Naaman ( he, נַעֲמָן ''Naʿămān'', "pleasantness") the

Aramean The Arameans ( oar, 𐤀𐤓𐤌𐤉𐤀; arc, 𐡀𐡓𐡌𐡉𐡀; syc, ܐܪ̈ܡܝܐ, Ārāmāyē) were an ancient Semitic-speaking people in the Near East, first recorded in historical sources from the late 12th century BCE. The Aramean h ...

was a commander of the armies of Ben-Hadad II, the king of

Aram-Damascus The Kingdom of Aram-Damascus () was an Aramean polity that existed from the late-12th century BCE until 732 BCE, and was centred around the city of Damascus in the Southern Levant. Alongside various tribal lands, it was bounded in its later ye ...

, in the time of Joram,

king of Israel This article is an overview of the kings of the United Kingdom of Israel as well as those of its successor states and classical period kingdoms ruled by the Hasmonean dynasty and Herodian dynasty. Kings of Ancient Israel and Judah The Hebr ...

. According to the

Bible The Bible (from Koine Greek , , 'the books') is a collection of religious texts or scriptures that are held to be sacred in Christianity, Judaism, Samaritanism, and many other religions. The Bible is an anthologya compilation of texts of a ...

, Naaman was a commander of the army of Syria. He was a good commander and was held in favor because of the victory that

God In monotheism, monotheistic thought, God is usually viewed as the supreme being, creator deity, creator, and principal object of Faith#Religious views, faith.Richard Swinburne, Swinburne, R.G. "God" in Ted Honderich, Honderich, Ted. (ed)''The Ox ...

brought him. Yet Naaman was a leper. Naaman's wife had a servant girl from Israel who said that a prophet there would be able to heal him. Naaman tells his lord this and he is sent to Israel with a letter to the king. The king of Israel didn't know what to do, yet

Elisha Elisha ( ; or "God is my salvation", Greek: , ''Elis îos'' or , ''Elisaié,'' Latin: ''Eliseus'') was, according to the Hebrew Bible, a prophet and a wonder-worker. His name is commonly transliterated into English as Elisha via Hebrew, Eli ...

(Eliseus) sent a message to the King, advising that the King tell Naaman to come to see him. Elisha then told Naaman to go bathe in the Jordan seven times and he would be clean. Naaman was angry and would have left, but his servant asked him to try it and he was healed. A servant of Elisha, Gehazi, seeing Naaman being turned away from offering God offerings, ran after him and falsely asked for clothing and silver for visitors. And the leprosy from Naaman fell on Gehazi and would remain in his descendants.

Tanakh

Naaman is mentioned in

2 Kings 5 2 Kings 5 is the fifth chapter of the second part of the Books of Kings in the Hebrew Bible or the Second Book of Kings in the Old Testament of the Christian Bible. The book is a compilation of various annals recording the acts of the kings o ...

of the

Tanakh The Hebrew Bible or Tanakh (;"Tanach"
''

Hebrew Hebrew (; ; ) is a Northwest Semitic language of the Afroasiatic language family. Historically, it is one of the spoken languages of the Israelites and their longest-surviving descendants, the Jews and Samaritans. It was largely preserved ...

as "וְ֠נַעֲמָן שַׂר־ צְבָ֨א מֶֽלֶךְ־ אֲרָ֜ם" or "Naaman captain of the army of the King of Aram". According to the narrative, he is called a ''mezora'' (מְּצֹרָע), a person affected by the skin disease ''

tzaraath ''Tzaraath'' (Hebrew צָרַעַת ''ṣāraʿaṯ''), variously transcribed into English and frequently mistranslated as leprosy, describes various ritually unclean disfigurative conditions of the skin, hair of the beard and head, clothing mad ...

