2 Kings 5:20–27, King James Version
Italic words were supplied in the English translation for clarity.
2 Kings 5:20–27
Gehazi pursues payment and receives Naaman's condition
Gehazi chases the gift Elisha refused
Gehazi decides his master was too easy on Naaman. He runs after the Aramean, invents a story about two young prophets who need a talent of silver and two changes of clothes, and takes twice that when Naaman presses him. He hides the goods in the house and stands before Elisha as if nothing moved.
Elisha asks where he has been. Nowhere, Gehazi says. Did not my heart go with you, Elisha answers, when the man turned from his chariot to meet you? Is this a time to take money, garments, olive orchards, vineyards, sheep, oxen, servants? Naaman's skin disease will cling to Gehazi and his descendants forever. He leaves Elisha's presence leprous, as white as snow. Ministry greed does not merely look bad. It catches the very condition the gospel of this chapter had just lifted.
How this should shape us
Do not recover by deceit what God told you not to charge. If you use holy work to stock a private future, you may inherit the sickness you claimed to serve people through.
Teach it back
Explain 2 Kings 5:20–27 in your own words. Include its movement, one source-supported detail, one material uncertainty, one affected or obscured person, and one misuse the complete context rules out.
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Go deeper
The explanation above is meant to stand on its own. Open these notes only if you want language, history, disagreements, or source locations.
Where careful interpreters disagreeThe strongest options and their difficulties
Where do careful interpreters disagree?
Best judgment: The extension 'unto thy seed' is ethically difficult, and the skin-disease language cannot be mapped directly onto modern diagnoses or worth.
How certain? probableResearch trail and exact locationsThe source record behind this section
Supports: Exact reader-facing KJV wording, paragraph metadata, supplied-word markup, and complete verse coverage for this thought unit.
2 Kings 5:20–27, pinned eng-kjv2006 USFM corpus
Supports: Hebrew wording, morphology, names, royal formulas, clause relationships, older-English controls, and translation limits.
Open Scriptures MorphHB v.2.2, commit 6a5db284c715c18b239422e57bb89684e6a19f00, wlc/2Kgs.xml, Masoretic words and morphology for 5:20–27
Supports: A unit-bounded translation comparison plus only the lexical, grammatical, textual, historical, or older-English notes actually printed for these verses; silence is not treated as evidence.
NET Bible 2 Kings PDF, printed pp. 633–635, translation and translator notes for 5:20–27
Supports: Unit-level literary, compositional, historical, and theological orientation used as one concise scholarly synthesis rather than consensus.
Dietrich, '1 and 2 Kings,' Oxford Bible Commentary (2001), printed pp. 249–253, exposition covering 2 Kings 5:20–27
Supports: A thematic scholarly control preserving both outsider inclusion and the power, captivity, and compromise the healing story can obscure.
Firth, 'Foreigners in the Former Prophets,' complete Naaman discussion: captive girl, Aramean commander, refused gift, confession, outsider status, and Rimmon dilemma
Sources for This Section
These records identify the source, the claim it supports, and the exact location used. A source remains evidence to evaluate; it does not replace the biblical text.
Biblical text
King James (Authorized) Version — eng-kjv2006
eBible.org and CrossWire Bible Society
USFM archive eng-kjv2006_usfm.zip; source files dated 2026-08-19; downloaded 2026-08-24; archive SHA-256 aec1b3b26c622fd3d963d2bbac963016b9513246ffbfa20da00bb100372ea007; normalized corpus SHA-256 09aef51d90488aa7b9722b3fd9a93f4b25f6bf2064c5fd798fb39673c300ddf2.
Supports: Exact reader-facing KJV wording, paragraph metadata, supplied-word markup, and complete verse coverage for this thought unit.
Exact location: 2 Kings 5:20–27, pinned eng-kjv2006 USFM corpus
Open source ↗hebrew text and morphology
Open Scriptures Hebrew Bible: 2 Kings
Open Scriptures
Open Scriptures, release 2.2
Supports: Hebrew wording, morphology, names, royal formulas, clause relationships, older-English controls, and translation limits.
Exact location: Open Scriptures MorphHB v.2.2, commit 6a5db284c715c18b239422e57bb89684e6a19f00, wlc/2Kgs.xml, Masoretic words and morphology for 5:20–27
Open source ↗translation and translator notes
NET Bible: 2 Kings with translators' notes
Biblical Studies Press
Biblical Studies Press, 2006
Supports: A unit-bounded translation comparison plus only the lexical, grammatical, textual, historical, or older-English notes actually printed for these verses; silence is not treated as evidence.
Exact location: NET Bible 2 Kings PDF, printed pp. 633–635, translation and translator notes for 5:20–27
Open source ↗scholarly commentary chapter
1 and 2 Kings
Walter Dietrich
The Oxford Bible Commentary, Oxford University Press, 2001
Supports: Unit-level literary, compositional, historical, and theological orientation used as one concise scholarly synthesis rather than consensus.
Exact location: Dietrich, '1 and 2 Kings,' Oxford Bible Commentary (2001), printed pp. 249–253, exposition covering 2 Kings 5:20–27
Open source ↗scholarly essay
Foreigners in the Former Prophets
David G. Firth
The Bible and Interpretation, 2021
Supports: A thematic scholarly control preserving both outsider inclusion and the power, captivity, and compromise the healing story can obscure.
Exact location: Firth, 'Foreigners in the Former Prophets,' complete Naaman discussion: captive girl, Aramean commander, refused gift, confession, outsider status, and Rimmon dilemma
Open source ↗