Context No. 3114 of 4322 · 2 Kings

2 Kings 5:11-15: in context

11But Naaman was angry, and went away and said, “Behold, I thought, ‘He will surely come out to me, and stand, and call on the name of the LORD his God, and wave his hand over the place, and heal the leper.’ 12Aren’t Abanah and Pharpar, the rivers of Damascus, better than all the waters of Israel? Couldn’t I wash in them and be clean?” So he turned and went away in a rage. 13His servants came near and spoke to him, and said, “My father, if the prophet had asked you do some great thing, wouldn’t you have done it? How much rather then, when he says to you, ‘Wash, and be clean’?” 14Then went he down and dipped himself seven times in the Jordan, according to the saying of the man of God; and his flesh was restored like the flesh of a little child, and he was clean. 15He returned to the man of God, he and all his company, and came, and stood before him; and he said, “See now, I know that there is no God in all the earth, but in Israel. Now therefore, please take a gift from your servant.”

Naaman, a Syrian commander with leprosy, comes to Elisha and is told simply to wash seven times in the Jordan. He is furious. He expected the prophet to come out, wave his hand, and call dramatically on the LORD; and are not the rivers of Damascus better than all the waters of Israel? He turns away in a rage. But his servants reason with him: if the prophet had asked you to do some great thing, would you not have done it? How much more, then, when he simply says, wash and be clean?

Naaman's problem was pride and expectation. He wanted a grand cure worthy of a great man, an impressive display, and he nearly missed his healing because the command was too simple and too humbling: just wash in a muddy river. His servants' wisdom saved him. If it had been hard, you would have done it; why not do the easy, humbling thing? Often what God asks is not complicated but humbling, and our pride balks precisely because it is so plain. Healing came when Naaman swallowed his pride and obeyed the simple word.

Do I resist God's simple, humbling instructions because I expected something grander, and would obey a hard command more readily than an easy one that humbles me?

Sources

2 Kings 5:13: "If the prophet had asked you do some great thing, wouldn't you have done it? How much rather then, when he says to you, Wash, and be clean?"
2 Kings 5:14: "Then went he down and dipped himself seven times in the Jordan... and he was clean."
1 Corinthians 1:27: "God chose the foolish things of the world that he might put to shame those who are wise."