Where have you been, Gehazi?” He answered, “Your servant has not gone anywhere at all.” 26But he said to him, “Did I not go with you in spirit when a man49 left his chariot to meet you? Is this a time to accept money and to accept clothing, olive orchards and vineyards, sheep and oxen, and male and female slaves? 27Therefore the skin disease of Naaman shall cling to you, and to your descendants forever.” So he left his presence with his skin diseased, as white as snow. (2 Kings 5:25–27)

Gehazi’s evasive lie to his master receives a startling response. In some way, when Gehazi went after Naaman, Elisha was also there “in spirit.”50 What this means is not explained, any more than is Naaman’s healing through immersion in the Jordan, but it clearly refers to a state of awareness that is in some way a corollary of Elisha’s proximity to God as a prophet. He knows what would usually be unknowable; he can be clairvoyant.51 The wording of the text, “when a man left his chariot,” in which one might have expected Elisha to mention Naaman by name, is perhaps giving an impression of what it was that Elisha (perhaps somewhat hazily?) saw. Lack of clarity in what he saw might also be implied by his following question—about money, olive orchards, livestock, and slaves—which goes beyond the actual exchange between Gehazi and Naaman. But the import of the question is clear: it is a rebuke to Gehazi for being focused on money and markers of wealth when he should have been rejoicing at a non-Israelite coming to a life-giving recognition of Israel’s God.

■   The number of items mentioned is surprising.52 Two talents of silver would buy a lot of things; but substantial territory (“olive orchards and vineyards”), substantial livestock (“sheep and oxen”), and significant personnel (“male and female slaves”) might well cost more than two talents.53 If so, it could suggest that Elisha does not know exactly how much Gehazi received from Naaman—only that he acquired money and clothing that he should not have acquired.  ■

The result is that Gehazi’s greed will mark him indelibly,54 in the form of his getting the skin disease from which Naaman had been healed. The disease that defiles his skin in effect symbolizes the greed that has defiled his heart and mind (though the disease had no such symbolic significance for Naaman).

■   Elisha’s declaration that the disease will affect not only Gehazi but also his descendants “forever” is likely to be read differently by many modern readers than by ancient ones. Today this tends to come across as morally problematic, an unjust penalization of innocent people in years to come. In the ancient context, however, the idiomatic significance is that of the punishment being definitive; the thought is not about generations in the distant future but rather about the thoroughness and finality of punishment for Gehazi in the here and now.55 Some disciplined historical imagination is needed to keep the idiom in perspective.

Evaluations of this conclusion to the story vary. Curiously, many scholars who write commentaries on Kings say little about Gehazi’s affliction and nothing about that of his descendants. Nonetheless, among those who do comment, evaluations differ. On the one hand, Richard Nelson says, “The narrative reaches a satisfying end. . . . Gehazi is deservedly a leper”; though he says nothing about the affliction of Gehazi’s descendants.56 On the other hand, Gregory Mobley says,

If we read stories such as this with the kind of sober piety we often reserve for the Bible, we cannot help but be shocked at the cold-blooded glee that its composers and original audiences evidently took in the cruel particulars of how the wicked and the foolish eventually received their comeuppance, their just deserts. Better that we read these accounts as folktales from the underclass, from the prophets and their sympathizers who waited through generations for the reign of peace and justice their tradition promised them, and preserved their hopes in the stories and teachings that would grow into our Bible. The pleasures of these impish narratives about poetic justice may escape us, but for our spiritual ancestors in Ephraim . . . the prospect of divine judgment against the high and mighty was one of their few small comforts.57   ■

What, then, has happened in the course of the story? Everything and nothing. Everything, since grace has been displayed, Naaman has been healed and has come to acknowledge the true God, and routine expectations have been consistently overturned as the ways of God have been encountered. And nothing, since a story that began with the problem of a man suffering from a skin disease ends with a man suffering from a skin disease.

Further Reflection 1: Naaman’s Confession of the One God

The possible implications of the story of Naaman for understanding the nature of God and life in God’s world merit some further reflection.

Naaman’s confession of faith (“Now I know that there is no God in all the earth except in Israel”) stands at the heart of the story—and indeed, arguably, at the heart of the Old Testament. In a certain sense it is also at the heart of this book, insofar as this book is an account of aspects of what it means to “know that the LORD is God.”

On Knowing That the LORD Is God

Naaman’s confession of faith keeps company with other comparable formulations. In Psalm 100, for example, the psalmist calls on “all the earth” to share in Israel’s joyful worship of the LORD and issues the summons, “Know that the LORD is God” (vv. 1–3). The LORD’s call of Cyrus, who is to carry out His purposes for Jerusalem, will have the goal not only that “you [Cyrus] may know that it is I, the LORD, / the God of Israel, who call you by your name,” but also that “they may know, from the rising of the sun / and from the west, that there is no one besides me; / I am the LORD, and there is no other” (Isa. 45:3, 6). The hope that persons and nations beyond Israel will come to recognize and acknowledge Israel’s God is recurrent in the Old Testament—though the recognition has to begin with, and be continually renewed within, Israel itself.

The concern to “know that the LORD is God” is particularly important in Deuteronomy and deuteronomically inflected material.58 Moses says to Israel, in light of the exodus and Sinai traditions,

To you it was shown so that you would acknowledge [or know] that the LORD is God; there is no other besides him. (Deut. 4:35)

So acknowledge [or know] today and take to heart that the LORD is God in heaven above and on the earth beneath; there is no other. (Deut. 4:39)

David says to Goliath on the battlefield,

This very day the LORD will deliver you into my hand . . . so that all the earth may know that there is a God in Israel. (1 Sam. 17:46)

Solomon concludes his prayer at the dedication of the temple with the specific prayer that the LORD provide for Israel

so that all the peoples of the earth may know that the LORD is God; there is no other. (1 Kings 8:60)

At the climax of the paradigmatic story of the contest between Elijah and the prophets of Baal on Mount Carmel, Elijah prays,

36O LORD, . . . let it be known this day that you are God in Israel. . . . 37Answer me, O LORD, answer me, so that this people may know that you, O LORD, are God. (1 Kings 18:36–37)

When the fire of the LORD falls, the people fulfill the prayer:

39They fell on their faces and said, “The LORD indeed is God; the LORD indeed is God.” (1 Kings 18:39)

The idiom is less common in Chronicles. Nonetheless, the Chronicler strikingly retells the story of the notorious king Manasseh in a mode somewhat suggestive of the prodigal son. In the extremity of captivity and exile, Manasseh turns repentantly to God, and God restores him and brings him home:

Then Manasseh knew that the LORD indeed was God. (2 Chron. 33:13)

The cumulative force of these and other passages conveys a core theological vision and theological hope. It is this into which Naaman, like other famous non-Israelites such as Jethro and Rahab (Exod. 18:10–11; Josh. 2:9, 11), paradigmatically enters.

There is a certain sense in which the Hebrew phrase “know that” (yādaʿ kī)—which is used in all the passages just cited—is an Old Testament counterpart to the Greek phrase “believe that” (pisteuein hoti) in the New Testament.59 Both terms express epistemic and existential assurance in relation to God. A fuller study of the Old Testament’s “know that the LORD is God” could usefully be set alongside key formulations about “believing that Jesus is Lord/Messiah” by Paul and John in the New Testament. For Paul, the confession that “Jesus Christ is Lord” is perhaps the most succinct shorthand summary of his understanding of Christian faith (Phil. 2:9–11; cf. Rom. 10:9; 1 Cor. 12:3; 2 Cor. 4:5). John’s statement of purpose about his Gospel (“These are written so that you may come to believe that Jesus is the Messiah, the Son of God, and that through believing you may have life in his name,” John 20:31) plays a comparable summary role. These phrases of the Old and New Testaments—to know that the LORD is God and to believe that Jesus is Lord—serve as pithy and memorable formulations of that life-giving goal for humans in relation to God which the surrounding documents amplify more fully and discursively (aspects of which this book is seeking to articulate).

Are Naaman’s Words “Monotheistic”?

