4. Naaman recognized the significance of the directions given by the prophet, and was offended at them.—“Behold, I thought, He will surely come out to me, and stand and call on the name of the Lord his God, and strike his hand over the place, and recover the leper. Are not Abana and Pharpar, rivers of Damascus, better than all the waters of Israel? May I not wash in them and be clean? So he turned and went away in a rage.”—2 Kings v, 11, 12. Here (1.) Naaman sharply distinguishes between the healing and the cleansing. For the latter purpose, the waters of Abana and Pharpar were sufficient for him,—better than all those of Israel. All he wanted was, that the prophet should heal him; and for this he was ready to reward him liberally. But, instead of being treated with the consideration due to a lordly patron, he feels himself insulted, by being expected to take the position of an unclean and humble suppliant; and that, too, at the feet of the God of Israel. For, (2.) he indicates his understanding of what was meant by the prophet’s message. If Elisha had come out and healed the leprosy, as Naaman expected, it would have been perfectly consistent with the idolatrous religion of the Syrian to recognize Elisha as a great prophet, and the God of Elisha as one of the great gods; although entitled to no exclusive worship from the Syrians, whose tutelary deity was Rimmon. But, when the prophet, instead of this, sent him to _Jordan_ to be _cleansed_, and that by washing seven times, the Syrian recognized that he was thus required to own allegiance to the God of Israel, and to humble himself, as utterly unclean in His sight, and look to him, as alone able to heal his leprosy, or cleanse his sins. In a word, he was, by the message of the prophet, brought face to face with the glad but humbling word of the gospel, as it spake so clearly in the rites of cleansing for leprosy. That, in the result, he accepted the good tidings thus announced, may not be asserted with confidence. But, that he professed to do so, the narrative assures us. “Behold, now, I know that there is no God in all the earth but in Israel.”—vs. 15. By this profession of faith, and by his application to Elisha for two mules’ burden of the earth of Canaan, with which to make an altar to the God of Israel, the Syrian showed his intelligent appreciation of the issues involved in the observances required by Elisha, and of the typical meaning of the land and river of Israel. The purpose of the earth for which he asked was to make an altar, after the manner of those appointed in the law; which appear to have been frames or boxes filled with earth on which the fire was kindled. (Ex. xx, 24.)