Naaman the Leper
Naaman was one of the most important people in Damascus,
Syria.[1]
He was a trusted and valuable advisor to the king, and he served as the
commander of the army of Syria. The Bible has a surprising number of good
things to say about him: he was great, held in high favor, selected by God to
give victory to Syria, and a mighty man of valor. We could reasonably guess
that in his youth, he was quite handsome. He was the Ulysses S. Grant of his
day. Men admired him, soldiers would die for him, women counted him their
savior, children pretended to be him.
In fact, his name means “pleasant, delightful, agreeable,
sweet” and surely for all of the praise the Bible lauds upon him, he was Naaman
indeed. But like Naomi (same root word), his sweetness had turned to bitterness
when he contracted a fatal and debilitating disease called leprosy. We cannot
be sure that his leprosy was the Hansen’s disease we refer to as leprosy today
that is so awful, but while some scholars for decades said it could not be
Hansen’s disease, more recent evidence exists that Hansen’s disease is a
definite possibility. Whichever the actual diagnosis, the disease was serious
and more than an inconvenience. Granted, many diseases could be leprosy, some
temporary, some painful, some disgusting, some deadly; we will soon see that
his king was willing to spend millions of dollars to seek to redeem and prolong
Naaman’s life. He didn’t just have a rash, he was likely to die from this
disease, and soon.
Leprosy–with any diagnosis–is contagious. It means you
cannot sleep in the camp with your soldiers, in bed with your wife or in the
house with your family, you cannot attend meetings with your king, and if you
are following the biblical laws, you are very careful to keep everyone away
from you. Loneliness, discouragement, and despair are sure to follow. And while
Naaman was cut off from the living God by distance, tribe, and sin, he would
also be excluded from being in the presence of God by his leprosy (2 Chronicles
26:21, Numbers 5:2, Leviticus 13:46).
While treatable since the mid-1900s, Hansen’s disease was
incurable in Naaman’s day. It was a death sentence, and not only a death
sentence, an agonizing and ghastly way to waste away. It was and is such a
horrible disease that death would become a release, so long as it is not
accompanied by hell.
Paul Washer emphasizes the horrid nature of leprosy and what
it turns men into,
Have you ever been around
lepers?
I have. A full blown, untreated
case of the worst kind of leprosy is one of the most horrid things you could
ever imagine. A body of wounds and sores and pus and blood and body fluid. You
would smell a leper before you even walked into this hall if one was standing
behind this pulpit.
Naaman had gained the whole world and yet was living in a
hopeless situation. He was in imminent danger of losing everything. His body
was failing him, his social capital was depleting by the minute, and he was a
worshipper of a false god Rimmon (also known as Baal or ‘Adad/Hadad) who could
not heal his body, let alone his soul.
Naaman was as great as the world could make him, and yet the basest slave in Syria would not change skins with him. ~ Matthew Henry
If I was going to use one word to describe Naaman, it would be irredeemable. He was without hope, without God in the world, and without anyone to tell him about the God who works miracles. But God.
[1]
Aram is an alternate name for Syria, depending on your translation it may use
either. I will exclusively use Syria for continuity throughout this book.
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