Modern interpreters regularly use the term “monotheism” to depict Israel’s understanding of God, at least from the time of Second Isaiah in the exilic context (whether or not for earlier periods). Naaman’s confession is regularly depicted as reflecting a “monotheism” that is perhaps only incipient, though sometimes it is seen as fully formed (depending usually on when the story is dated). “Monotheism,” however, is a category whose ability to penetrate the meaning of biblical terminology and thought is more limited than is generally supposed.60 For the present (the issue will be taken up again in the next Further Reflection), I would simply note a significant recent essay by Benjamin Sommer in relation to Yehezkel Kaufmann’s work on biblical “monotheism.” Sommer strongly, and surely rightly, commends Kaufmann’s basic contention that “monotheism is about the nature of divinity, not about the number of divinities; it is a matter of quality, not quantity”; it is “not a matter of counting; it is a matter of power.”61 Or, in biblical and especially deuteronomic idiom, the acknowledgement of the LORD as “the one and only” (ʾeḥād), in relation to whom “there is no other,” is a denial of “other gods” (ʾĕlōhīm ʾăḥērīm) in terms of their power to help/save and their legitimacy as recipients of allegiance rather than in terms of their ontological status.62 When Naaman says, “There is no God in all the earth except in Israel,” one should not imagine him inferring, as a corollary, “and so I now realize that Rimmon does not exist.” Naaman’s point is not that “other gods” (ʾĕlōhīm ʾăḥērīm) no longer exist; rather, he says that he will offer sacrifices not to them, but only to YHWH (2 Kings 5:17). “Other gods” remain, in one way or another, a permanent challenge to allegiance to the LORD.63

Further Reflection 2: Naaman’s Request for Israelite Soil

Naaman’s Request as a Theological Failure

Naaman’s request for Israelite soil, when set alongside his confession of the one God, is regularly seen by commentators to be, in one way or another, problematic. Naaman is often reckoned to be displaying a certain simplemindedness, a failure to grasp what his confession should really entail. Commentators from across the spectrum tend to be in agreement here. For example:

Naaman was still a slave to the polytheistic superstition that no god could be worshipped in a proper and acceptable manner except in his own land, or upon an altar built of the earth of his own land.64

This striking confession of monotheism [v. 15] . . . is naïvely inconsistent with this request for two mules’ burdens of earth so that he might worship Yahweh in Damascus. His reason consented to monotheism but convention bound him practically to monolatry.65

Like any new convert, Naaman’s theology is apparently unsophisticated. He properly confesses that “there is no God in all the earth except in Israel,” perhaps because that is what he has been taught. He takes the confession literally, however, assuming that the Lord is to be worshipped only on Israelite soil. Hence his proposal to take some of that soil home. . . . Even when Naaman finally confessed the Lord, his theology was simplistic, his notion of God’s presence inadequate, his allegiance to God not without distractions.66

Naaman is still very superstitious. His conversion to the true God has not stripped away the beliefs of his background and civilization. He has not become a good theologian. . . . He is still convinced that God is a local God, that he is tied to a particular land.67

Naaman . . . wishes to ensure the future proximity of the God who helped him so tangibly. Since this God resides only in Israel, he wishes to take two mule-loads of Israelite earth to Damascus in order to be able to sacrifice to YHWH there (vv. 15a, 17): a splendid earthbound understanding of God, still far removed from the theoretical monotheism of, for instance, Deutero-Isaiah (e.g., Isa. 45:5–6).68

I find striking the confidence which these commentators have in the adequacy and appropriateness of modern interpretive categories, especially “monotheism,” in relation to which they depict Naaman as naive and simplistic.69 I propose that it may be worthwhile, even if only as a thought experiment, to do the opposite. That is, we might entertain the possibility that Naaman, given an apparent go-ahead by Elisha, does know what he is doing and that we contemporary interpreters struggle with appropriate conceptualities to understand and appreciate what that is. It is at least possible that certain philosophically formulated conceptions of monotheism may so privilege the universality of the one God that they do not know how to do justice to particular modes of access to that universality.

Put differently, we need to recognize how sheerly difficult it is to interpret Naaman’s request for Israelite soil. Judgments about its appropriateness (or otherwise) necessarily depend on judgments about its meaning, yet the story does not offer clarification. This is an issue where the religious and philosophical outlook of the interpreter in the present is likely to loom large in a way that makes self-critical alertness all the more important.

■   It is also possible to read Naaman’s request as a coded narrative depiction of a problem facing Israelites of the Northern Kingdom in exile. An ingenious thesis is set out by Alexander Rofé:

In the present form of the story in the Book of Kings, Elisha does not respond to Naaman’s offer to build an altar with the two mule-loads of earth taken from the land of Israel. His silence is in keeping with the Deuteronomistic redaction of Kings, which forbids sacrifice to God anywhere outside Jerusalem, even in the land of Israel, not to mention foreign lands. But, according to all indications, in the original story Elisha explicitly agreed to this initiative. This is clearly the thrust of the story’s internal dynamic. Naaman surely would not have required Elisha’s permission to carry off some earth from the Holy Land on a pair of mules! It was rather Elisha’s agreement to his cultic initiative that he desired. This request, following upon the declarations [the content of 2 Kings 5:15, 17] . . . could not have gone unrequited. The story, in its original form, seems to have sanctioned Naaman’s proposal, not because of the needs of some anonymous pagans who wished to serve God, but because of specific historical circumstances, namely the situation of the Israelite exiles, beginning in 731 BCE. Scattered throughout the Assyrian empire, these exiles would be permitted to erect altars and sacrifice to God on foreign soil, following a procedure attributed to Elisha for overcoming the problem of the “unclean land”: the altars were to be erected upon earth imported from the Land of Israel.70

Two brief comments. On the one hand, the textual basis for Rofé’s thesis is thin. His contention that Elisha “does not respond” to Naaman’s proposal about building an altar—with the result that Elisha is aligned with the theological priorities of the deuteronomistic editors—is likely to be missed by most readers. Naaman speaks at length both about the earth and about the temple of Rimmon in a single speech to which Elisha responds with “Go in peace.” If there were a break after Naaman’s words in v. 17 and a narrative comment such as “And Elisha said nothing in reply / remained silent” (vĕlōʾ ʿānāh ʾĕlīshāʿ ʾōtō dāvār or vayyiddōm ʾĕlīshāʿ) before Naaman speaks again in v. 18, Rofé’s point might have weight. But as the story stands, its most natural reading is that Elisha does respond positively to Naaman’s request for earth for an altar.

On the other hand, Rofé’s conjecture about what may have given rise to the story is always possible in terms of a putative history of ideas. But his focus on the purported needs of exiled Israelites (the supposed world behind the text), reflected in a coded way in Naaman’s request to Elisha, means that the dynamics surrounding an Aramean’s worship of the LORD, which is the interest in the world of the text, go out of focus.   ■

Towards Rethinking Naaman’s Request

In canonical context there is a rich resonance with Naaman’s term for soil, ʾădāmāh.71 This is the element out of which humanity, ʾādām, is formed (Gen. 2:7), and it is the fertile soil which is identified with home and livelihood (Gen. 4:14).72 Naaman does not use the term ʾerets (“land”). Although he is indeed asking for a piece of the land of Israel, ʾerets yisrāʾēl, the term he uses is more elemental than ʾerets.

We do not know exactly what Naaman proposed to do with the soil. He may envisage constructing an altar with the earth (akin to the specification in Exod. 20:24, “Make for me an altar of earth”). However, two mule-loads of earth would enable the making of only a rather small altar; the offering of sacrifices, including whole burnt offerings, would be difficult on such a small altar. So it could be that Naaman envisages spreading out the Israelite soil on the ground to provide both a base upon which a regular altar of stone could be built, and a place for himself to stand and/or prostrate himself. For this purpose the envisaged quantity of earth would probably serve well. Despite this uncertainty about precise function, it is clear that Naaman regards the Israelite soil as integral to his future offerings to the LORD.

But can we get any precision in determining what is the soil’s likely religious significance? It is possible to downplay its significance in various ways, especially if commentators inhabit a religious tradition that tends to downplay ritual and symbolic dimensions and elements that might loosely be called “sacramental.” The great Puritan commentator Matthew Henry, for example, is unimpressed with Naaman’s request:

It was a happy cure of his leprosy which cured him of his idolatry, a more dangerous disease. But . . . in one instance he over-did it, that he would not only worship the God of Israel, but he would have clods of earth out of the prophet’s garden to make an altar of. . . . He that awhile ago had spoken very slightly of the waters of Israel . . . now is in another extreme, and over-values the earth of Israel, supposing that an altar of that earth would be most acceptable to him.73

Donald Wiseman comments that Naaman’s request for soil shows that “Naaman’s knowledge of God was as yet weak.”74 And it may be that T. R. Hobbs deliberately downplays the soil when he suggests that Naaman “asks for a souvenir of Israel,” although Hobbs tries to put a positive gloss on this by suggesting that Naaman does so for reasons of “sentiment, rather than superstition.”75

One possibility is that the logic of Naaman’s request is akin to that of those who cherish a garment or keepsake that belongs (or belonged) to a loved one from whom they are separated. This is a logic of the heart more than of the head, in which a deeply felt and strongly meaningful action (holding on to a keepsake) may be hard to explain even to oneself, never mind to someone else. A particular tangible object can focus a love and longing for the person and in some way evoke their presence—or at least what they mean to the one who loves them—even though they are absent. Such a reading of Naaman’s request represents a logic of love that essentially resists conventional theological categories—even while the importance of love within the Jewish and Christian faiths would, one hopes, evoke an empathetic rather than a dismissive response.

