I think most Christians would kind of like the Bible to be written more like a Charles Dickens novel. I mean that in terms of characters. Dickens wrote social commentary with numerous characters. In this sense, his novels share something with much of the Bible. A big difference is that Dickens uses pretty simple characters. The characters tend to be pretty clear in terms of whether they are among the “good guys” or the “bad guys.” For Dickens, this makes sense. It is easier to give social commentary when one can quickly identify which side is the correct side and which characters are to be emulated and not.
The Bible, on the other hand, makes this difficult by presenting nuanced and complicated characters. Let’s be honest, one of the clearest heroic characters in the Bible was David, and yet much of what is recorded of him in Scripture is morally complicated or even appalling. Since the Bible is written to point us to Christ (or more generally, God), it makes sense that there is quite a lack of paragons in its text. And since they are meant to portray real characters, it would make sense that such characters would have some moral “warts.”
This can work the other way as well. Bad guys are not completely bad. A frustrating, yet heartening, aspect of the Bible is that prophets often rail against groups, but then individuals are viewed more positively. I could go into plenty of examples of this, but that is not the topic here.
Some characters are even challenging to identify as being good or bad. Consider the complicated way Scripture looks at Gehazi, the servant of the prophet Elisha. But before we do, consider how the Talmud looks at Gehazi.
Gehazi is looked at like Balaam— a clear example of who not to be. In Sanhedren 90a (in the Babylonian Talmud), it makes the rather amazing statement that Gehazi would not be part of the resurrection of the dead, along with Balaam, Doeg, and Ahithophel. An article in the Jewish Encyclopedia (Click Here) talks about this. Some of the things about the life of Gehazi are purely extrabiblical, such as some rather blasphemous things related to Jeroboam’s golden idol. Some of these do appear to make sense backwards. By that I mean that (1) Gehazi is seen as a bad person, so that (2) Gehazi is used as an example of who not to be, and so (3) Gehazi gets dumped on with many sins that he probably never did, and finally (4) bad motives were attached to things that he did that were more benign.
In the book of II Kings in the Bible, Gehazi is tied to three stories— two major ones and one minor one. The first relates to the story of the woman of Shunem. In this, Gehazi appears to be a good servant doing what Elisha asked and even giving good advice. There are two negative things, however. One of those was when he sought to keep the Shunnamite woman from talking to Elisha. Later, Elisha asked him to lay his staff on the face of the woman’s dead child. This act proves unsuccessful. When told of this, Elisha went there to raise the son directly.
This story is a bit ambivalent. Gehazi acts like a young disciple of the prophet. Eager to please and help, but lacking some wisdom. He gave good guidance on how to help the Shunnamite woman, but then later tried to block her from bothering his mentor. He also tries to be a channel of Elisha’s miracle, but is not successful. However, his failure is not really presented as a personal failure on his part. The issues with Gehazi here sound like the disciples of Christ, who were sometimes quick to protect Jesus from those seeking to “bother” him. The story of the disciples of Jesus, unable to heal a demoniac, is also reminiscent of the story of Gehazi here. This section is looked at as evidence that Gehazi was “always bad.” However, it simply looks immature to me.
The second story is regarding Naaman the leper. I don’t want to rehash this. One can look in II Kings 5 for this. In it, Gehazi seeks to take gifts from Naaman through false pretenses. This is more than immaturity. This is clearly immoral. Elisha places a judgment on Gehazi that he would now be a leper and that it would persist in his family line forever.
It is interesting to note that the Talmud, while clearly blaming Gehazi for this behavior, also sees Elisha as doing wrong here. The belief was that his pushing Gehazi away with both hands symbolized refusing any hope for him. Hope would be seen as pushing away with one hand while having the other hand available to draw Gehazi closer. <Click Here>
The third story relates to a conversation between Gehazi and the King of Israel about the miracles of Elisha… particularly those involving the woman of Shunem and her son.
Many think this story is out of place. (A) If Gehazi has leprosy, would he be in the presence of the king? (B) If Gehazi was such an awful and unrepentant sinner (as the Talmud suggests, and many Christians also assume), would he be praising Elisha? Some suggest either that the king and Gehazi had a conversation while the latter was a leper. Others suggest that the story is out of place and should be located between II Kings 4 and 5.
I don’t have any problem with either one, but I do think there is another possibility. A third is that Elisha repented of his action and removed the curse he placed on Gehazi. Since we don’t know of any family line that is afflicted with leprosy down to this day, there seems to be reason to think that the curse was temporary anyway. Even the Talmud, while looking at Gehazi very negatively, does express the belief that Elisha repented of his action and tried to reconcile with him. That is, again, extrabiblical, but it does express an understanding once more that Elisha sometimes was led astray by his hot temper. Elisha was not the only one with that problem. Moses was punished by God for his harsh temper. James and John were gently chastised by Jesus for wishing to call down fire on an inhospitable town. Peter appears to have cursed Ananias and Sapphira, and the text as presented by Luke suggests this may not have been a good thing. Everything before this event was pretty upbeat, but after this, the church was described as full of fear.
Bringing things back to Gehazi, I have no problem with the story of II Kings 8 being out of place chronologically. Writers often write thematically rather than chronologically. But even if that is the case, the fact that this story has been placed where it is does provide a closing of the arc of Gehazi.
The arc, as it is presented, starts with Gehazi as a faithful, immature servant of Elisha. The middle shows Gehazi as yielding to the temptations of wealth (from someone he thinks doesn’t need it). The final shows Gehazi in the role of a wise counselor to a king (it seems) building up the faith of that king.
Is Gehazi presented as a good guy? Not really. Is he presented as a monster? Absolutely not. Is he one who we can learn lessons from regarding what not to do? Of course. Are there positive lessons from him as well? I believe so.
