While Jesus was on His way to Jerusalem, He was passing between Samaria and Galilee. As He entered one of the villages, He was met by ten lepers. They stood at a distance and raised their voices, shouting, “Jesus, Master, have mercy on us!” When Jesus saw them, He said, “Go, show yourselves to the priests.” And as they were on their way, they were cleansed. When one of them saw that he was healed, he came back, praising God in a loud voice. He fell facedown at Jesus’ feet in thanksgiving to Him—and he was a Samaritan. “Were not all ten cleansed?” Jesus asked. “Where then are the other nine? Was no one found except this foreigner to return and give glory to God?” Then Jesus said to him, “Rise and go; your faith has made you well!”
Now Naaman, the commander of the army of the king of Aram, was a great man in his master’s sight and highly regarded, for through him the LORD had given victory to Aram. And he was a mighty man of valor, but he was a leper.
Walk the Square · a single-voice walk of this pair around the Clowney square13:36
Significance
Ten lepers are cleansed at a distance, but only one returns — a Samaritan — "praising God in a loud voice" and falling at Jesus' feet, and Jesus asks, "Was no one found except this foreigner to return and give glory to God?" (Luke 17:15-18). 2 Kings 5:1 introduces Naaman, the Aramean commander and leper whom the LORD would cleanse through Elisha — the foreigner healed and brought to confess that "there is no God in all the earth except in Israel" (5:15). The connection is analogical and recipient-to-recipient: the returning Samaritan corresponds to Naaman, and the scene sits on the canon-wide motif of sovereign grace crossing to the outsider, which Jesus Himself had pressed earlier by citing Naaman (Luke 4:27). The wording carries the echo too: Elisha's "Go … you will be clean" (2 Kings 5:10) and Luke's "Go, show yourselves to the priests" and "as they were on their way, they were cleansed" (Luke 17:14) share in the Greek the same rare pairing of verbs, going (πορεύομαι, G4198) and cleansing (καθαρίζω, G2511). The one genuine typology in view is agent-level and subordinate — Elisha's healing ministry foreshadowing Christ's — while Naaman functions as precedent, not type. The telos is the gospel Luke loves: cleansing is by grace and received by faith, and the mercy that reached a Samaritan leper is the mercy now flung open to all nations in Christ, whose word — "Rise and go; your faith has made you well!" (17:19) — heals more than the body, restoring the outsider to God Himself.
Found via
Treasury of Scripture Knowledge
Reference Type
Allusion
Connection Method(s)
Analogy + Longitudinal Theme (recipient → recipient — the Samaritan's return corresponds to Naaman's, and the scene sits on the canon-wide motif of sovereign grace crossing to the outsider; the one genuine typology is agent-level and subordinate, Elisha → Christ, Backward-Looking — Naaman himself is the precedent, not a type of Christ)
