Naaman
Pronounced NAY-uh-mun
- Meaning
- "Pleasant; Delightful; Good"
- Origin
- Hebrew
Naaman means "pleasant" or "delightful" in Hebrew. He was the commander of the Syrian army — "a great man with his master, and honourable... a mighty man in valour, but he was a leper." That devastating "but" sets up one of Scripture's most powerful healing stories. A captured Israelite slave girl told Naaman's wife about the prophet Elisha in Samaria. Naaman traveled to Israel with lavish gifts, but Elisha didn't even come to the door. He simply sent a messenger: "Go and wash in Jordan seven times." Naaman was furious — he expected a dramatic ceremony, not a muddy river. His servants persuaded him with practical wisdom: "If the prophet had bid thee do some great thing, wouldest thou not have done it? how much rather then, when he saith to thee, Wash, and be clean?" Naaman humbled himself, dipped seven times in the Jordan, and "his flesh came again like unto the flesh of a little child, and he was clean." Naaman's story illustrates that God's methods often offend human pride. The healing required not great effort but simple obedience — and the willingness to accept God's way rather than demanding our own.
Spiritual meaning
Naaman — the mighty general brought low by leprosy — learned that God's healing comes through humility, not heroics. Seven dips in a muddy river accomplished what no army or treasure could.
Related verses (KJV)
"Now Naaman, captain of the host of the king of Syria, was a great man with his master, and honourable... he was also a mighty man in valour, but he was a leper."
2 Kings 5:1 (KJV) →"Then went he down, and dipped himself seven times in Jordan, according to the saying of the man of God: and his flesh came again like unto the flesh of a little child, and he was clean."
2 Kings 5:14 (KJV) →