- 98-
Shalmaneser. Another successful campaign is chronicled as having been undertaken
in the eleventh year of the same reign, when Shalmaneser records that for the ninth
time he crossed the Euphrates; and yet another, in the fourteenth year of his reign,
when at the head of 120,000 men he crossed the river at its high flood. Two
inferences may, for our present purpose, be made from these notices. The defeat of
Ahab's forces, when fighting in conjunction with Ben-hadad, will account for the
cessation of the alliance entered into after the battle of Aphek. Again, the repeated
defeat of Ben-hadad by Assyria will explain how Ahab took heart of grace, and in
company with Jehoshaphat undertook that fatal expedition against Ramoth-Gilead (1
Kings 22), in which literally the "life" of Ahab went for that of him whom, from
short-sighted political motives, he had spared (1 Kings 20:42). Lastly, these repeated
wars between Assyria and Syria, of which the Assyrian monarch would naturally
only record the successful engagements, help us to understand the phrase by which
Naaman, captain^194 of the host of Syria, is introduced as he "by whom the LORD had
given deliverance [perhaps "victory"] unto Syria"^195 (2 Kings 5:1).
The expression just quoted seems to forbid the application of the words to the victory
of Ben-hadad over Ahab,^196 although the Rabbis imagine that the fatal arrow by
which Ahab was smitten came from the bow of Naaman.
Accordingly we cannot (as most commentators do) mark this antithesis: that the
conqueror of Israel had to come to Israel for healing. But the fact is in itself
sufficiently remarkable, especially when we think of it in connection with his
disease, which would have placed even an Israelite, so to speak, outside the pale of
Israel. In striking contrast to the mention of the strength and bravery of Naaman, and
of his exalted position, Scripture abruptly, without pause or copula of conjunction,
records the fact: "a leper."^197
We need not pause to consider the moral of this contrast, with all of teaching which it
should convey to us. Quite another lesson comes to us from an opposite direction.
For we also learn from this history how, when our need is greatest, help may be
nearest, and that, in proportion as we feel the hopelessness of our case, God may
prepare a way for our deliverance. It was certainly so in this instance. Once more we
mark the wonder-working Providence of God, Who, without any abrupt or even
visibly direct interference, brings about results which, if viewed by themselves, must
seem absolutely miraculous. And this, by means which at the time may have
appeared most unpromising.
It must have been a crushing sorrow that came upon that Israelitish household, when
the Syrian bands carried from it the little maiden whom we find afterwards waiting
on Naaman's wife. Yet this was the first link in the chain of events which not only
brought healing of body and soul to the Syrian captain, but anew proved alike to Jew
(^)