by
Damien F. Mackey
Hazael’s being Na’aman (if that is who he was) would
account for the curious fact that Yahweh had commissioned the prophet Elijah at
Sinai to anoint a Syrian.
For Na’aman was a Syrian who had (in his own fashion)
converted to Yahwism.
Dr. Velikovsky had put together quite a
reasonable case for EA’s Ianhama to have
been the biblical Na’aman the leper.
Might this Ianhama, though, have been a bit too early for the healing of
Na’aman by the prophet Elisha: “Yanhamu
began his service under Amenophis III” (E. Campbell, The Chronology of the Amarna Letters, Section C. “Yanhamu and the
South”, 1964, p. 93) - the miraculous biblical
incident having occurred not
very long, apparently, before the assassination of Ben-Hadad I? The latter
event I would estimate to have been significantly later than the time of
pharaoh Amenhotep ‘the Magnificent’.
Another possibility for the historical
identification of the haughty Syrian captain, Na’aman, I would tentatively
suggest, would be Hazael himself, whom Dr. Velikovsky had wonderfully
identified with Aziru of the EA
series.
Hazael was, like Na’aman, a Syrian (I Kings
19:15): “The Lord
said to [Elijah], ‘Go back the way you came, and go to the Desert of Damascus.
When you get there, anoint Hazael king over Aram’.”
2 Kings 5:1: “Now Naaman was
commander of the army of the king of Aram”.
Na’aman, Hazael, dwelt in very close contact
with king Ben-Hadad I.
Compare Na’aman’s words to Elisha (2 Kings
5:18-19):
‘But may the
Lord forgive your servant for this
one thing: When my master [אֲדֹנִי] enters the temple of Rimmon to bow down
and he is leaning on my arm and I have to bow there also—when I bow down in the
temple of Rimmon, may the Lord
forgive your servant for this’.
‘Go in peace’,
Elisha said [,]
with the fact that Hazael had close personal
access to his “master” (same Hebrew word, adoni
Then
Hazael left Elisha and returned to his master [אֲדֹנִי]. When Ben-Hadad asked, ‘What did Elisha
say to you?’ Hazael replied, ‘He told me that you would certainly recover’. But
the next day he took a thick cloth, soaked it in water and spread it over the
king’s face, so that he died. Then Hazael succeeded him as king.
Hazael’s being Na’aman (if that is who he
was) would account for the curious fact that Yahweh had commissioned the
prophet Elijah at Sinai to anoint a Syrian. For Na’aman was a Syrian who had
(in his own fashion) converted to Yahwism.
Moreover, the former Syrian captain was militarily
astute, “Na’aman …. was a valiant soldier” (2 Kings 5:1), who may have begun
the demise of the House of Ahab himself by fatally shooting Ahab with an arrow
(Emil G. Hirsch, et al., “Naaman”):
And the Syrian captain would have considered
the disposal of Ben-Hadad I as being a Divinely commissioned task, especially
after this (2 Kings 8:13): “Hazael said, ‘How could your servant, a mere dog,
accomplish such a feat?’ ‘The Lord
has shown me that you will become king of Aram’, answered Elisha”.
Finally, as Velikovsky had found Na’aman to have been “a generous
man”, as is apparent from 2 Kings 5:5: “So Naaman left,
taking with him ten talents of silver, six thousand shekels of gold and ten
sets of clothing”, so, too, was Hazael an
extremely generous man (2 Kings 8:9): “Hazael went to
meet Elisha, taking with him as a gift forty camel-loads of all the finest wares
of Damascus”.
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