2 Kings 5-8

Complete Jewish Bible

5 Na‘aman, commander of the king of Aram’s army, was highly respected and esteemed by his master; because through him Adonai had brought victory to Aram. But although he was a brave warrior, he also suffered from tzara‘at. ² Now on one of their raids into Isra’el’s territory, Aram carried away captive a little girl, who became a servant for Na‘aman’s wife. ³ She said to her mistress, “I wish my lord could go to the prophet in Shomron! He could heal his tzara‘at.” ⁴ Na‘aman went in and told his lord, “The girl from the land of Isra’el said such-and-such.” ⁵ The king of Aram said, “Go now, and I will send a letter to the king of Isra’el.”

He set out, taking with him 660 pounds of silver, 6,000 pieces of gold and ten changes of clothes. ⁶ He brought the king of Isra’el the letter, which said, “When this letter reaches you, you will see that I have sent my servant Na‘aman to you, so that you can heal his tzara‘at.” ⁷ When the king of Isra’el finished reading the letter, he tore his clothes. “Am I God, able to kill and make alive,” he asked, “so that he sends me a man to heal of tzara‘at? You can see that he is only seeking an excuse to quarrel with me.” ⁸ But when Elisha the man of God heard that the king of Isra’el had torn his clothes, he sent a message to the king: “Why did you tear your clothes? Just have him come to me, and he will know that there is a prophet in Isra’el.”

⁹ So Na‘aman came with his horses and chariots and stood at the door of Elisha’s house. ¹⁰ Elisha sent a messenger to him, who said, “Go, and bathe in the Yarden seven times. Your skin will become as it was, and you will be clean.” ¹¹ But Na‘aman became angry and left, saying, “Here now! I thought for certain that he would come out personally, that he would stand, call on the name of Adonai his God and wave his hand over the diseased place and thus heal the person with tzara‘at. ¹² Aren’t Amanah and Parpar, the rivers of Dammesek, better than all the water in Isra’el? Why can’t I bathe in them and be clean?” So he turned and went off in a rage. ¹³ But his servants approached him and said, “My father! If the prophet had asked you to do something really difficult, wouldn’t you have done it? So, doesn’t it make even more sense to do what he says, when it’s only, ‘Bathe, and be clean’?” ¹⁴ So he went down and immersed himself seven times in the Yarden, as the man of God had said to do; and his skin was restored and became like the skin of a child; and he became clean.

¹⁵ Then, with his whole retinue, he returned to the man of God, went and stood before him, and said, “Well, I’ve learned that there is no God in all the earth except in Isra’el; therefore, please accept a present from your servant.” ¹⁶ But Elisha answered, “As Adonai lives, before whom I stand, I will not accept it.” And despite his urging him to take it, he refused. ¹⁷ So Na‘aman said, “If you won’t take it, then please let your servant be given as much earth as two mules can carry; because from now on, your servant will offer neither burnt offerings nor sacrifices to other gods, but only to Adonai. ¹⁸ Except this, and may Adonai forgive your servant for it: when my master goes into the temple of Rimmon to worship there, and he leans on my hand, and I bow down in the temple of Rimmon — when I bow down, may Adonai forgive your servant for this.” ¹⁹ Elisha said to him, “Go in peace.”

Na‘aman had gone only a short distance from him, ²⁰ when Geichazi, the servant of Elisha the man of God, said to himself, “Here, my master has made it easy on this Arami Na‘aman by not accepting from him what he brought. As Adonai lives, I’ll run after him and get at least something from him.” ²¹ So Geichazi hurried off after Na‘aman. When Na‘aman saw someone running after him, he got down from his chariot to meet him and asked, “Is everything all right?” ²² “Yes,” he replied. “My master sent me with this message: ‘Two young men have just now come to me, guild prophets from the hills of Efrayim. Would you be kind enough to give them a talent of silver [sixty-six pounds] and two changes of clothes?” ²³ “By all means, take two talents!” said Na‘aman, pressing him. He tied up the two talents of silver in two bags and gave them, with the two changes of clothes, to two of his servants, who carried them ahead of Geichazi. ²⁴ On reaching the hill, he took the bags from them and put them away in the house. Then he let the men go, and they left. ²⁵ He went in and stood before his master. Elisha asked, “Where have you been, Geichazi?” “Your servant hasn’t gone anywhere,” he said. ²⁶ Elisha said to him, “Wasn’t my heart there with you when the man left his chariot to meet you? Is this a time to receive silver and clothing — and olive groves and vineyards and sheep and oxen and male and female slaves? ²⁷ Therefore Na‘aman’s tzara‘at will cling to you and your descendants forever.” He left Elisha’s presence with tzara‘at as white as snow.