Terence Fretheim has suggested that Naaman requests the soil “not because he thinks that the Lord is present only on Israelite soil [i.e., a common modern scholarly view]. He wants to build an altar with it, providing a tangible and material tie to the community of faith Elisha represents.” Similarly, he construes Naaman’s proposed actions in the temple of Rimmon as “not a lapse into syncretism [i.e., a common modern scholarly view], but a recognition that the life of faith must be lived out in ambiguous situations and away from the community of faith.”76 Fretheim’s reading is a thoughtful attempt to relate the scriptural text to a contemporary context, with its challenges for faithful living. Its possible drawback is that it arguably transposes too easily the issue of soil into the issue of human community, even if soil could meaningfully symbolize absent people (and thus be analogous to a keepsake).

As already noted, it is common among modern interpreters to suppose that Naaman’s request instantiates a particular ancient religious mindset in which “Yahwe, the national God of Israel, can only be worshipped aright upon the soil of Israel’s land,” so that “if he can secure a portion, however small, of the soil of that land, he will with it gain the privilege of sacrificing to the God to whom it belongs.”77 The modern supposition is that, although taking the soil no doubt made sense in that ancient context, such a mindset is rendered unnecessary and indeed improper once one properly grasps the implications of there being only one God, whose scope necessarily extends to the whole earth.

It is striking, however, that there are accounts of Jews and Christians in antiquity and the medieval period who also do something similar to Naaman. Ancient tradition tells of Helena, the mother of Constantine, taking soil (along with other relics) from Jerusalem to Rome.78 The twelfth-century traveler Rabbi Benjamin of Tudela tells of a place, apparently in Persia, called Shafjathib, “where there is a synagogue, which the Israelites erected with earth and stones brought from Jerusalem, and which they called ‘the transplanted [i.e., Shafjathib] of Nehardea.’”79 Such accounts typically do not reflect on what understandings are embodied and expressed in actions like these. But the accounts are suggestive. While it is of course possible to critique such practices as showing a deficient understanding of the faith in the one God that at those times was formally professed (and examples of deficient understanding and practice are of course all too common in the history of the Jewish and Christian faiths), one should at least ask whether the problem may lie with our interpretive categories.

Thus, I propose a different reading of Naaman’s request. The key issue is the possible symbolism of the earth: What does it signify for Naaman? Naaman connects the soil with his henceforth exclusive worship of the LORD. The earth will help clarify Naaman’s proposed differentiation between those sacrifices to the LORD that he will offer as his own worship and those sacrifices and/or practices of worship at which he will need to be present in the temple in Damascus. If he recognizes that the only true deity is the LORD, who is specifically the deity of Israel, and that through this recognition (as also through immersion in Israel’s river) he has become in some way a part of Israel, then he wants something material and tangible that embodies this specificity.

In a world where the offering of sacrifice was a prime religious act, the specific nature of Israelite soil would strengthen the identification of Naaman’s offering of sacrifice as an offering to the LORD, even when in Aram. Put differently, there is no hint that Naaman (any more than the narrator of the story) has any difficulty with envisaging the LORD as present in Aram. The potential difficulty for Naaman relates to the practical maintenance of his own understanding and identity when at a distance from the place where he has come to acknowledge the LORD—that is, when he is in his home culture, whose religious symbolic system centers on Rimmon. How can he offer the LORD’s sacrifice in a foreign land? The prospective limitations are not the LORD’s but his own. The soil will play a symbolic, quasi-sacramental role in identifying and enabling the authenticity of his sacrifices to the God of all the earth, who is specifically the God of Israel.

It is worth asking what else could have been available to Naaman to take with him. For example, a written document—a sēpher, perhaps analogous to the letter (sēpher) to the king of Israel in verses 5–7—with content about Israel’s knowledge of God could be appropriate to Naaman’s need. But such a document is not raised as an option anywhere in the Elijah and Elisha cycles (such an option is for other places and times, when the notion of “scripture” comes into being). Water from the Jordan might have been a possibility (that too has a long later history in the annals of pilgrimage), and it could serve as a symbolic reminder of Naaman’s healing; but, if poured out in use, it could not last to enable his future sacrificial worship in the way that the soil could. A carved religious object of wood or stone, an image or idol (pesel), would seem natural to many people. But the biblical writers strikingly resist the possible attractions of such objects, and the deuteronomic inflection of Naaman’s rejection of the worship of “other gods” tacitly aligns him with such resistance.80 A garment might be symbolically significant, as is Elijah’s mantle (1 Kings 19:19; 2 Kings 2:13); but it might link Naaman’s future worship more with Elisha than with the God whom Elisha serves—or be essentially a keepsake. The lack of good alternatives suggests that Naaman’s request for something both elemental and practical, soil, is well directed.

Further Reflection 3: Naaman’s Request to Bow in the House of Rimmon and Elisha’s Response

The question of how best to understand Naaman’s request to bow in the house of Rimmon has, unsurprisingly, divided interpreters. My proposed reading, that he worships the LORD on his altar at home and does no more than go through the motions of worship when he is in the house of Rimmon, is not the only possibility.

Naaman’s Request as Sinful

For some, the text presents a clear issue of inappropriate compromise. Matthew Henry, for example, after claiming that Naaman “overdid it” in his request for earth, thinks that here Naaman “underdid it”:

He reserved to himself a liberty to bow in the house of Rimmon. . . . If, in covenanting with God, we make a reservation for any known sin, which we will continue to indulge ourselves in, that reservation is a defeasance of his covenant. We must cast away all our transgressions and not except any house of Rimmon. If we ask for a dispensation to go on in any sin for the future, we mock God, and deceive ourselves.81

As moral and spiritual instruction, this is admirable. But how does it fare as a reading of the biblical text? Disappointingly, Henry passes over Elisha’s “Go in peace” with no comment whatsoever. Such silence is perhaps unsurprising, given the clear point about sin he wants to make, and may well reflect an unwillingness to criticize the prophet’s apparent acquiescence. His overall point may also indicate a somewhat wooden reading of Naaman’s asking for pardon, as though it indicates conscious knowledge of sin rather than most likely being a deferential way of asking permission for something unusual and prima facie inconsistent. Unless and until Elisha’s tacit permission is argued to be an inappropriate failure on his part, or not permission at all, the kind of reading that Henry offers must surely stand as a misreading.

Naaman’s Request as Syncretistic

Another possibility is to construe Naaman’s request, together with Elisha’s approval, as “effectively syncretism.”82 What this might mean is spelled out in positive form by Richard Briggs (in the context of a fascinating discussion of interpretive charity):

Elisha’s “Go in peace” is in effect demonstrating the appropriate response to one who is seeking a way of honoring Yhwh in a world where the practice of obedience to another god is presupposed. Elisha’s evaluation appears to operate on the understanding that, while the worship of other gods is unacceptable in Israel, the options for Naaman, who has worshiped other gods anyway and is now declaring allegiance to Yhwh alone, may (at least in the short term) be different.

Briggs notes the attribution of Naaman’s victories to Yhwh in 2 Kings 5:1 and remarks that “it leaves the reader alert to questions of how rightly to attribute claims of divine action to one god rather than another.” He then suggests,

Naaman might say (as indeed perhaps Elisha might say) that the point is that Yhwh can be worshiped even in the house of Rimmon, since he is in fact the only God. Put this way, Elisha’s “concession” may be read less as a failure to hold the line and insist on the purity of worship required by monotheism, and more as an affirmation that even in a world (Syria) that looks as though it is dominated by the worship of other gods, Yhwh may still actually be worshiped.83

The difficulty with this reading is that it downplays Naaman’s clear statement that he will not offer sacrifices to “other gods” (ʾĕlōhīm ʾăḥērīm), but only to the LORD. Here we have the language and conceptuality that receives its clearest formulation in Deuteronomy, in terms of exclusive adherence to the LORD and refusal to compromise with that which expresses and enables allegiances other than to the LORD. The logic that would infer from “there is no God in all the earth except in Israel” (2 Kings 5:15) that the worship of any other supposed deity can really be the worship of Israel’s deity, since Israel’s deity is the only deity there is, may have its place and time. But it is hardly the logic of Deuteronomy. To find such a sense in the deuteronomically inflected wording of Naaman is surely not to go with its grain.

