Naaman is healed by Elisha – Musical Leprosy - Part 2

You better watch out. You better not cry. Better not pout, I’m telling you why. Leprosy is coming to town.

On the way back home, one of Naaman’s servants got to thinking and said to Naaman, “You know, if this Elisha guy had told you to do some fantastic thing like gather 200 Philistine foreskins or build an arc you totally would have done it. Maybe you should just try the trick with the river to see if it works.” So Naaman went to the Jordan and dipped himself seven times. After the seventh time, he came out with perfect skin – completely free from disease.

Naaman was thrilled to be healed so he rushed back to Elisha’s house and tried to give Elisha all the loot. Elisha wouldn’t take it though, so Naaman left promising that from that day forward the only god he would worship would be the Hebrew god.

Gehazi, Elisha’s servant heard all this and ran after Naaman as fast as he could. Once he caught up he said, “Hey, Elisha sent me. We have a couple of visitors coming. Elisha wants you to give me a talent of silver and two sets of clothes for these visitors. Naaman was thrilled to be able to give something to Elisha so he gave Gehazi TWO talents of silver and the clothing. He even let Gehazi borrow a couple of servants to carry the loot.

After Gehazi had the stuff safely hidden in the house Elisha tracked him down for a little chat. Elisha has NOT pleased that Gehazi ran off to get some money from Naaman and he said, “You stupid little shit. This is not time to try to get rich. Because you did this, you are the new owner of Naaman’s leprosy.

Gehazi immediately because leprous “as white as snow.”

Moral: God’s servants are really good at telling bacterial infections what to do.

Ref: 2 Kings 5:12-26

Naaman is healed by Elisha – Musical Leprosy - Part 1

You better watch out. You better not cry. Better not pout, I’m telling you why. Leprosy is coming to town.

Back when Elisha was the most famous living prophet of Jehovah, the leader of Syria’s armies was this guy named Naaman. He was so awesome that Jehovah let him keep Syria from being wiped out by the Israelites. The only problem was that he was a leper. Fortunately for him, his soldiers would regularly run raids into Israel to catch Hebrews they could use as slaves. One such slave, a young Hebrew girl, ended up belonging to Naaman’s wife. The reason this is fortunate for Naaman is one day the poor little Hebrew girl said to her owner, "I really wish your husband could visit the Hebrew prophet. I just know our prophet would heal your husband.”

Understandably Naaman’s wife wasn’t too thrilled with the whole leprous husband thing, so it didn’t take long before she figured out a way to get this information to the King of Syria. The King was fond of his military leader so he gave Naaman ten talents of silver, six thousand pieces of gold, and ten sets of clothing for payment and sent him to visit the Hebrew king.

When Naaman explained why he’d come to visit, the King freaked out, tore his clothes, and started to cry. He said, “What gives? I’m not God. I can’t give or take leprosy. The King of Syria must be looking for a reason to start another war.” In another stroke of luck, Elisha heard about the king’s little fit and sent the king a message that Naaman should be sent to him so he could be taught that God had a prophet in Israel.

When Naaman showed up at Elisha’s place, Elisha sent out a servant to tell Naaman he just needed to wash in the Jordan River seven times and he would be healed.

This was all so incredibly absurd that Naaman got all kinds of upset and said, “What gives? I came all the way down here and this bastard won’t even come outside to greet me? I totally thought he would just come outside, call upon God, lay his hands on me, I would be healed, and I could leave all this damn money I’ve been hauling around. This is total bullshit. I’m out of here!”

To be continued in Part 2. What will happen to Naaman? Stay tuned for the next update.

Ref: 2 Kings 5:1-11

Ahab and His Dogs – It’s important to have canine friends

If it was important enough to write, it should be important enough to learn about

By the end of the First Book of Kings the king of Israel was named Ahab. At that time their most favored enemy was Syria. One day when the Leader of the tribe of Judah (Jehoshaphat) came to visit King Ahab, they got to talking about Ramoth. Ramoth was a region that used to be under Israeli control, but was currently occupied by Syria. Ahab decided it was time to take back Ramoth and Jehoshaphat was happy to help out, he just wanted Ahab to ask Jehovah first.

Ahab gathered together his personal cadre of prophets together, about 400 men, and asked them how things were going to turn out if they invaded Syria. The prophets gave him the green light, guaranteeing him that Jehovah would help Israel win. Jehoshaphat wasn’t sure 400 prophets were enough so he asked if there were any more. Turn out there was this one guy named Micaiah, but Ahab didn’t like him because he didn’t have very nice things to say about Ahab.

So they send for Micaiah who agrees to make a prediction, but he was only going to say what Jehovah told him to. Ahab agreed and Micaiah said, “Go ahead and invade Ramoth. God will make sure you win.” Ahab was a pretty smart guy and he replied, “Bullshit man! How many times have I told you to tell me the truth?” So Micaiah comes clean and tells Ahab that he is definitely going to die. In fact, Micaiah went on for a bit about how God was tricking Ahab into attacking Ramoth so he would die. He said, “Ok, here’s the deal. I saw Jehovah sitting on his throne in Heaven and he asked the host of heaven who was going to help him trick you into attacking Ramoth. Then I saw this one super fancy angel walk up to God and say, ‘Yeah, I got ya. I’ll go be a lying spirit for Ahab’s prophets to make sure they trick him.’ “

One of Ahab’s prophets heard this and walked over to Micaiah and pimp-slapped him saying, “What the Hell man? Where the hell do you get off? You are so full of shit man. You better watch your back. I’m just saying.” Ahab sided with pimp-slapping prophet and had Micaiah thrown into prison.

Just to be safe though, Ahab disguised himself and had Jehoshaphat dress up in his clothes for the battle. During the battle the Syrian forces went straight for the guy in the King’s clothes, but when Jehoshaphat started screaming hysterically and ran away they figured out they had been duped. Not that it did much good though. You see, some random guy shot a random arrow that randomly hit Ahab. Like I mentioned earlier, Ahab was pretty smart so he noticed that he’d been hit by an arrow and said to his chariot driver, “Turn thy hand, and carry me out of the host; for I am wounded.”

It didn’t take Ahab very long to die after getting hit by the arrow. In that time though he managed to make a huge mess of the chariot, bleedin’ all over the place like it was goin’ out of style. Fortunately Ahab had a lot of dogs and they were able to lick the chariot clean.

Now just remember that if God wants you dead, it’s pretty easy for Him to deceive a whole bunch of prophets into thinking He doesn’t want you dead, then make some random arrow hit you.

Ref: 1 Kings 22:1-39