6 The guild prophets said to Elisha, “As you can see, the place where we are living in order to be with you is too small for us. ² Please allow us to go to the Yarden; each of us will collect a log there, and we’ll build a place there for us to live.” He answered, “Go ahead.” ³ But one of them said, “Please, won’t you come with your servants?” He answered, “All right, I will”; ⁴ so he went with them. When they arrived at the Yarden, they cut down trees; ⁵ but as one was felling a tree trunk, the head of his axe fell in the water. “Oh, no!” he cried. “My master, it was a borrowed one!” ⁶ The man of God asked, “Where did it fall?” He showed him the place. Then Elisha cut a stick, threw it in there, and the iron axe-head floated to the surface. ⁷ “Lift it out,” he said. So he put out his hand and took it.

⁸ Now the king of Aram went to war against Isra’el; and in consulting his servants he said, “I’ll set up my ambush camp in such-and-such a place.” ⁹ The man of God sent this message to the king of Isra’el: “Be careful not to go past such-and-such a place, because Aram will attack there.” ¹⁰ So the king of Isra’el sent men to the place the man of God had told him and warned him about, and he took special precautions there. This happened more than once or twice, ¹¹ and it greatly upset the king of Aram. He called his servants and said to them, “Tell me which of you is betraying us to the king of Isra’el?” ¹² One of his servants replied, “It’s not that, my lord, king. Rather, Elisha, the prophet who is in Isra’el, tells the king of Isra’el the words you speak privately in your own bedroom!” ¹³ He said, “Go and see where he is, so that I can send and bring him here.” They told him, “He’s in Dotan.”

¹⁴ So he sent horses, chariots and a large army there; they came by night and surrounded the city. ¹⁵ The servant of the man of God got up early in the morning; on going outside, he saw an army with horses and chariots surrounding the city. His servant said to him, “Oh, my master, this is terrible! What are we going to do?” ¹⁶ He answered, “Don’t be afraid — those who are with us outnumber those who are with them!” ¹⁷ Elisha prayed, “Adonai, I ask you to open his eyes, so that he can see.” Then Adonai opened the young man’s eyes, and he saw: there before him, all around Elisha, the mountain was covered with horses and fiery chariots. ¹⁸ When they came down to him, Elisha prayed to Adonai, “Please strike these people blind”; and he struck them blind, as Elisha had asked. ¹⁹ Next, Elisha told them, “You’ve lost your way, and this isn’t even the right city. Follow me, and I’ll take you to the man you’re looking for.” Then he led them to Shomron. ²⁰ On their arrival in Shomron, Elisha said, “Adonai, open the eyes of these men, so that they can see.” Adonai opened their eyes, and they saw: there they were, in the middle of Shomron.

²¹ When the king of Isra’el saw them, he asked Elisha, “My father, should I attack them? Should I attack them?” ²² He answered, “Don’t attack them! You wouldn’t even attack prisoners you had captured with your own sword and bow, would you? So give them food to eat and water to drink, and let them return to their master.” ²³ So he provided well for them; and after they had eaten and drunk, he sent them away; and they returned to their master. After that, no more raiding parties entered the land of Isra’el from Aram.

²⁴ But some time afterwards, Ben-Hadad king of Aram gathered all his army, went up and laid siege to Shomron. ²⁵ At the time, there was a severe famine in Shomron; and they maintained their siege until a donkey’s head sold for eighty pieces of silver and half a pint of doves’ dung for five pieces of silver. ²⁶ As the king of Isra’el was passing by on the wall, a woman cried out to him, “Help, my lord, king!” ²⁷ He said, “If Adonai isn’t helping you, how do you expect me to help you? There isn’t any grain, and there isn’t any wine.” ²⁸ Then the king asked her, “What’s troubling you?” She answered, “This woman said to me, ‘Give me your son, so that we can eat him today; and we’ll eat my son tomorrow.’ ²⁹ So we boiled my son and ate him. The next day I said to her, ‘Give your son, so that we can eat him,’ but she has hidden her son.” ³⁰ When the king heard what the woman said, he tore his clothes. At the time, he was passing by on the wall; and when the people looked, they saw him there with sackcloth against his skin. ³¹ Then he said, “May God do terrible things to me, and worse ones too, if the head of Elisha the son of Shafat remains on his body by day’s end.” ³² Elisha was sitting in his house, and the leaders were sitting there with him. The king sent a messenger ahead, but before he arrived, Elisha said to the leaders, “Do you see how this son of a murderer has sent someone to remove my head? Look, when the messenger comes, close the door and keep it shut against him. You can hear his master’s footsteps following right behind him!” ³³ While he was still speaking, the messenger arrived with this message from the king: “Here, this evil is from Adonai. Why should I wait for Adonai any longer?”