Elisha’s Permission as the Freedom of Faith

A strongly positive construal, at least of Elisha’s response to Naaman, is offered by Gerhard von Rad, who observes,

He [Naaman] knows that when he returns to the heathendom of his home, he will be unable to separate himself from it. Will that be the end of his new-found faith? That is the question. We might formulate it this way: Naaman asks if the command of God will kill him when he goes out there. The sharpness of the conflict that he anticipates will here too become clear only when one comprehends that in Naaman’s question a humanity is speaking that does not know about the modern escape, namely the retreat from the world into the inwardness of the heart, where the external circumstances of worship are unimportant. . . .

Elisha’s answer is brief as possible and leaves much open, but in its roominess and theological precision [Bestimmtheit] it is the product of genuine prophetic intuition. It is theologically precise [bestimmt] in invoking no law [keinerlei Gesetz] against the man who is setting out for a very threatened existence; i.e., it is in no way casuistic [kasuistisch]. Elisha . . . leaves him completely to his new faith [seinem jungen Glauben], or better, to God’s hand which has sought and found him. When one considers how difficult Elisha made things for Naaman at the beginning, . . . one must be surprised at the almost presumptuous freedom [die fast verwegene Freiheit] into which he now directs him.84

This is a powerful reading that relates the biblical narrative to enduring issues of life with God. Nonetheless, it is not entirely straightforward.

On the one hand, von Rad arguably downplays the significance of Naaman’s desire to build his own altar and there offer worship exclusively to YHWH (5:17). This solemn undertaking by Naaman shows that the issue is indeed not a “retreat from the world into the inwardness of the heart, where the external circumstances of worship are unimportant,” inasmuch as he clearly affirms that his worship of the LORD will take the familiar form of the offering of sacrifice known in the Old Testament and its wider world. Naaman’s anticipated actions in the temple of Rimmon also do not represent a retreat into inwardness. Rather, he will not be worshiping at all, since he reconceives the nature of the event: he will be performing the actions and movements necessary to help his king, and no more.

On the other hand, one may ask whether Elisha’s “Go in peace” reflects the kind of “theological precision” von Rad ascribes to it.85 Von Rad strikingly depicts this precision in strongly Lutheran categories, which may of course be appropriate, but whose use requires critical cross-examination. In Elisha’s words he sees, negatively, the absence of “law” together with its corollary of “casuistry” and, positively, the presence of “faith” together with the enjoyment of “freedom.” There may indeed be here a vision of freedom under God from which the religiously timid shrink back. But von Rad is surely construing Elisha’s words with categories of subsequent Christian controversy (Protestant over against Catholic) that do not really get to the heart of what is at stake in the biblical text.86 On most readings of the text, Naaman’s request for forgiveness for what he will do in the temple of Rimmon is in some real sense casuistic in relation to his affirmation of YHWH. If it is the case that Naaman will worship YHWH with familiar religious practice, and will not worship Rimmon at all, Elisha is approving such correct worship of YHWH despite its abnormal domestic location. Further, Naaman’s corollary request to be permitted merely to go through the motions in the temple of Rimmon is rather strongly casuistic. He is asking whether the exclusive worship of YHWH can tolerate a particular action which is apparently at odds with it. If this is a right reading, it does not diminish the authenticity and freedom of faith that Naaman will enjoy, but it recognizes that authenticity and casuistry may sometimes have to go together.

In short, I judge von Rad’s reading—in terms of the freedom of faith—to be fully appropriate in terms of its general tenor, but open to reformulation in terms of which theological categories best capture what is going on in this story.

Faithfulness and Compromise

Christians down the ages have often faced opposition to their faith.87 Opposition has sometimes developed into persecution. Persecution has sometimes been murderous, especially when sponsored and implemented by hostile state authorities, and has led to martyrdom. Martyrdom early became an important element within Christian history and self-understanding—as did also issues of compromise, vacillation, apostasy, and possible repentance and restoration.88 But martyrdom is not confined to ancient history. The internecine conflicts of Catholics and Protestants in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries created many martyrs on both sides. And a modern history of the Orthodox Church observes, “It is by no means impossible that in the thirty years between 1918 and 1948 more Christians died for their faith than in the first 300 years after the Crucifixion.”89 The twenty-first century has also not started well in this regard.90

Any familiarity with the testimonies of Christians facing martyrdom for their faith can readily make believers unsympathetic to Naaman’s request for permission to bow down in the house of Rimmon. It can look like a cowardly failure to live up to the implications of his recognition of the one true God.

But one of the strengths of the biblical narrative is that it can prompt fresh reflection on perennially difficult questions of what constitutes faithfulness or compromise or failure in a world where faith in the one God is contested and the implications of a life of faith are not always self-evident.91 On the one hand, Naaman’s envisaged situation back home in Aram is not that of Christians (or Jews), as a recognized group, facing hostility. He is someone who has had a life-changing experience in Israel and is seeking to resume his life in Aram, where no one is expecting any problem in his outlook or allegiance. His proposal to offer sacrifices only to the LORD while also going through the necessary motions of supporting his king in the house of Rimmon envisages a particular, pragmatic arrangement of his competing loyalties.92

On the other hand, one might easily imagine that the bigger challenge for Naaman in the future would be to lead the army of Aram against the army of Israel. Although Naaman has reason not to be starry-eyed about Israel, given his encounter with the king (and perhaps also because of Gehazi, though we are not told whether he ever discovers the truth about Gehazi or his fate), his responsibility to lead in battle against the people of YHWH might well give him pause and be seen as incompatible with his acknowledgment of YHWH. Of course we cannot know. The point of the thought experiment is to remind us that, in life, knowing where to make a stand varies according to circumstance and is, like so much of the story of Naaman, unpredictable.

Further Reflection 4: Christian Figural Reading of Naaman93

A figural (or typological) reading of the Old Testament in relation to Jesus Christ and the patterns of Christian faith is an ancient Christian approach to the text which has received some fresh consideration, and also advocacy, in recent scholarship.94

Classic Figural Reading

In antiquity, at least from the time of Origen, Naaman’s immersion in the Jordan was figurally related to Christian baptism. The assumptions underlying figural reading embodied considerable imaginative range and theological precision. The mere presence of water signified little. Jean Daniélou, for example, notes “the error of certain exegetes [who] try to recognize a type of Baptism wherever water is mentioned in the Old Testament.”95 Rather,

in the thought of the Fathers, these types are not mere illustrations: the Old Testament figures were meant to authorize Baptism by . . . showing that it has been announced by a whole tradition: they are testimonia. . . . And, above all, their purpose is also to explain Baptism, a purpose which still holds good today.96

In some places, such as the flood narrative, water symbolizes destruction and thus relates to baptism in terms of conformity to the death of Christ. In other places, such as Israel’s crossing the Jordan, the water is seen as purifying and sanctifying—as also is the baptism of Christ in the Jordan.

In ancient readings, the story of Naaman is seen to embody this latter significance. As Daniélou puts it,

The aspect of baptism which is brought out by the figure of the bath of Naaman is that of purification—as ordinary water washes stains from the body, so the sacred bath purifies us by the power of God. This power, which was exercised on a physical malady with Naaman, acts on the soul in Baptism: “The healing and purifying power which, according to the Biblical narrative, the river Jordan had for Naaman, is the image of the purification produced by the water of baptism.”97

A Recent Figural Reading

A classic figural reading of Naaman is creatively reformulated in a contemporary context by Peter Leithart, whose commentary on 1–2 Kings is in a series explicitly designed to reconnect biblical interpretation with classic Christian tradition, on the understanding that Christian doctrine should enable and illuminate a reading of Scripture.98 Leithart says,

The story of Naaman is the richest Old Testament story of baptism and anticipates Christian baptism in a number of specific ways. For starters, it is an important typological witness because the subject of baptism is a Gentile, an Aramean general. . . . Though dead in leprosy, Naaman is made alive together with Christ.

Naaman’s “dipping” in the Jordan is the effective ritual sign of this change of status. Just as the washings of the Levitical system cleanse from various forms of defilement, so Naaman is cleansed and brought near through washing. Because he is a Gentile, Naaman’s baptism is a particularly apt sign of Christian baptism, which marks out a new community of worshipers in which the distinction of Jew and Gentile is utterly dissolved (Gal. 3:26–29). Naaman shows an admirable grasp of the implications of his baptism. Having been baptized, he realizes that he is exclusively devoted to Yahweh and promises to worship no other gods (2 Kgs. 5:17). . . .