'' (צָּרַעַת, tzara'at). When the Hebrew slave-girl who waits on his wife tells her of a Jewish prophet in

Samaria Samaria (; he, שֹׁמְרוֹן, translit=Šōmrōn, ar, السامرة, translit=as-Sāmirah) is the historic and biblical name used for the central region of Palestine, bordered by Judea to the south and Galilee to the north. The first- ...

who can cure her master, he obtains a letter from King Ben-Hadad II of Aram to King

Joram of Israel Jehoram ( ''Yəhōrām''; also Joram) was the ninth king of the northern Kingdom of Israel ( 2 Kings 8:16, 2 Kings 8:25–28). He was the son of Ahab and Jezebel, and brother to Ahaziah and Athaliah. According to 2 Kings, 2 Kings 8:16, in the ...

in which Ben-Hadad asks Joram to arrange for the healing of his subject Naaman. Naaman proceeds with the letter to King Joram. The king of Israel suspects in this – to him – impossible request a pretext of Syria for later starting a war against him, and tears his clothes. When the prophet

hears about this, he sends for general Naaman. But rather than personally receiving Naaman when the latter arrives at Elisha's house, Elisha merely sends a messenger to the door who tells Naaman to cure his affliction by dipping himself seven times in the

Jordan River The Jordan River or River Jordan ( ar, نَهْر الْأُرْدُنّ, ''Nahr al-ʾUrdunn'', he, נְהַר הַיַּרְדֵּן, ''Nəhar hayYardēn''; syc, ܢܗܪܐ ܕܝܘܪܕܢܢ ''Nahrāʾ Yurdnan''), also known as ''Nahr Al-Shariea ...

. Naaman, a man of heathen faith who is unfamiliar with the Jewish ''mezora'', had expected the prophet himself to come out to him and to perform some kind of impressive

ritual magic Ceremonial magic (ritual magic, high magic or learned magic) encompasses a wide variety of rituals of magic. The works included are characterized by ceremony and numerous requisite accessories to aid the practitioner. It can be seen as an e ...

; he angrily refuses, and prepares to go home unhealed. Only after Naaman's slaves suggest to their master that he has nothing to lose by at least giving it a try since the task is a simple and easy one, he takes his bath in the Jordan river as a ''

mikveh Mikveh or mikvah (, ''mikva'ot'', ''mikvoth'', ''mikvot'', or (Yiddish) ''mikves'', lit., "a collection") is a bath used for the purpose of ritual immersion in Judaism to achieve ritual purity. Most forms of ritual impurity can be purif ...

'' as instructed and finds himself healed. (The ''mikveh'' is a bath used for ritual immersion in Judaism.) Naaman returns to Elisha with lavish gifts, which Elisha flatly refuses to accept. Naaman also renounces his former god

Rimmon __NOTOC__ Rimmon ( he, רִמּוֹן, ''Rīmmōn'') or Remmon ( grc-gre, Ρεμμων, ''Remmōn'') is a name in the Hebrew Bible meaning "pomegranate". Place-names Rimmon may refer to: * One of the "uttermost cities" of Judah, afterwards gi ...

after being cured by Elisha - acknowledges solely the God of Israel. He does, however, ask for sacrificial altar soil to be given him to take back home and that the God of Israel pardon him when he enters the temple of Rimmon as part of his obligations to the king of Syria.

Rabbinic literature

According to Rabbinic teaching, Naaman was the archer who drew his bow at a venture and mortally wounded Ahab, King of Israel (). This event is alluded to in the words "because by him the Lord had given deliverance unto Syria" (), and therefore the Syrian king, Naaman's master, was Benhadad. Naaman is represented as vain and haughty, on account of which he was stricken with leprosy. Tanhuma however, says that Naaman was stricken with leprosy for taking an Israelitish maiden and making her his wife's servant. Naaman is understood as Moab in the expression "Moab is my washpot" (), which the Rabbis regard as an allusion to Naaman's bathing in the Jordan; the appellation "Moab" is a play on the word "abi" (= "my father"), by which Naaman was addressed by his servants in . Naaman was a "ger toshav," that is, he was not a perfect proselyte, having accepted only some of the commandments. The

Mekhilta Mekhilta ( arc, מְכִילְתָּא דְּרַבִּי יִשְׁמָעֵאל IPA /məˈχiltɑ/, "a collection of rules of interpretation"; corresponding to the Mishnaic Hebrew ' 'measure', 'rule'), is used to denote a compilation of scriptural ...