7 Elisha answered, “Listen to the word of Adonai. Here is what Adonai says: ‘Tomorrow, by this time, six quarts of fine flour will sell for only a shekel, and half a bushel of barley for a shekel [in the market] at the gate to Shomron.” ² The servant on whose arm the king was leaning answered the man of God: “Why, this couldn’t happen even if Adonai made windows in heaven!” Elisha answered, “All right, you yourself will see it with your own eyes; but you won’t eat any of it!”

³ Now there were four men with tzara‘at at the entrance to the city gate, and they said to each other, “Why should we sit here till we die? ⁴ If we say, ‘We’ll enter the city, then the city has been struck by the famine, so we’ll die there. And if we sit still here, we’ll also die. So let’s go and surrender to the army of Aram; if they spare our lives, we will live; and if they kill us, we’ll only die.” ⁵ They got up during the twilight to go to the camp of Aram. But when they reached the outskirts of the camp of Aram, they saw no one! ⁶ For Adonai had caused the army of Aram to hear the sound of chariots and horses; it sounded like a huge army; and they said to each other, “The king of Isra’el must have hired the kings of the Hitti and the kings of the Egyptians to attack us.” ⁷ So they jumped up and fled in the twilight, leaving their tents, horses, donkeys and the whole camp just as it was, and ran for their lives. ⁸ When these men with tzara‘at reached the outskirts of the camp, they entered one of the tents, ate and drank; then took some silver, gold and clothing; and went and hid it. Next they returned and entered another tent, took stuff from there, and went and hid it. ⁹ But finally they said to each other, “What we are doing is wrong. At a time of good news like this, we shouldn’t keep it to ourselves. If we wait even till morning, we will earn only punishment; so come on, let’s go and tell the king’s household.” ¹⁰ So they came and shouted to the gatekeepers of the city and told them the news: “We went to the camp of Aram, and no one was there, no human voice — just the horses and donkeys tied up, and the tents left in place.” ¹¹ The gatekeepers called and told it to the king’s household inside. ¹² Then the king got up in the night; he said to his servants, “I’ll tell you what Aram has done to us. They know that we’re hungry, so they’ve gone outside the camp and hidden in the countryside, saying, ‘When they come out of the city, we’ll take them alive and then get inside the city.’” ¹³ One of his servants answered, “I suggest letting some men take five of the remaining horses that are left in the city — they’re like everything else in Isra’el that remains, like everything else in Isra’el, practically finished — and we’ll send and see.” ¹⁴ So they took two chariots with horses, and the king sent after the army of Aram, saying, “Go, and see.” ¹⁵ They went after them all the way to the Yarden, and found the entire distance strewn with clothing and other articles Aram had thrown away in their haste. The messengers returned and told the king. ¹⁶ Then the people went out and ransacked the camp of Aram — with the result that six quarts of fine flour was sold for only a shekel and half a bushel of barley for a shekel, in keeping with what Adonai had said.

¹⁷ The king put the servant on whose arm he had leaned in charge of the gate, and the people trampled him down in the gateway, so that he died, as the man of God had said he would, who spoke when the king came to him. ¹⁸ For the man of God had said to the king, “Tomorrow by this time six quarts of barley will sell for only a shekel and half a bushel of fine flour for a shekel [in the market] at the gate of Shomron”; ¹⁹ the servant had answered the man of God, “Why, this couldn’t happen even if Adonai made windows in heaven!” and Elisha had said, “All right, you yourself will see it with your own eyes; but you won’t eat any of it!” ²⁰ That is exactly what happened to him, because the people trampled him down in the gateway, so that he died.