Like Naaman, some Christians doubt what the New Testament says about the power of baptismal water. . . . How can water do such wonders? Because baptism is not simply water, but water and word, water and promise. God does wonders, but he promises to do wonders through water. To say that water can cleanse leprosy, wash away sins, or renew life is an insult to intelligence. Water is just too simple, not to mention too physical and tangible. But that is exactly the point. Baptism is an insult to the wisdom of the world: through the foolishness of water God has chosen to save those who believe. Baptism is a stumbling block for the powerful, who want to do something impressive or at least have something impressive done to them.99

Leithart’s reading is a fascinating mixture of staying with the text of Kings while simultaneously moving beyond it within the canon of Christian Scripture. Whatever one makes of all the various moves in this interpretation, its rich resonance with the New Testament and Christian baptismal theology makes it a good example of how an ancient figural/typological approach can be reformulated in a contemporary context.

A Problem with Figural Reading

A figural reading may entail loss as well as gain. This, sadly, is well illustrated by the Revised Common Lectionary, which provides Old and New Testament readings for worship in contemporary churches. In the readings for Epiphany 6 (Year B), 2 Kings 5:1–14, the story of Naaman up to and including his healing through immersion in the Jordan, is paired with Mark 1:40–45, in which Jesus heals a man suffering from “leprosy” by touching him.100 By linking these two stories, the lectionary discourages the reader (or hearer) from seeing a baptismal resonance in the story of Naaman. Rather, the figural link has to do with healers who heal people suffering from the same affliction.101 Elisha the healer prefigures Jesus the healer, as also Naaman with his skin disease prefigures the nameless man in the Gospel whose life is renewed by Jesus. This is a reasonable linkage, though one may wonder why healing a skin disease has become imaginatively more significant than baptism. The trouble is, the lectionary reading stops at 2 Kings 5:14, just when the story reaches its key concern, Naaman’s confession of the one God, together with the intriguing implications of his accompanying pledge and request. A life-changing recognition and transformation of identity and allegiance—which are major issues for faith in the contemporary world—disappear from view, as does Elisha’s affirmation of grace, which Gehazi refuses to accept. The overall nature of the story changes, as it becomes solely an account of healing—in which role (despite its memorable narrative build-up) it may well play second fiddle to the healing performed by Jesus in the Gospel. One wonders how the Old Testament can be taken seriously in the life of the church when lectionary compilers, who have a formative role in shaping the contribution of Scripture to worship, diminish it in this way.102

Some Hermeneutical Reflections on Reading the Story

The Intrinsic Richness of the Story

The story of Naaman is one of the famous stories of the Old Testament. Its telling evinces high literary craft,103 and its subject matter is rich and deep. It is, as Robert Cohn well puts it, “an especially apt example of a biblical narrative in which art and theology are symbiotically related.”104 Yet in certain ways the story is somewhat elusive. That is, if one asks, “What is the point, or message, of the story?” it is not easy to give a good answer. So much happens that there is no one obvious point or message. Rather, like many enduring stories or parables, its meaning is rich and resonant in ways that cannot be pinned down to any single concern.

Good uses of the story are likely to be as many and varied as is the scope of disciplined analogical and metaphorical thinking. It is not difficult to think of possible summaries that suggest differing possible readings of the story in whole or in part. For example: The one God is not as people expect. God does not play favorites. God brings not only life but also death. The humble are of more service than the exalted. Obedience requires the swallowing of pride. Faithful service of God should not bring wealth. Exclusive allegiance to the one God brings freedom. Faithfulness can look like hypocrisy to the unsympathetic. God is not mocked, even by the supposedly pious.

Characteristic Modern Approaches to the Meaning of the Story

Modern scholars, while recognizing the richness of the story, have regularly tried to focus and nuance their approach to its meaning in two distinct but related ways. First, when, where, and why was the story composed? Second, why was the story included in the larger history of Kings? But the results of such inquiries are meager because all we have to go on is what stands in the biblical text itself, without further evidence being available; we are restricted to making intelligent conjectures.105

In terms of origins, it has often been supposed that the Elisha stories (at least in part) originated among the prophetic groups (“sons of the prophets”) with which Elisha is associated in some of the material (though interestingly not in 2 Kings 5 itself). Von Rad could introduce his reading of 2 Kings 5 with the confident claim that we can “define the sociological milieu out of which it arose and for which it was also presumably intended”:

The stories [that cluster around Elisha] reveal a social milieu, one could almost say they make palpable the atmosphere of a group of men in Israel of the ninth century B.C. To be sure, they deal with a very strange stratum of the society in Israel at that time. There was—and the Dead Sea Scrolls suggest that there always were—in Israel . . . a group of religious men that can be included only with difficulty in the usual social categories. The men of that group lived in the vicinity of shrines as though in individual congregations; they listened to the doctrinal lectures of their prophetic masters. We do not know what those prophets spoke about in their lectures, but from all the stories about their leader and master, the prophet Elisha, we feel a breath of their spirit.106

He concludes his reading of the story by returning to these “indigent associations of the prophets” and comments, with reference to the content of 2 Kings 5, that “it is moving to see the theological problems with which the men of these circles occupied themselves.”107 In other words, as we read and ponder the story of Naaman we can perhaps recapture something of the theological content of the teaching and discussion in ancient pre-Qumran prophetic groups in the Jordan Valley.

It is a striking scenario. It might even be right. But scholars have become less confident than von Rad was in constructing such scenarios. With regard to what we really know of the story’s origins, a certain reticence and agnosticism is, in my judgment, fully appropriate. This need in no way detract from constructive engagement with the story’s content.

Similarly, when one asks, “Why was the story included in the larger history of Kings?” there is no clear answer. The story does not pick up themes that have sometimes been proposed as crucial to the so-called Deuteronomistic History, such as hope on the basis of the LORD’s promise to the house of David or hope on the basis of repentance.108 Choon-Leong Seow, for example, observes, “This is no doubt the sort of story that the Israelites, particularly those in exile, liked to tell. Despite the tragedy of defeat and captivity, it seems, greater good may be achieved.”109 Alternatively, Burke Long reflects on the Gehazi episode, with its message that “the power of God is not just restorative [but] . . . also demands righteousness and is a punishment to those who trifle with it,” and offers a summary suggestion that “perhaps the narrator saw in this story a metaphor for the history of Israel’s kingdoms.”110 Clearly, hopeful and/or admonitory stories can play a role in situations where hope and/or admonition is needed, for people can imaginatively conceive their situation in terms of what happens in the story. It is apparent, however, that general analogical and metaphorical thinking is at work no less in attempts to pinpoint the reason for the story’s presence in Kings than in attempts to learn from and appropriate it today.

A particularly interesting example is afforded by some of the closing comments of Peter Leithart. Although his comments are presented as historical observations about Israel in exile (with a rather loose use of “Gentile”), it is hard not to sense a certain overlap in terms of the story’s meaning for Christians in a contemporary secular culture (even though he only explicitly mentions the church in subsequent remarks):

Israelites first read this story while in exile, and it instructs them how they are to conduct themselves among the Gentiles. They are to serve Gentiles, directing them, as the little slave-girl does, to Yahweh as the source of cleansing and life. They must not be zealous nationalists who refuse to help the uncircumcised. If they strive to be super-Israel, they will end up not-Israel. To Israel as to Gehazi, the Lord also says: if you lust after Gentile wealth and power, then you will find yourselves going all the way, inheriting also Gentile exclusion and uncleanness.111

My own conjecture is that a likely reason for the story’s inclusion in Kings is that Naaman recognizes the LORD, the God of Israel, to be the only God and renounces the worship of “other gods” (ʾĕlōhīm ʾăḥērīm). Warnings about the worship of “other gods” are something of a leitmotif in Kings.112 Naaman, who renounces “other gods” because of what happened to him when he became obedient to a prophet, could be exemplary for exiled Judeans who were seeking a way ahead for the future—as also for hope-seeking readers in other places and times.

Conclusion: Towards a Grammar of the Only God

I started this chapter with François’s opportunistic embrace of Islam in Houellebecq’s novel. Such mixed and murky motives for embracing faith in God are, of course, amply illustrated also within the history of the Christian church, not least in contexts where churches have been aligned with power and the practical benefits have been all too obvious. One of the advantages for churches in a post-Christian culture is that people are less inclined to embrace Christian faith for opportunistic reasons. Yet despite the confession of God being a turning point in both 2 Kings 5 and in Houellebecq’s Submission, the tenor of each story is of course greatly different. The major difference is that Naaman’s confession of the God of Israel is not self-serving or obviously advantageous—indeed, quite the opposite, as the issue of what he will do back home immediately shows.

