(3.) This law had now been in operation for six hundred years, whilst its regulations were such as to arrest and fix the attention of all observers. (4.) To Naaman, a Syrian, of a country immediately contiguous to the land of Israel, and belonging to a people of kindred blood, language, traditions, and customs, the Hebrew ideas on this subject, so interesting to him, can not have been unknown or strange. Even had he been otherwise ignorant, he could not but have been informed by the Hebrew maiden at whose suggestion he undertook his journey to the court of Israel, in quest of healing. That hers must have been a character of both intelligence and piety, is evident from the whole narrative, and especially from the fact that it inspired such confidence as led the Syrian, at her suggestion, to obtain from his king letters to the king of Israel, and to go to that court, in the hope of cure, bearing with him rich gifts, designed as tokens of gratitude. (2 Kings, v, 2-5.) (5.) The whole history shows this episode in the life of Elisha to have been any thing but a casual incident. It bears every mark of a special and extraordinary providence, designed to bring home to the Syrians and to Israel a signal testimony to the power and grace of the true God. The peculiar relation which Elijah and Elisha bore to the Syrians is illustrated by the fact that, at this very time, the latter held a commission from God through Elijah to anoint Hazael to be king of Syria, instead of the reigning king Benhadad; by Elisha’s subsequent presence in Damascus, in fulfillment of that commission, and by the application which Benhadad made to him, to inquire of the Lord as to the issue of the disease which was then upon him. (1 Kings xix, 15-17; 2 Kings viii, 7-13.)