A brief moment for a one-person remnant - 2 Kings 5:2-3 - identity of slave girl in the story of Elisha's healing of the Syrian commander

The Interpretive Trace

The performance of the "young girl" is quickly over and done with. But her impact on the narrative, unlike her specific performance, is immense and long term. On the surface, of course, Elisha is the star player in this drama, a judgment further underscored by the larger collection of Elisha narratives in which this one stands. The star role of Elisha in this narrative, however, is made possible only by the bold testimony of the young girl, without which Elisha would never have been in contact with the Syrian commander. It is suggestive, therefore, to consider the impact of the "young girl" upon each of the principal characters in the narrative.

The Leprous Syrian Commander

Her impact on the leprous Syrian Commander is, of course, decisive for the narrative. She has no direct contact with him, her testimony being mediated to him by the wife of the commander, even though the narrative never has the wife explicitly relay the transformative news from wife to husband. At last in verse 4, the commander reports to his king the assertion of the young girl, though the identification of the young girl as the source of the new data is offered by the narrator rather than by the commander himself.

What interests us is that the commander believes her assertion and is prepared to act upon it immediately. No doubt his readiness is a measure of his anxiety and deprivation, his readiness to try anything, likely having exhausted conventional Syrian remedies. His readiness, his appeal to the Syrian king, and the consent of the Syrian king all quickly accomplished, however, do not cause us to miss the spectacular turn of the narrative (1) that a Syrian should seek Israelite remedy, and (b) that a commander should act on the word of a young, non-Syrian slave girl (The needfulness of the Syrian commander and eventual reliance upon the word of the slave girl is not unlike the final, desperate plea of Pharaoh in Exodus 12:32, on which see Wolff.)

The dire need of the commander is enough to explain his response. But beyond that, surely, the narrative wants to attest to the irresistible cruciality of the Israelite prophet and the God of the Israelite prophet who is the healer of the nations. What is narratively credible becomes a vehicle for a self-conscious Yahwistic attestation by the narrator. The chance for the prophet, offered on the lips of the young girl, overrides conventional resistances of both class (commander and slave girl) as well as ethnicity (Syrian and Israelite). The attestation of the young girl opens a story that could not otherwise occur and a healing that was not otherwise available.

Elisha, the Israelite Man of God

It is the attestation of the young girl that opens a chance for Elisha, the Israelite man of God, to ply his trade as an inscrutable force and as counter-point to the Israelite king, who is no help at all in this narrative (see v 7). The young girl and the man of God between them manage the transformation of the Syrian commander, with the Israelite king as a narrative irrelevance. The young girl's word got the commander as far as the presence of the Israelite king (vv 5-6); the prophetic initiative brings the commander the rest of the way to Elisha's house of healing (vv 8-9). Between them, as coconspirators for the healing God of Israel, the young girl and the awesome prophet have cooperated in transferring the Syrian commander into the zone of Yahwistic healing. For the journey of the commander from leprosy to cure, the force of the young girl is as decisive as is the work of the prophet. She has gotten the commander half-way there, propelled by her simple, unqualified confidence in the prophet of yhwh. She is the agent who makes possible the prophetic performance that lies at the heart of the narrative. Without her there would be no prophetic wonder enacted, as later remembered and retold in Israel.