In terms of our developing further dimensions of what it means to “know that the LORD is God,” part of the luminosity of the story of Naaman is that it so clearly illustrates what many (though by no means all) down the ages have recognized: the best reason for believing in the LORD is that one has come to see that the faith is true and that to take such a step becomes the only right thing to do. In Naaman’s case this is because an encounter with grace—indeed, in terms of the narrative dynamics, amazing grace—has become a defining moment of opening him to a larger reality which he unreservedly embraces. To “know that the LORD is God” in this context also merits some further concluding reflection on the distinctive nature of “monotheism” in the Bible and in the faiths rooted in it.

The knowledge of the one God, universal in its implications, is accompanied by a strong sense of particularity—that Israel is the place where this knowledge is to be found; if Naaman’s worship of the one God, where he has encountered grace, is to be authentic, it needs something specific and concrete to give it its identity (in his case, earth for the altar). In the Old Testament generally, this “monotheism” is also accompanied by a consistent understanding that all people, in principle, have some awareness of God (ʾĕlōhīm), although this knowledge is generic and lacks the particular content afforded by Israel’s knowledge of God as yhwh, the LORD.113 Biblical “monotheism” is further accompanied by recognition of the problematic presence and persistence of “other gods” both within and beyond Israel.

It is this combination of the universal with the particular, of God and a privileged human context for knowledge of God, that is so distinctive of the Bible. It is foundationally present in the Old Testament, as we have seen. It is equally present in the New Testament: “And this is eternal life, that they may know you, the only true God, and Jesus Christ whom you have sent” (John 17:3). This pattern of understanding is also present in Islam’s core affirmation, the Shahadah: “There is no God but God/Allah, and Muhammad is his messenger/prophet.”

In recent times, this has led to two different kinds of discussion. On the one hand, an eighteenth-century philosophical “monotheism” that was initially formative of modernity rejected particularity as incompatible with true universality: “natural” religion, expressed as deism, found all “positive” (i.e., humanly posited) religious traditions to be wanting. Arguably, in a contemporary postmodern context this approach is essentially inverted, inasmuch as true particularity now problematizes the universal: “monotheism” is questionable because it entails “violence,” since the kind of particularity that is a corollary of a universal belief is seen to entail negative attitudes towards, and constraints upon, those who are “other.”

On the other hand, Jews, Christians, and Muslims agree on the combination of the universal and the particular but disagree on the nature and location of the content of the particular. Long-standing approaches to interfaith dialogue in terms of seeking common ground, which tend to emphasize the ethical at the expense of the theological (i.e., to prioritize the universal over the particular), have been interestingly complemented in recent times by approaches that encourage interlocutors to inhabit their respective traditions robustly and, through hospitality and attentiveness in dialogue, to make progress by removing misunderstandings and improving the quality of disagreements (i.e., the particular is prioritized over the universal).

Questions as to how best to make progress in all such discussions remain live issues in the twenty-first century. It may be that the Naaman story can offer a fresh perspective. It reminds (would-be) Christian readers of the theological necessity to maintain the tension between the one God and a privileged human point of access, while at the same time showing that the outworking of that tension may take a surprising form that does not neatly fit conventional theological systems.114

Finally, one of the recurrent emphases of 2 Kings 5 is the consistently surprising and open-ended nature of what happens. This is, of course, in line with the point that Jesus makes in his reading of the story, in the sole New Testament reference. God’s priorities are not necessarily those of His people, and not only in His giving victory to Aram at the expense of Israel. For it is also the case that “there were many in Israel who suffered from skin diseases in the time of the prophet Elisha, and none of them was cleansed except Naaman the Syrian” (Luke 4:27 AT). In the reading of the story offered in this chapter, we see that assumptions and expectations about what the one God does, or should do, and of how people should live before this God are repeatedly overturned.

If the story of Naaman and Elisha is read as Scripture, and thus allowed to play upon the hearts and minds of readers who seek to know God better and to live more truthfully, it offers a richly suggestive vision of at least some aspects of what life in God’s world can entail.

 

1. Houellebecq, Submission, 29.

2. Houellebecq, Submission, 218.

3. Houellebecq, Submission, 248–49, 250.

4. There are numerous small divergences between the Hebrew and Greek texts of the story, but they make little difference to its interpretation, for which my focus is on the MT.

5. A comprehensive guide to twentieth-century scholarship on the story is Baumgart, Gott, Prophet und Israel.

6. Older translations, up to at least the RSV, rendered the Hebrew ʾărām with “Syria.” Since modern Syria is not coextensive with its ancient antecedent, there can be value in the defamiliarizing “Aram”—even if “Syria” is hardly more misleading than “Israel”!

7. I have changed the NRSV to try to retain the dramatic build-up of the Hebrew as well as to discard its use of “leprosy.”

8. See Gray, I & II Kings, 502, 504; Sweeney, I & II Kings, 293, 298.

9. It is possible to read the Hebrew as depicting the king’s recognition of the LORD’s giving victory by Naaman, even if that is an unlikely construal.

10. Commentators regularly highlight the “universalist” perspective of the story. See, e.g., Alter, Ancient Israel, 751, 755; Nelson, First and Second Kings, 177; Provan, 1 and 2 Kings, 191.

11. Interactions between Aram and Israel are recurrent in the cycle of Elisha stories and so become the natural default assumption in a context such as this, where the opponent is not specified. The previous occasion on which Aram featured in the Kings storyline was the Aramean victory over Israel at Ramoth-gilead (1 Kings 22). Although the context of the victory of 2 Kings 5:1 is nonspecific, ancient interpretive tradition unsurprisingly linked it with 1 Kings 22. Josephus already has an “Amanos,” who is almost certainly “Naaman,” as the archer whose arrow struck Ahab in that Aramean victory (A.J. 8:414, in Jewish Antiquities, Books V–VIII, 794–95).

12. The text is imprecise about her age—assuming that the Hebrew epithet qātōn does not have its primary sense of “small” but is a reference to age rather than size. However, the subsequent restoration of Naaman’s skin to be like that of a “young boy” (naʿar qātōn, 2 Kings 5:14)—which is a counterpart to the depiction of the “young girl” (naʿărāh qĕtannāh, 5:2)—appears to envisage a time of life when skin is still at its smoothest—i.e., prepubescence.

13. Border raids were endemic in many contexts in the ancient and the medieval worlds. It is one of those facets of premodern life, with its insecurities, that can be hard for many modern readers fully to imagine—even though the modern world is developing its own, different forms of insecurity.

14. See ch. 4 of this book.

15. Mobley, “1 and 2 Kings,” 123 (see also 136).

16. Jehoram is the generally favored candidate for the king of Israel, for contextual reasons within 2 Kings. Ben-hadad has often been reckoned to be the Aramean king on the same grounds.

17. Ancient societies regularly used regnal years to structure time, as do the books of Kings.

18. The treasure is so vast that it is natural to wonder whether the numbers may be idiomatically hyperbolic, perhaps akin to saying of someone today that “they’ve got millions.” But there is no way of telling. Determining the precise amount indicated by the talents and the shekels (taken at face value) is unstraightforward, as any standard discussion of weights and measures in the ancient world quickly reveals. Marvin Sweeney puts it this way, with helpful imprecision: “ten talents of silver, equivalent to some 660 to 1,320 pounds of silver, according to common Mesopotamian measures; six thousand shekels of gold, equivalent to some 110 to 220 pounds of gold” (I & II Kings, 299).

19. The NRSV, as usual, omits hinnēh. Yet even if hinnēh does not here serve the particular function of shifting the perspective within the story, as in Exod. 3:2 and Gen. 33:1 (see above, pp. 54, 150), it is still an idiomatic exclamation which ought to be retained in translation, as all languages have exclamations.

20. This rendering (following Alter, Ancient Israel, 753; and, similarly, Sweeney, “I said to myself” [I & II Kings, 293]) seems to me the most likely construal of “to me” (ʾēlay), located directly after “I said/thought” (ʾāmartī), though other construals are possible.

21. As ever, more than one construal is possible when the text is silent. As Gwilym Jones puts it, “Various motives have been found behind Elisha’s detachment: he may have been demonstrating that he was not a wonder-worker who expected payment, or else indicating that he wished no political involvement with Syria, or again be deliberately testing Naaman’s faith” (1 and 2 Kings, 2:416).

