John Macduff

The Story of Naaman the Syrian, an Old Testament Chapter in Providence and Grace John Macduff

Many are the pleasing and graphic incidents interspersed throughout Old Testament story, which have the scene of their occurrence laid in the Land of Promise. In the narrative, however, whose lessons are at present to engage our attention, we are called to cross the northern boundary of Lebanon to the contiguous kingdom of Syria, the long and troublesome rival of Israel. A period of quiescence had now happily supervened between the Hebrew tribes and their hereditary foe. King Benhadad and Joram were, for the time, on amicable terms, and a peaceful domestic picture opens to us, like a gleam of sunshine amid the storms of war. Every country in the world has been proud of its illustrious soldiers. We may well believe that the empire of which Damascus was the capital, would not be behind in doing homage to military genius-that her highest honors would be heaped on "a mighty man of valor." Such was NAAMAN, the most conspicuous among the group of figures in our narrative chapter-"the Earl marshal," as an old writer calls him, "to the King of Aram"-the commander-in-chief of the Syrian hosts, the favored idol of a warlike race. "Now Naaman, captain of the host of the king of Syria, was a great man with his master, and honorable, because by him the Lord had given deliverance unto Syria-he was also a mighty man of valor; but he was a leper."-2 Kings 5:1