8 Now Elisha had said to the woman whose son he had restored to life, “Move away, you and your household, and stay wherever you can; because Adonai has called for a famine; and it will be on the land for seven years.” ² The woman acted at once and did as the man of God had said — she went with her household and stayed in the land of the P’lishtim for seven years. ³ At the end of seven years the woman returned from the land of the P’lishtim and sought an audience with the king to claim her house and land. ⁴ The king was talking with Geichazi the servant of the man of God. “Tell me,” he said, “all the great things Elisha has done.” ⁵ Just as he was telling the king how he had restored a dead person to life, at that very moment the woman whose son he had restored to life came to the king with her claim for her house and land. Geichazi said, “My lord, king, this is the woman; and this is her son, the one Elisha restored to life.” ⁶ On being asked by the king, the woman verified it. At this, the king appointed a special officer and charged him, “Restore everything that belongs to her, including the income her fields have produced from the day she left them until now.”

⁷ Elisha went to Dammesek. Ben-Hadad the king of Aram was ill; and he was told, “The man of God has come here.” ⁸ The king said to Haza’el, “Take with you a gift, go meet the man of God and consult Adonai through him; ask if I will recover from this illness.” ⁹ Haza’el went to meet him, taking with him a gift that included everything good Dammesek had, forty camel-loads. He came, stood before him and said, “Your son Ben-Hadad king of Aram has sent me to you; he asks, ‘Will I recover from this illness?’” ¹⁰ Elisha answered, “Go and say to him, ‘You will surely recover’ — even though Adonai has shown me that he will surely die.” ¹¹ Then the man of God fixed his gaze on him for so long that Haza’el became embarrassed; finally Elisha began to cry. ¹² Haza’el asked, “Why is my lord crying?” He answered, “Because I know the disasters you will bring on the people of Isra’el — you will set their fortresses on fire, you will kill their young men with the sword, you will dash their little ones to pieces and rip their pregnant women apart.” ¹³ Haza’el said, “But what is your servant? Nothing but a dog! How could he do anything of such magnitude?” Elisha answered, “Adonai has shown me that you will be king over Aram.”

¹⁴ Then he left Elisha and returned to his master, who asked him, “What did Elisha say to you?” “He told me you would surely recover.” ¹⁵ The next day he took a blanket, dipped it in water and spread it on his face, so that he died; and Haza’el took his place as king.

¹⁶ It was when Yoram the son of Ach’av king of Isra’el was in the fifth year of his reign that Y’horam the son of Y’hoshafat began his rule over Y’hudah. ¹⁷ He was thirty-two years old when he began to rule, and he ruled eight years in Yerushalayim. ¹⁸ He lived after the example of the kings of Isra’el, as did the house of Ach’av; because he had married Ach’av’s daughter; he did what was evil from Adonai’s perspective. ¹⁹ However, Adonai was unwilling to destroy Y’hudah, because of his servant David; inasmuch as he had promised to give him and his children a lamp that would burn forever.

²⁰ During his time Edom revolted against Y’hudah and set up its own king. ²¹ In response, Yoram crossed to Tza‘ir with all his chariots. At night he and his chariot commanders set out and attacked Edom who had surrounded him; then the people fled to their tents. ²² Nevertheless, since that day Edom has remained free of Y’hudah’s domination. Livnah revolted at the same time. ²³ Other activities of Yoram and all his accomplishments are recorded in the Annals of the Kings of Y’hudah. ²⁴ Yoram slept with his ancestors and was buried with his ancestors in the City of David, and Achazyah his son took his place as king.

²⁵ It was in the twelfth year of Yoram the son of Ach’av king of Isra’el that Achazyah the son of Y’horam king of Y’hudah began his reign. ²⁶ Achazyah was twenty-two years old when he began to rule, and he ruled for one year in Yerushalayim. His mother’s name was ‘Atalyahu the daughter of ‘Omri king of Isra’el. ²⁷ He lived after the example of the house of Ach’av; he did what was evil from Adonai’s perspective, as had the house of Ach’av; for he was a son-in-law in the house of Ach’av.

²⁸ With Yoram the son of Ach’av he went to war against Haza’el king of Aram at Ramot-Gil‘ad, and the Aramim wounded Yoram. ²⁹ King Yoram returned to Yizre‘el to be healed of the wounds which the Aramim had inflicted on him at Ramah while fighting Haza’el king of Aram. Achazyah the son of Y’horam, king of Y’hudah, went down to visit Yoram the son of Ach’av in Yizre‘el, because he was not feeling well.