22. In this context I imagine that “seven times” means precisely that, rather than being the idiom for “many times” that is common in the OT (see ch. 4, 144n50). Nonetheless, it may also be symbolically significant. Gina Hens-Piazza points out two suggestive parallels: the son of the Shunammite woman sneezes seven times as he returns to life (2 Kings 4:35), and sprinkling seven times constitutes complete ritual action (Lev. 14:7, 16, 27, 51) (1–2 Kings, 260).

23. See 1 Sam. 7:7–11; 1 Kings 18:36–38.

24. See 1 Kings 8:22; Exod. 17:8–13. The battle with Amalek does not mention prayer, though it is easy to see why Jewish and Christian tradition interpreted Moses’ action thus. On any reading of the Amalek episode, there is a linkage between the raising of human hands and the realization of some kind of divine power.

25. The NRSV’s “the spot” is nicely equivocal in its rendering of the Hebrew māqōm (“place”); it is genuinely unclear whether this refers to the location where they were standing or the diseased area(s) of Naaman’s body.

26. The Jordan might have had more water prior to the use of its tributaries for water supply in the modern state of Israel. But the river winds and meanders, and the sight it affords has probably only ever been impressive when it opens out into the lake of Galilee and into the Dead Sea.

27. Damascus enjoys a water supply that no city of biblical Israel enjoyed. The position of Damascus in relation to the mountains means that it can be depicted as a “huge luxuriant oasis” with “a nearly unlimited supply of water” (Baly, Geography of the Bible, 111).

28. Alter, Ancient Israel, 753.

29. As Provan puts it, “The humble have once again exhibited more insight than the exalted” (1 and 2 Kings, 192).

30. For figural readings of Naaman’s washing in the Jordan, see “Further Reflection 4” below, pp. 194–97.

31. Although Naaman’s healing in the Jordan is a turning point in the story, the miracle as such receives no emphasis, so it is probably unwise to designate this narrative as a “miracle story” (or its equivalent). In literary terms, the omniscient narrator who can tell of Naaman’s healing and Elisha’s clairvoyance can also tell of a domestic conversation between Naaman’s wife and slave, of where Gehazi puts his spoil, and of Gehazi’s instantaneous affliction with a skin disease like Naaman’s. This is a story in which the reader is made privy to much that is surprising.

32. Naaman’s confession is oddly depicted as the “involuntary confession of the happy convalescent” by James Montgomery and Henry Snyder Gehman (Books of Kings, 375). To read Naaman’s words as “involuntary” is to introduce a note absent from the text (as is the idea that he was in any significant sense “convalescent”—why would he need to be?) and goes against its flow since his immediate action is to offer a grateful gift to Elisha. Presumably, the reasoning behind such an interpretation is that Naaman already anticipates a problem arising in the temple of Rimmon; and his confession is “involuntary” because he prefers not to put himself into the bind of saying one thing and doing another (i.e., a particular reading of v. 18 plays back into the reading of v. 15). As ever, such a reading cannot be disproved. But I propose that to see a joyful confession followed by an ingenious expedient does better justice to the flow of the story.

33. See “Further Reflection 1” below, pp. 179–82.

34. See Exod. 20:3 // Deut. 5:7; Deut. 6:4.

35. It is, of course, possible to infer otherwise. Marvin Sweeney, for example, comments, “Elisha’s refusal to take payment highlights the power relationship between the prophet and Naaman. . . . Elisha doesn’t need anything from Naaman, but Naaman needs Elisha” (I & II Kings, 301).

36. The complacent acquisition of financial profit on the part of religious leaders is highlighted as a particular problem by Mic. 3:11, discussed below (ch. 6, p. 219).

37. One might perhaps alternatively say that Naaman has “found favor” (mātsāʾ ḥēn) with the LORD, as did Noah and Moses (Gen. 6:8; Exod. 33:12), even if the contexts and the nuance of the idiom differ.

38. The NRSV’s “to any god except the LORD” captures the general sense but obscures the fact that Naaman is using the regular OT idiom “other gods” (ʾĕlōhīm ʾăḥērīm) for what he is rejecting, and is thereby again aligning himself explicitly with the canonical norms of faith.

39. There is a comparable idiomatic use of vālōʾ in Absalom’s dialogue with David in 2 Sam. 13:26a.

40. The Greek tradition qualifies the earth as “red” (purra), though the significance of this is unclear.

41. For fuller discussion, see “Further Reflection 2” below, pp. 183–89.

42. Altars of both earth and stone are prescribed for Israel in Exod. 20:24–25.

43. The same idiom appears also in 2 Kings 7:2, 17, again probably implying, though not specifying, an elderly king. It is unlikely that the idiom means being a “right-hand man” rather than a physical support, as suggested by Robert L. Cohn (“Form and Perspective in 2 Kings V”) and followed by Donald J. Wiseman (1 and 2 Kings, 208). This is partly because Naaman’s envisaged problem is the need to make physical movements in alignment with his king, and partly because “right-hand man” is an idiom for executive power, which is not at issue in the temple of Rimmon, even if it is on the battlefield.

44. For a survey of what is known about the Aramean deity, here called “Rimmon,” see Greenfield, “Aramean God Rammān/Rimmōn.”

45. Elisha’s mode of speech in the narrative as a whole is somewhat abrupt. It is possible here to imagine an unenthusiastic dismissal along the lines of “You’re healed, so you can go. What you do now is up to you. It’s not up to me to police what you do.”

46. For other possible construals of Naaman’s proposal and Elisha’s response, see “Further Reflection 3” below, pp. 189–94.

47. The Hebrew has the particle of entreaty, nāʾ, which, as in Exod. 5:3, can sometimes have a force tantamount to “please” in English. See ch. 2, p. 80.

48. Religious communities (“sons of the prophets”) would typically need financial assistance, as most likely they did not devote their time and energy towards farming or trading in the way that others did. The story of the widow of a member of a company of prophets in 2 Kings 4:1–7 depicts severe poverty.

49. The NRSV uses the less-specific (gender inclusive?) “someone,” but I think it is better to render ʾīsh straightforwardly as “a man.”

50. The Hebrew does not use the regular term for “spirit,” rūaḥ, but rather “heart/mind” (lēv), which emphasizes Elisha’s awareness of what was going on rather than his presence as such.

51. Even though Elisha mediates a power from God to heal and to see what would usually be unseen, Gehazi, though close to him, is still free to ignore and defy Elisha’s priorities. The characteristic biblical tension between the power of God and human freedom is well represented in this story.

52. It is of course possible that the list is conventional, in terms of specifying typical things that the powerful and greedy take from others, as in Samuel’s warning about the likely depredations of a king on his people (1 Sam. 8:14–17).

53. The best clue as to the value of two talents of silver is that this was the price Omri paid for the hill of Samaria (1 Kings 16:24). The reference to his “building the hill” (vayyiven ʾet hāhār, v. 24b) implies that the hill, when purchased, was largely or perhaps wholly uninhabited. Modern excavations have shown that the earliest buildings come from Omri’s time in the mid-ninth century; see Avigad, “Samaria (City).” The site is a fine one in a strategic location; but it is possible that such a hill would have cost less than all the things Elisha lists.

54. Rabbinic interpretation envisaged other defects of character in Gehazi, including disbelief in the resurrection of the dead (i.e., by linkage with the preceding story of the Shunammite woman’s son, 2 Kings 4:8–37). See Ginzberg, Legends of the Jews, 2:1029–30.

55. Prime intertexts are the second commandment (Exod. 20:5 // Deut. 5:9) and Job 1:18–19, where the death of Job’s children serves to heighten the trial that Job himself faces.

56. Nelson, First and Second Kings, 180; cf. 176.

57. Mobley, “1 and 2 Kings,” 137.

58. There is also extensive use of “know that I am the LORD” in Ezekiel and the Priestly writings, discussed by Walther Zimmerli in his “I Am Yahweh” and “Knowledge of God according to the Book of Ezekiel,” in I Am Yahweh, 1–28, 29–98; and more recently by John F. Evans in You Shall Know That I Am Yahweh.

59. Although Hebrew has the phrase “believe that” (heʾĕmīn kī; e.g., Exod. 4:5), it is not used for weighty theological affirmations, which are rendered by “know that” (yādaʿ kī), even though “know that” can also appear in ordinary, everyday usage (e.g., Gen. 12:11; 20:6). I have more fully discussed the OT importance of “know that the LORD is God” in “Knowing God and Knowing about God.”

60. I have attempted elsewhere to articulate some of the deep problems in the use of the seventeenth-century category “monotheism” for the reading of Israel’s scriptures. Pragmatically, I see no good alternative to its continued use, faute de mieux, but it is a matter of “handle with care.” See my “How Appropriate Is ‘Monotheism’ as a Category for Biblical Interpretation?”; and my Old Testament Theology, esp. 33–40.