, however, places Naaman's conversion above Jethro's. As the object of the narrative of Naaman's sickness and restoration to health is, apparently, to form a link in the long series of miracles performed by Elisha, the redactor of II Kings did not concern himself to indicate the time when this event occurred. The rabbinical tradition that Naaman was the archer () who mortally wounded Ahab seems to have been adopted by Josephus. If the tradition is correct, the Syrian king whom Naaman served must have been Ben-hadad II; but as the interval between the death of Ahab and the curing of Naaman's leprosy is not known, it is impossible to identify the King of Israel to whom Naaman was sent with a letter. Ewald thinks the king referred to was Jehoahaz, while Schenkel suggests Jehu, but the general view is that it was Jehoram. The passage ("because by him the Lord had given deliverance unto Syria," II Kings 5:1) upon which the identification of Naaman with Ahab's slayer is based by the Rabbis is referred by G. Rawlinson, however, to the Syrian triumph over Shalmaneser II. The request of Naaman to be permitted to carry away two mules' burden of Israelite earth for the purpose of erecting upon it an altar on which to offer sacrifices to Yhwh, reflects the belief of those days that the god of each land could be worshiped only on his own soil. The expression "So he departed from him a little way" (כברת ארץ; verse ) seems to contradict the assertion of Naaman's intention to return to Syria with the two loads of earth. The word כברת is transliterated in the Septuagint (Vatican) δεβραθα and (Lucian) χαβραθα, while the Alexandrian codex has καὶ ἀπῆλθεν ἀπ' ἀυτōν ἀπό τῆς γῆς Ἰσραηλ, apparently reading מארץ ישראל וילך מאתו. Klostermann, while supplying, with the Alexandrian codex, the word ישראל, connects this passage with Naaman's departure with the loads of earth, and renders the passage וילך מאתו כבר מארץ ישראל as "and he carried away from him about a cor of the earth of Israel.""Die Bücher Samuelis und der Könige"

New Testament

Naaman is also mentioned in

Luke 4 Luke 4 is the fourth chapter of the Gospel of Luke in the New Testament of the Christian Bible, traditionally attributed to Luke the Evangelist, a companion of Paul the Apostle on his missionary journeys. This chapter details Jesus' three temptat ...

of the

New Testament The New Testament grc, Ἡ Καινὴ Διαθήκη, transl. ; la, Novum Testamentum. (NT) is the second division of the Christian biblical canon. It discusses the teachings and person of Jesus, as well as events in first-century Christ ...

, in

Greek Greek may refer to: Greece Anything of, from, or related to Greece, a country in Southern Europe: *Greeks, an ethnic group. *Greek language, a branch of the Indo-European language family. **Proto-Greek language, the assumed last common ancestor ...

as "Ναιμὰν ὁ Σύρος" or "Naaman the Syrian", a leper.

Christian theology Christian theology is the theology of Christianity, Christian belief and practice. Such study concentrates primarily upon the texts of the Old Testament and of the New Testament, as well as on Christian tradition. Christian theology, theologian ...

depicts Naaman as an example for the will of God to save people who are considered by men as less than pious and unworthy of salvation. The

Septuagint The Greek Old Testament, or Septuagint (, ; from the la, septuaginta, lit=seventy; often abbreviated ''70''; in Roman numerals, LXX), is the earliest extant Greek translation of books from the Hebrew Bible. It includes several books beyond th ...

, the Greek Old Testament, uses the word ''baptizein'' for the dipping that heals the heathen Naaman from the skin disease called ''tzaraath''. The new baptism takes place in the Jordan River where

Jesus of Nazareth Jesus, likely from he, יֵשׁוּעַ, translit=Yēšūaʿ, label=Hebrew/Aramaic ( AD 30 or 33), also referred to as Jesus Christ or Jesus of Nazareth (among other names and titles), was a first-century Jewish preacher and religious ...

, also called the Christ by his followers, was baptized many centuries later.

References

Sources

*{{eastons, title=Naaman Books of Kings people Arameans Military personnel of antiquity 9th-century BC people

Tanakh

Rabbinic literature

New Testament

See also

References

Sources