Little Known Bible Characters: Gehazi- The Man Who Should Be Better
By Elizabeth Prata
SYNOPSIS
The post explores Gehazi, a lesser-known biblical figure and servant to Prophet Elisha, highlighting his tragic downfall due to greed and dishonesty. Despite witnessing God’s miracles, Gehazi’s actions led to his leprosy and a curse upon his descendants, illustrating the dangers of moral failings and the desire for earthly treasures.
In this ongoing series, I like to unearth a little known Bible person from its pages to examine him or her a bit more. Many people are mentioned scantily but not a lot else may be known about them aside from their name. Or, they may be mentioned frequently but ‘live’ in Old Testament books that are not read often, as is the case of today’s Little Known person, Gehazi.
Gehazi is shown to us in 2 Kings, 13 times. He is an interesting character to me because of his tragic soul.
We first meet Gehazi in 2 Kings 4. He is recorded as Prophet Elisha’s servant. And in the chapter, Gehazi is doing servant things. He did as was asked; he fetched things and he called people in to see Elisha. Elisha asked Gehazi for advice about the Shunammite woman Elisha wanted to repay. Gehazi said she had no son and her husband was old, so Elisha announced the Lord would give her a son. All seems well until now.
Then in 2 Kings 5 we meet with a troubling paragraph title: “Gehazi’s Greed.”
Naaman is the commander of the army of the king of Syria. This is an extremely high position. Unfortunately, Naaman has leprosy, a very low-down position. Naaman travels from Syria to Israel to see Prophet approaches Elisha, who gives directions to Naaman for his healing. He is healed, and a grateful Naaman wants to reward Elisha. Elijah refuses, staunchly.
Gehazi, hearing all this and seeing the wealth, decided to take a little behind Elisha’s back. He runs after Naaman out of sight of Elisha and worms some silver out of Naaman, in Elisha’s name. Big mistake. After Gehazi returns and hides his silver, Elisha confronts Gehazi. To make things worse, Gehazi’s reply is a lie to Elisha’s face, so Elisha transfers Naaman’s leprosy onto Gehazi AND his descendants forever.
We only hear of Gehazi one more time, in 2 Kings 8, where King Jehoram asked Gehazi to recount Elisha’s deeds. Probably from a distance, because, leprosy.
The narratives in early parts of 2 Kings 4 foreshadow the full emergence of Gehazi’s poor character. In 2 Kings 4:27 Gehazi pushed away a grieving woman trying to approach Elisha. In a second scene, Elisha commissioned Gehazi to lay Elisha’s staff on a dead boy’s face in order to restore the child to life him, but it failed. God’s power did not work through Gehazi’s hand. Elisha ended up coming to do it himself.
Gehazi was in the end shown to be duplicitous, greedy, liar, and selfish. This is all the more astounding because he was Prophet Elisha’s servant who saw with his own eyes the workings of God in people’s lives. Naaman was so overcome by his one miracle of the realization of God’s existence and power he asked to take mule-loads of Israel’s dirt back to Syria with him so he could worship on holy ground. Gehazi apparently, was unfazed after all of God’s working through Elisha.
As the servant of Elisha, a man of God, Gehazi should have been a better man. But a holy man Elisha had an unholy servant in Gehazi. Gehazi was near, yet far from all that was pure and beautiful in God. Here is an excerpt from Lockyer’s book All the Men of the Bible, entry on Gehazi-
What a contrast exists between one man and another: Elisha — living a vibrant spiritual life, the grand prayer-life and faith-life; Gehazi—grubbing in the earth and seeking contentment in the dust. And these contrasts still exist. Dinsdale T. Young enlarges upon the following features of Gehazi, the avaricious servant in this telling fashion:
I. He was familiar with sacred things, yet a stranger to their power. Gehazi was irreligious amid religion. He lived with good men and had a knowledge of God, yet succumbed to the hardening influence of spiritual things.
II. He had the incapacity to understand a saint. Gehazi failed to understand or appreciate both the character and conduct of Elisha.
III. He prostituted a strong and imaginative mind. The story Gehazi concocted and told to Naaman was skillfully constructed. His invention was a lie, and the cleverness in telling it revealed his depravity.
IV. He was successful at a fearful cost. He gained the social splendor he desired in the gold and garments Naaman gave him. But think of the price Gehazi paid. He lost his health, for he became a leper, a judgment Gehazi himself felt to be just. Gehazi also brought a blight upon his family. Instead of leaving his ill-gotten gains to his descendants, his judgment likewise fell upon his seed.
Source, Herbert Lockyer, “All the Men of the Bible”
We read over and over in the book of Mark how the masses followed Jesus. The watched, saw, and even participated in his miracles. They were amazed at His authority to teach. They even proclaimed Him a prophet or Messiah. But most turned away. Proximity to Godliness is no cure for the heart’s sinful condition. Observing, viewing, noticing, being near…none of those things count to change the depravity within.
Here with Gehazi we don’t have unnamed masses, we have a named individual. He remained in his sin despite having seen and experienced the power of God with his own eyes. Gehazi was like Simon Magus who also saw the power of God but all he could think about was buying it with money. Mixing filthy lucre with the power of God! It’s quite tragic. Aren’t we warned in 1 Timothy 6:10, For the love of money is a root of all sorts of evil, and some by longing for it have wandered away from the faith and pierced themselves with many griefs.
Gehazi’s story is a warning for all of us. It is easy to dismiss the nameless and faceless masses following Jesus in the Gospels, saying to ourselves “I’d never do that!” But we are all potentially Gehazi, at risk of taking our eyes off the glory of God in heaven to lust after earthly treasures. In doing this, Gehazi missed the biggest treasure of all, eternal life.
Other Little Known Characters in the series:
Little Known Bible Characters #8: Tryphena and Tryphosa
Little Known Bible Characters #7: Salome
Little Known Bible Characters #6: King Chedorlaomer
Little Known Bible Characters #5: Harbonah the Eunuch
Little Known Bible Characters #4: Eutychus
Little Known Bible Characters #3: Trophimus
Little Known Bible Characters #2: ‘The List of Offenders’
Little Known Bible Characters #1: Iddo
