2 Kings 5:11

11 But Naaman became angry and he went and said, "Look, I said to myself, 'Surely he will come out, stand, call upon the name of Yahweh his God, and wave his hands over the spot; then he would take away the skin disease.'

2 Kings 5:11 Meaning and Commentary

2 Kings 5:11

But Naaman was wroth with him
On more accounts than one:

and went away;
not to Jordan, but from the prophet's house, with an intention to return to his own country:

behold, I thought, he will surely come out to me
this he said within himself, making no doubt of it but that he would show him so much respect and civility as to come out of his house to him, and converse with him, or invite him into it and not doing this was one thing made him wroth: and stand; he supposed that he would not only come out, but stand before him, as inferiors before their superiors in reverence, but instead of that he remained sitting within doors:

and call on the name of the Lord his God:
he expected, that as he was a prophet of the Lord, that he would have prayed to him for the cure of him:

and strike his hand over the place;
wave his hand to and fro, as the word signifies, over the place of the leprosy, as the Targum, over the place affected with it; or towards the place where he worshipped the Lord, as Ben Gersom, toward the temple at Jerusalem; or towards Jordan, the place where he bid him go and wash, as Abarbinel; but the first sense seems best: "and recover the leper"; meaning himself, heal him by the use of such means and rites.

2 Kings 5:11 In-Context

9 Then Naaman came with his horses and his chariots, and he stopped [at] the doorway of the house of Elisha.

10 Elisha sent a messenger to him, saying, "Go, you must wash seven times in the Jordan, then your flesh shall return to you, and you shall be clean."

11 But Naaman became angry and he went and said, "Look, I said to myself, 'Surely he will come out, stand, call upon the name of Yahweh his God, and wave his hands over the spot; then he would take away the skin disease.'

12 Are not the Abana and the Pharpar, the rivers of Damascus, better than all of the waters of Israel? Could I not wash in them that I may be clean?" Then he turned and left in anger.

13 But his servants came near and spoke to him and said, "My father, [if] the prophet had spoken a difficult thing to you to do, would you not have done [it]? [Why not] even when he says to you, 'Wash and you shall be clean'?"