2 Kings 5:12 (DBY)

Passage

Are not the Abanah and the Pharpar, rivers of Damascus, better than all the waters of Israel? may I not wash in them and be clean? And he turned and went away in a rage.

Nearby Context

2 Kings 5:10 And Elisha sent a messenger to him, saying, Go and wash in the Jordan seven times, and thy flesh shall come again to thee, and thou shalt be clean.

2 Kings 5:11 And Naaman was wroth, and went away and said, Behold, I thought, He will certainly come out to me, and stand, and call on the name of Jehovah his God, and wave his hand over the place, and cure the leper.

2 Kings 5:12 Are not the Abanah and the Pharpar, rivers of Damascus, better than all the waters of Israel? may I not wash in them and be clean? And he turned and went away in a rage.

2 Kings 5:13 And his servants drew near, and spoke to him and said, My father, [if] the prophet had bidden thee [do some] great thing, wouldest thou not have done it? how much rather then, when he says to thee, Wash and be clean?

2 Kings 5:14 Then he went down, and plunged himself seven times in the Jordan, according to the saying of the man of God. And his flesh became again like the flesh of a little child, and he was clean.

Study Lenses

The verse centers on "abanah", "pharpar", "rivers", "damascus", "better", "than", "waters", and "israel". It is saying that the verse draws attention to "abanah" and "pharpar", so its meaning should be read from those terms before moving to application.

The nearby context moves from verse 11's "And Naaman was wroth and went away..." into verse 13's "And his servants drew near and spoke...", so "abanah" and "pharpar" belong inside that flow. In 2 Kings context, the local focus is covenant, worship, and faithfulness.

A plain takeaway is to answer the verse's own emphasis on "abanah" and "pharpar" with trust shaped by these words, not by a vague optimism outside the passage.