2 Kings 5:11

5:11 Naaman went away angry. He said, “Look, I thought for sure he would come out, stand there, invoke the name of the Lord his God, wave his hand over the area, and cure the skin disease.

2 Kings 5:1

Elisha Heals a Syrian General

5:1 Now Naaman, the commander of the king of Syria’s army, was esteemed and respected by his master, ¹  for through him the Lord had given Syria military victories. But this great warrior had a skin disease. ² 

2 Kings 17:15-16

17:15 They rejected his rules, the covenant he had made with their ancestors, and the laws he had commanded them to obey. ³  They paid allegiance to ⁴  worthless idols, and so became worthless to the Lord. ⁵  They copied the practices of the surrounding nations in blatant disregard of the Lord’s command. ⁶  17:16 They abandoned all the commandments of the Lord their God; they made two metal calves and an Asherah pole, bowed down to all the stars in the sky, ⁷  and worshiped ⁸  Baal.

Luke 1:45

1:45 And blessed ⁹  is she who believed that ¹⁰  what was spoken to her by ¹¹  the Lord would be fulfilled.” ¹² 

Hebrews 11:7-8

11:7 By faith Noah, when he was warned about things not yet seen, with reverent regard ¹³  constructed an ark for the deliverance of his family. Through faith he condemned the world and became an heir of the righteousness that comes by faith.

11:8 By faith Abraham obeyed when he was called to go out to a place he would later receive as an inheritance, and he went out without understanding where he was going.

¹ tn Heb “was a great man before his master and lifted up with respect to the face.”

² tn For a discussion of מְצֹרָע (mÿtsora’), traditionally translated “leprous,” see M. Cogan and H. Tadmor, II Kings (AB), 63. Naaman probably had a skin disorder of some type, not leprosy/Hansen’s disease.

³ tn Or “and his warnings he had given them.”

⁴ tn Heb “They went [or, ‘followed’] after.” This idiom probably does not mean much if translated literally. It is found most often in Deuteronomy or in literature related to the covenant. It refers in the first instance to loyalty to God and to His covenant or His commandments (1 Kgs 14:8; 2 Chr 34:31) with the metaphor of a path or way underlying it (Deut 11:28; 28:14). To “follow other gods” was to abandon this way and this loyalty (to “abandon” or “forget” God, Judg 2:12; Hos 2:13) and to follow the customs or religious traditions of the pagan nations (2 Kgs 17:15). The classic text on “following” God or another god is 1 Kgs 18:18, 21 where Elijah taunts the people with “halting between two opinions” whether the Lord was the true God or Baal was. The idiom is often found followed by “to serve and to worship” or “they served and worshiped” such and such a god or entity (Jer 8:2; 11:10; 13:10; 16:11; 25:6; 35:15).

⁵ tn Heb “they followed after the worthless thing/things and became worthless.” The words “to the Lord” are not in the Hebrew text but are implicit from the context. There is an obvious wordplay on the verb “became worthless” and the noun “worthless thing”, which is probably to be understood collectively and to refer to idols as it does in Jer 8:19; 10:8; 14:22; Jonah 2:8.

⁶ tn Heb “and [they walked] after the nations which were around them, concerning which the Lord commanded them not to do like them.”

⁷ tn The phrase כָל צְבָא הַשָּׁמַיִם (khol tsÿva’ hashamayim), traditionally translated “all the host of heaven,” refers to the heavenly lights, including stars and planets. In 1 Kgs 22:19 these heavenly bodies are pictured as members of the Lord’s royal court or assembly, but many other texts view them as the illegitimate objects of pagan and Israelite worship.

⁸ tn Or “served.”

⁹ sn Again the note of being blessed makes the key point of the passage about believing God.

¹⁰ tn This ὅτι (Joti) clause, technically indirect discourse after πιστεύω (pisteuw), explains the content of the faith, a belief in God’s promise coming to pass.

¹¹ tn That is, “what was said to her (by the angel) at the Lord’s command” (BDAG 756 s.v. παρά A.2).

¹² tn Grk “that there would be a fulfillment of what was said to her from the Lord.”

¹³ tn Cf. BDAG 407 s.v. εὐλαβέομαι 2, “out of reverent regard (for God’s command).”