03.36. The Little Maid from a Foreign Land: 2Ki_5:3

Chapter 10 The Little Maid from a Foreign Land
2 Kings 5:3 The Lord, whether he seem to have forsaken us, or to have arrested us with a feeling of his displeasure, has doubtless in each case the design either of leading us to repentance, or of confirming us in it. He would divest us more and more of self; he would make us more thoroughly sensible of our entire dependence on Him, and on his grace. Like considerations may serve not only to reconcile us to many of his mysterious dealings with ourselves and others, but even to make us gratefully admire and adore the wisdom and goodness which he displays therein. Our present subject happily tends to the same result.

"And she said unto her mistress, Would God my lord were with the prophet that is in Samaria! for he would recover him of his leprosy." Our thoughts tarry with growing interest at Damascus, on account of Naaman, whom Providence had now so specially taken by the hand. No sooner do we witness, with painful sympathy, the decay and expiration of all his worldly glory, than another of infinitely greater brightness appears to dawn. And how remarkable was the commencement of this mercy! Bands of the Syrian army had made incursions upon the Israelitish frontiers, had attacked and plundered some unprotected place, and had carried off a little Jewish maiden, probably to sell her in Syria as a slave. Who would have imagined that such a scene of calamity was the introduction to a process of Divine mercy towards Naaman and his country? In what degree it was such will presently appear.