Verse Lens · Concise explanation
2 Kings 5:13 Explained in Context
Use this verse as a doorway into the larger passage—not as an isolated saying.
Verse 13. 13And his servants came near, and spake unto him, and said, My father, if the prophet had bid thee do some great thing, wouldest thou not have done it? how much rather then, when he saith to thee, Wash, and be clean?
King James Version — public domain in the United States · Bible text and permissions
Quick Meaning
This verse advances the thought unit through its next reported action, speech, or consequence: “And his servants came near, and spake unto him, and said, My father, if the prophet had bid….” Its responsible meaning belongs to the complete movement “Naaman resists and then washes in the Jordan.”
Read It With
- 2 Kings 5:8–14
Read 2 Kings 5:13 with 5:8–14. The selected wording supplies one step in the thought unit through its next reported action, speech, or consequence; the surrounding verses supply the causes, responses, and outcome summarized here: Elisha redirects the king, sends Naaman to wash seven times, and the angry commander finally listens to servants and is cleansed.
Why This Verse Appears Here
Within “Naaman resists and then washes in the Jordan,” 2 Kings 5:13 advances the thought unit through its next reported action, speech, or consequence through the wording “And his servants came near, and spake unto him, and said, My father, if the prophet had bid….” Its placement is governed by this reviewed relationship: 2 Kings 5:1–7 establishes this prior movement: Naaman is an honored Aramean commander with a skin disease; a captive girl tells his wife of the prophet, and royal letters turn the request into a diplomatic crisis. 2 Kings 5:8–14 continues the same royal, prophetic, household, military, reform, or exile movement; that evidenced relationship, rather than database adjacency alone, explains its placement.
Read 2 Kings 5:8–14 together
Why these verses belong together: 2 Kings 5:8–14 forms one scene or regnal notice: Elisha redirects the king, sends Naaman to wash seven times, and the angry commander finally listens to servants and is cleansed.
Verse 8. 8 And it was so, when Elisha the man of God had heard that the king of Israel had rent his clothes, that he sent to the king, saying, Wherefore hast thou rent thy clothes? let him come now to me, and he shall know that there is a prophet in Israel.
Verse 9. 9 So Naaman came with his horses and with his chariot, and stood at the door of the house of Elisha.
Verse 10. 10 And Elisha sent a messenger unto him, saying, Go and wash in Jordan seven times, and thy flesh shall come again to thee, and thou shalt be clean.
Verse 11. 11 But Naaman was wroth, and went away, and said, 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.
Verse 12. 12 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.
Verse 13. 13 And his servants came near, and spake unto him, and said, My father, if the prophet had bid thee do some great thing, wouldest thou not have done it? how much rather then, when he saith to thee, Wash, and be clean?
Verse 14. 14 Then went he down, and dipped himself seven times in Jordan, according to the saying of the man of God: and his flesh came again like unto the flesh of a little child, and he was clean.
What Remains True
Public power, prophetic authority, and worship remain accountable to truth, human responsibility, affected people, and the limits of the evidence rather than title or success alone. This unit tests that truth through the narrated movement: Elisha redirects the king, sends Naaman to wash seven times, and the angry commander finally listens to servants and is cleansed. In 2 Kings 5:13, the concrete line “And his servants came near, and spake unto him, and said, My father, if the prophet had bid…” keeps that truth accountable to narrated evidence.
How It Can Shape Life
- The evidence to keep visible in this verse is “And his servants came near, and spake unto him, and said, My father, if the prophet had bid….” Use entrusted authority transparently, protect people affected by the decision, record who is responsible, and submit claimed spiritual or political necessity to independent review. This response follows from the unit's own sequence: Elisha redirects the king, sends Naaman to wash seven times, and the angry commander finally listens to servants and is cleansed.
Continue in Context
The full thought-unit study remains the final contextual authority for this Verse Lens.
Read 2 Kings 5:8–14 — Naaman resists and then washes in the JordanSources used for this Verse Lens
How certain is this explanation? strong
These are the sources used directly for this lens. Language, grammar, disagreements, and the complete source shelf remain attached to the full thought-unit research record.
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 5:8–14, 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 5:8–14
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 5:8–14
Open source ↗