DAY 184: 2 Kings 5–8

Welcome to 5-Minute Bible, your daily guide for your daily reading. Today's July the 3rd and we'll be looking at 2 Kings 5 -8. Now yesterday Elijah departed in glory and Elisha received the prophetic mantle and the power of God entered into homes and villages and kitchens and battlefields and graves.

Naaman’s Cleansing and Gehazi’s Judgment

Well today that ministry expands beyond Israel's border and reaches even deeper into the human heart. In 2 Kings 5 -8 a Syrian commander is cleansed and an Israelite servant is judged. Heavenly armies are revealed and enemy soldiers are blinded and a starving city is delivered.

And even a faithful woman receives back what she had lost. These chapters reveal a God whose grace reaches outside of humble outsiders and whose judgment falls upon covenant hypocrisy and whose word governs things like diseases and armies and famines and kings and even nations.

In that way 2 Kings 5 introduces us to Naaman, a commander of Syrian's army and a man who is afflicted with a rabid leprosy. A young Israelite servant tells him about Elisha and Naaman travels to Israel seeking healing.

He expects honor and ceremony and spectacle but Elisha simply commands him to wash seven times in the Jordan River. Naaman is initially offended by such a request but when he humbles himself and obeys his flesh is totally restored.

He confesses that there is no God in all of the earth except the one in Israel. Elisha refuses payment for this transaction but Gehazi, his servant, secretly pursues Naaman and lies to obtain silver and clothing from the general.

The leprosy that leaves Naaman then falls upon Gehazi for his treachery. The foreigner receives cleansing while the covenant insider receives judgment. Then chapter 6 begins with Elisha causing a borrowed axe head to float, which doesn't normally happen, showing that even an ordinary loss matters to God.

Opened Eyes and Heavenly Armies

Elisha then repeatedly reveals Syrian's military plans when an army surrounds the city to capture him. Elisha's servants are terrified as the Lord opens his eyes and reveals the mountain that is filled with horses and chariots of fire from God.

The Syrian soldiers are struck with blindness and they're led into Samaria fed and released rather than slaughtered, which is really important. Later, Samaria suffers a horrific famine under a Syrian siege.

Four leprous men discover that the enemy camp has been abandoned because the Lord calls the Syrians to hear the sound of a vast army pursuing them and they literally ran away. The starving city then is suddenly delivered exactly as Elisha predicted and yet the royal officer who mocked God's promises see the abundance, but he dies before getting to eat any of it.

Chapter 8 then concludes with the Shunammite woman providentially receiving back her house and her land while Elisha weeps over the future violence Hazael will inflict upon Israel. So, as you read today, I want you to ask the following question.

Who truly sees the work of God and who remains blind even while standing near it? These chapters show that humble faith receives grace while pride and greed and unbelief can leave covenant insiders blind to the very God who's working all around them.

And the central tension of that is the reversal between outsiders and insiders and between sight and blindness in the kingdom of God. Naaman is a foreigner. He's a military commander for an entirely different nation, even an enemy nation.

And yet Gehazi is the servant of the Lord's prophet. He's an insider. Outwardly, Gehazi appears near to the covenant while Naaman appears very far away, but it's Naaman who humbles himself and Gehazi who lies.

Naaman is the one who receives cleansing and Gehazi is the one who receives the leprosy. And this reversal exposes a deep biblical pattern and truth. Proximity to holy things does not guarantee salvation to anyone apart from faith in God.

A person can live around scripture and worship and ministry and scriptural privilege while inwardly loving money and deception and self-interest. And the theme of sight continues. Elisha's servant sees only the enemy army until God opens his eyes to see the greater heavenly hosts that are surrounding them.

Grace, Faith, and the Gospel Reversal

The Syrians possess physical sight but can't even find their way. The royal officers hear God's promise, but they cannot believe what God has said. He eventually sees the deliverance with his own eyes, but his unbelief prevents him from enjoying any of it.

Initially, Naaman's pride also prevents him from healing because he wants a dramatic performance and resents the ordinary command to wash in the Jordan River, not a particularly clean river in the region as well.

His cleansing begins when he stops demanding that God would act according to his expectations and he simply obeys God. The famine story adds another striking reversal because four outcasts become the first heralds of deliverance.

Those excluded from the city become the very ones that God uses to announce his good news. They realize that remaining silent would be wrong because a starving people must get the news that the enemy has fled and left all of their food behind.

These chapters then ask whether we're going to trust our own opinions and appearances or whether we're going to trust the word of God. The city appears surrounded, yet heaven's armies are nearer. The famine appears irreversible, and yet deliverance is right beside them.

The foreigner appears very far away, and yet he's the one who receives mercy. The insider appears secure, and yet his unbelief places him under judgment. And in all of that, Naaman's cleansing points directly to Jesus Christ.

Jesus later reminds unbelieving Israel that many lepers lived in Israel during Elisha's ministry, and yet only Naaman the Syrian was cleansed. And Christ uses this event to expose their covenant presumption and to announce that God's mercy reaches beyond Israel to the nations like Naaman, and judgment is going to fall on the insiders, the Jews, like it did with Gehazi.

Naaman is cleansed through humble trust in the word of God. And in the gospel, sinners from every nation are going to be cleansed not through their status or achievement, payment, or even bloodline, but through faith in Jesus Christ.

Elisha refuses Naaman's wealth because grace can't be purchased. Gehazi corrupts that message by making mercy appear available for a price, but Christ gives salvation freely because he himself is the one who pays the entire cost through his blood.

The opening of the servant's eyes also anticipate the illuminating work of Christ, because sin leaves human beings blind to the kingdom of God. But Christ opens the blind eyes so that his people may see the unseen realities of his reign and recognize that those with him are far greater than those against him.

The four leprous men also anticipate the gospel. They discover that the enemy has fled, and they declare that this is the day of good news in which silence would be sinful. Well, the church itself carries on an even greater announcement.

Christ has defeated sin, death, and Satan. The banquet of salvation has been prepared, and the spiritually starving are invited to come. Also, the four lepers anticipate even more unlikely witnesses because, in the same way that you wouldn't use lepers to announce good news, you certainly wouldn't use women, which were the very first gospel heralds, to announce the resurrection of Christ.

Judgment, Hazael, and the Coming Reversals

In all of this, these chapters move us towards judgment. Elisha weeps over Hazael because he knows that suffering is coming. Grace doesn't make evil harmless, and delayed judgment doesn't mean that God is indifferent.

The same Lord who cleanses Naaman, feeds enemies, and delivers Samaria will judge the hardened rebellion in the chapters to come. So as you read 2 Kings 5 -8, I want you to notice the great reversals.

The foreigner is cleansed, the insider is judged. The frightened servant sees heaven's armies, and yet the unbelieving officer sees deliverance, but he can't enjoy it. Outcasts become messengers of good news, and tomorrow we're going to see that the judgment long announced against Ahab's house is finally going to fall as Jehu rides furiously through Israel, and Jezebel meets her appointed end, and Baal's temple is finally and fully destroyed.

But with that, read your Bible carefully, devotionally, and joyfully. May the Lord use His word to sanctify you completely, and we will continue our journey tomorrow. God bless you.