61. Sommer, “Kaufmann and Recent Scholarship,” 205, 230.

62. See also the discussion of the reality of “other gods” in relation to Ps. 82 in ch. 3 (above, pp. 117, 120).

63. The challenge has less to do with the power of other gods as realities in themselves than it does with their constituting alternative priorities for human identity and allegiance.

64. Keil, Books of Kings, 320.

65. Gray, I & II Kings, 507.

66. Seow, “First and Second Books of Kings,” 195, 198.

67. Ellul, The Politics of God and the Politics of Man, 35.

68. Dietrich, “1 and 2 Kings,” 251.

69. These judgments are also contestable within their own frame of reference. Volkmar Fritz, for example, sees Naaman’s confession of God as a “consequent monotheism” that presupposes and is later than Second Isaiah, and sees no theological difficulty in the request for earth (1 & 2 Kings, 260).

70. Rofé, Prophetical Stories, 131.

71. Unsurprisingly, some commentators who do not think well of Naaman’s request translate ʾădāmāh pejoratively as “dirt” (so, e.g., House, 1, 2 Kings, 273).

72. Cain’s complaint about loss of the ʾădāmāh is eloquent in terms of the value ascribed to it.

73. Henry, Matthew Henry’s Commentary, 406.

74. Wiseman, 1 and 2 Kings, 208.

75. Hobbs, 2 Kings, 60, 66. The souvenir suggestion, perhaps by analogy with mementos that pilgrims often bring back from pilgrimages, appears periodically in the literature; see also J. Robinson, Second Book of Kings, 55.

76. Fretheim, First and Second Kings, 153.

77. Burney, Notes on the Hebrew Text of the Books of Kings, 280; and Burney, Outlines of Old Testament Theology, 35. So too Richard Nelson: “His request in verse 17 is based on the idea that a god was tied to a home territory (Deut. 32:8)” (First and Second Kings, 179).

78. The Basilica of the Holy Cross in Jerusalem / Santa Croce in Gerusalemme is a church in Rome. According to tradition, it was founded by Helena and became the resting place for fragments of the True Cross, which she brought from Jerusalem. The church is also reputed to have been set up on a bed of soil which Helena brought from Jerusalem. The tradition is well known (whatever its status), but as yet I have been unable to find an ancient source that specifically mentions the soil, as distinct from the fragments of the cross.

79. Quoted in Wright, Early Travels in Palestine, 103.

80. In a Christian frame of reference, a belief not only in creation but also in God’s incarnation in Jesus has led to many Christians finding various artifacts—especially paintings, statues, and icons—to be of value in enabling worship. Nonetheless, the iconoclast controversy in the Eastern church in the eighth and ninth centuries, and the iconoclastic dimensions of the Reformation in the Western church in the sixteenth century, are reminders that the issues are not straightforward and that worship of the one God can be debased.

81. Henry, Matthew Henry’s Commentary, 406–7.

82. Thus Antony F. Campbell and Mark A. O’Brien (Unfolding the Deuteronomistic History, 445). Unfortunately, they do not elaborate on what they understand by this.

83. R. Briggs, Virtuous Reader, 158–59.

84. Von Rad, “Naaman: A Critical Retelling,” 53–54. The term “retelling” (Nacherzählung) in its title links the study with von Rad’s overall understanding of the appropriate mode of Christian theological engagement with the OT, which anticipated more recent proposals for literary and canonical readings.

85. It may be that “precision” does not best capture von Rad’s Bestimmtheit. It might perhaps be rendered “certitude” or “definiteness” in terms of Elisha’s giving a confident and final pronouncement, in von Rad’s reading.

86. The point is not the use of postbiblical categories, which is necessary, but their being used too unreflectively in a way that may fail to do justice to the text’s own dynamics.

87. I cannot here speak for Jews, whose history of being persecuted is more terrible than that of Christians.

88. Modern literature on the subject has become extensive, ever since Edward Gibbon handled the issue in his own inimitable style and pointed out, among other things, that Christians were as bad as anyone else in practicing persecution (usually of other Christians, considered heretical) when they had opportunity (Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire, 2:3–80).

89. Ware, Orthodox Church, 20.

90. See Shortt, Christianophobia.

91. A prime example in the NT is the question of whether Christians should eat meat that had been offered to idols (1 Cor. 8–10). Differing judgments about the nature of idols are intertwined with differing judgments about what it is appropriate to do.

92. Rabbinic tradition discusses Naaman’s request in terms of a distinction between private and public, which is a not-infrequent move to resolve apparent textual conflicts; see Sanhedrin 74b–75a (Epstein, Babylonian Talmud: Seder Neziḳin, 3:505). However, the rabbinic context has to do with non-Jews sanctifying the divine name, and the construal of private and public is entirely different from the reading I am proposing. In this rabbinic construal, what happens in the temple of Rimmon is private because no Jews would be present, and the question is whether Naaman must sanctify the divine name in public—i.e., in the presence of Jews.

93. In this and the following section I draw on my discussion in “Sacramentality and the Old Testament,” esp. 8–13.

94. See, e.g., Dawson, Christian Figural Reading; Seitz, Figured Out; Radner, Time and the Word; Collett, Figural Reading.

95. Daniélou, The Bible and the Liturgy, 78.

96. Daniélou, The Bible and the Liturgy, 71.

97. Daniélou, The Bible and the Liturgy, 110. The citation is from Denzinger, Ritus Orientalium.

98. Leithart, 1 & 2 Kings. The series outlook is articulated on pp. 7–12.

99. Leithart, 1 & 2 Kings, 192–95.

100. Revised Common Lectionary in NRSV, 337–39. The story of Naaman features nowhere else in the lectionary.

101. The appointed psalm is Ps. 30, with one of the two possible congregational responses specified as: “O Lord my God, I cried out to you, and you restored me to health” (Revised Common Lectionary in NRSV, 338).

102. I recognize that the task of lectionary compilers is thankless, in that they regularly face the charge that they cut out the important part, wherever they stop; and stop they must. In this case, they might appeal to the fact that some scholars have reckoned that the original Naaman story ended at v. 14. But the literary/canonical whole is so much more than the sum of its putative parts, and a lectionary selection that omits what is now the heart of the story shows poor judgment.

103. Although the story reads well as a single unit, it remains possible to postulate complex antecedents in which, in essence, the different phases of the story are taken to be originally independent narrative units or redactional layers. See, e.g., Jones, 1 and 2 Kings, 412–14. Comparably, G. Hentschel finds many putative layers of “critical” reflection on, and additions to, an original short miracle story (2 Könige, 22–26). Such analyses may have value in alerting the reader to varying vocabulary or emphases, but they are usually unattuned to the conventions and nuances of narrative poetics and tend to offer little by way of constructive reflection on the story we actually have.

104. R. Cohn, “Form and Perspective in 2 Kings V,” 184.

105. One recent proposal, which typically selects certain features of the text and constructs a plausible history-of-ideas hypothesis around them, is that of Thomas Römer, “The Strange Conversion of Naaman.” Römer focuses on the implicitly positive picture of the Arameans and suggests that the story can “be understood as a late non-Deuteronomistic etiology of an Aramean Yhwh-veneration” (117). He also wonders whether “Naaman serves here also as a ‘mirror’ for Israelites and Judahites in the diaspora who were perhaps also sometimes in the situation of participating in the cult of other deities” (117–18).

106. Von Rad, “Naaman: A Critical Retelling,” 47–48.

107. Von Rad, “Naaman: A Critical Retelling,” 55.

108. See von Rad, “Deuteronomic Theology of History in 1 and 2 Kings”; Wolff, “Kerygma of the Deuteronomic Historical Work.” There is also the wider issue of understanding the role of the Elijah and Elisha cycles, with their focus on the Northern Kingdom of Israel, in a narrative sequence which overall seems more concerned with the Southern Kingdom of Judah and its capital, Jerusalem.

109. Seow, “First and Second Books of Kings,” 193.

110. Long, “2 Kings,” 327.

111. Leithart, 1 & 2 Kings, 196.

112. See Römer, “Form-Critical Problem,” esp. 247–48.

113. See the discussion of “fear of God” and “fear of the LORD” (ch. 3, pp. 108–9).

114. Those who believe that the truth of God is definitively seen in a judicially murdered man who is then divinely raised into a new mode of existence should surely have a certain intuitive affinity for recognizing that God does not necessarily fit within humanly recognized patterns and precedents, even while patterns and precedents have their place.