Metzora/Leprous
Leviticus 14:1-15:33
IIKings 7:3-20
I don’t mean to be disrespectful to the scriptures, but part of today’s haftorah portion reads like a Monty Python (irreverent British comedy) script. The ‘heroes’ are a family of 4; Gehazi (Elisha’s servant and his 3 sons), all stricken with leprosy. I will address the reason for their condition later, but basically their nation is having a horrible famine and between being total outcasts and starving to death, they set out for the enemy camp. They reason that the Syrians will either let them live (which means they will get fed), or they will kill them for being leprous and being the enemy, which is also okay since they are starving to death anyway! As they approach the Syrian camp, the Lord causes the sound of a great army to be heard outside the camp, and all the Syrian army flees, leaving all their possessions and food behind. All this causes Elisha’s prophecy to the King of Samaria to come true. Here is some context: there was such a famine in the land that people were actually eating their children, if you can even imagine, plus living in fear of the Syrian army wiping them out. The king unfortunately doesn’t take responsibility for their plight and blames the man of God, Elisha, for not stopping the famine. The Lord announces through him that basically that there will be so much food the next day, that it will be almost free! To which the king’s guard says that it could never be! To this ‘exercise’ of unbelief, Elisha tells him he won’t eat of it and in fact the king will die. Guess what! It really happens; after the lepers tell the city about their find, the city rushes to get the massive amounts of food and in the process, the king’s guard gets trampled to death. I won’t even try to give you a life’s lesson from all this, except maybe to be prepared to believe God…!
BONUS INSIGHT: I’m not sure if you caught the fact that it was Elisha’s servant that was leprous. We would normally think that possibly being a servant in the ‘kingdom’ has some safety benefits…and that would be accurate for the most part. However, it can also have some pitfalls! After Naaman got healed of leprosy by the word of the Lord from Elisha, as he was leaving for home, Gehazi ran after him and required a reward for his healing. Not a good idea! Not God’s idea of fundraising for your ministry! The only ‘reward’ that Gehazi left with that day was leprosy for himself and his sons! I don’t think I need to clarify… by john eisner
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