with a noble disinterestedness, declined the rich gifts pressed upon him by the illustrious leper whom he had healed, Gehazi felt distressed that so favorable an op|iortunity of profiting by the gratitude of Naaman had been so wilfully tlirown away. He therefore ran after the retiring chariots, and requested, in his mas- ter's name, a portion of the gifts which had before been refused, on the ground that visitors had just ar- rived for whom he was unable to provide. He asked a talent of silver and two dresses; and the grateful Syrian made him take two talents instead of one. Having deposited this spoil in a place of safety, he again appeared before Elisha, whose honor he had so seriously compromised. His master asked him where he had been, and on his answering, "Thy servant went no whither," the prophet put on the severities of a judge, and, having denounced his crime, passed upon him the terrible doom that the leprosy of which Naaman had been cured should cleave to him and his forever. "And he went forth from his ])resence a leper as white as snow" (2 Kings v, 20-27). B.C. cir. 885. The case is somewhat parallel with that of Ananias (q. v.) and Sapphira (Acts v). The rebuke inflicted on Gehazi, though severe, cannot justly be reckoned too hard for the occasion. He ought to have understood, from the determined rejection of Naaman's offers by Elisha, that there were important principles involved in tlie matter, which he should have been careful on no account, or by any movement on his part, to bring into suspicion. There was a great com- plication of wickedness in his conduct. He first arro- gated to himself a superior discernment to that of the Lord's prophet; then he falsely employed the name of that prophet for a purpose which the prophet him- self had expressly and most emphatically repudiated ; further, as an excuse for aiming at such a purpose, ho invented a plea of charity, which had no existence but in his own imagination ; and, finally, on being intcrrn- gated by Elisha after his return whither he had gone, he endeavored to disguise his ])rocedure by a lie, whicii was no sooner utterc-d than it was detected by the prophet. Such accumulated guilt obviously deserved some palpaljle token of the divine displeasure; the more so, as it tended to give a covetous aspect to the Lord's servant at a time when the very foundations were out of course, and when the true worshippers of God were called to sit loose to all earthly possessions. This, indeed, is the thought that is most distinctly brought out in the prophet's denunciation of Gehazi's conduct (ver. 26) — the false impression it was fitted to give of Elisha's position and character. See Naaman. AVe afterwards find Gehazi recounting to king Jo- ram the great deeds of Elisha, and, in the providence of God, it so happened that when he was relating the restoration to life of the Shunammitess's son, the very woman with her son appeared before the king to claim her house and lands, which had been usurped while she had been absent abroad during the recent famine. Struck by the coincidence, the king immediately granted her application (2 Kings viii, 1-C). B.C. 876. Lepers were compelled to live apart outside the towns, and were not allowed to come too near to uninfected persons. See Leprosy. Hence some difficulty has arisen with respect to Gehazi's interview with the king. Several answers occur. The interview may have taken place outside the town, in a garden or gar- den-house ; and the king may have kept Gehazi at a distance, with the usual precautions which custom dic- tated. Some even suppose that the incident is mis- placed, and actually occurred before Gehazi was smit- ten with leprosy. Others hasten to the opposite con- clusion, and allege the probability that the leper had then repented of his crime, and had been restored to health by his master, a view which is somewhat cor- roborated by the fact that he is there still called "the servant of the man of God," from which it is supposed that the relationship between him and Elisha contin-
GEHENNA
764 GEILER VON KAISERSBERG
ued to subsist. — Kitto, s. v. ; Fairbairn, s. v. See Elisha.
Gehen'na (rtivva, A. V. invariablj' "hell"), the Greek representative of Cin~"^J, Josh, xv, 8; Neh. xi, oO (rendered by the Sept. Vaiii'va, Josh, xviii, 1(J) ; more fully, Ciri""!;: "^5, or n""^:3 "^J (2 Kings xxiii, 10; 2 Chron. xxviii, '6; xxxiii, C; Jer. xix, 2), the '•valley of Hinnoni," or "of the son'' or "children of Hiniioni," a deep narrow glen to the south of Jeru- salem, where, after the introduction of the worship of the lire-gods by Ahaz, the idolatrous Jews offered their children to Moloch (2 Chron. xxviii, 3; xxxiii, G; Jer. vii, 31 ; xix, 2-G). In consequence of these abominations the valley was polluted bj' Josiah (2 Kings xxiii, 10); subsequently to which it became the common laj'-stall of the city, where the dead bodies of criminals, and the carcasses of animals, and everj' other kind of lilth was cast, and, according to late and some- what questionable authorities, the conibustililc portion consumed with fire. From the depth and narrowness of the gorge, and, perhaps, its ever-burning fires, as well as from its being the receptacle of all sorts of pu- trefj'ing matter, and all that defiled the holy city, it became in later times the image of the place of ever- lasting punishment, "where their worm dieth not, and the fire is not quenched;" in which the Talmudists placed the mouth of hell : " There are two palm-trees in the valley of Ilinuom, between which a smf>kc aris- eth . . . and this is tlie door of Gehenna" (Talmud, quoted by Barclaj-, Citi/ of Great Kiiiff, p. 90 ; Light- foot, Centur. Choror/ruph. Matt, proem, ii, 200). The Mohammedans still use the twm as the current desig- nation of tlie infernal regions (see D'Herbelot, Bihlio- theque Orient, s. v. Gehennem). In this sense the word is used by our Lord, Matt, v, 29, 30; x, 28 ; xxiii, 15, 33; Mark ix, 43, 45; Luke xii, 5; and with the addi- tion Tov TTi'por, Matt, v, 22 ; xviii, 9 ; Mark ix, 47 ; and by James, iii, 6. See Hixxom, Vallky of ; To- PHET ; Hell.