2 Kings 5:18 - Joseph Benson’s Commentary on the Old and New Testaments

When my master goeth into the house of Rimmon Or rather, went, or hath gone, namely, formerly; for the Hebrew text of the whole verse may be properly rendered in the past time, thus: In this thing the Lord pardon thy servant, that when my master went into the house of Rimmon to worship there, and he leaned on my hand, and I bowed myself in the house of Rimmon; when I bowed myself in the house of Rimmon, the Lord pardon thy servant in this thing. Rimmon, it must be observed, was a Syrian idol, called here by the Seventy Remman, and Acts 7:43, Remphan. And as Naaman, in the preceding verses, had declared that he would worship no other God but Jehovah, this translation seems evidently the true one, and is approved by many learned men, as Mr. Locke, Dr. Lightfoot, Lord Clarendon, and others. Certainly, as Dr. Dodd observes, “‘the incongruity would be great, if Naaman, who had just before declared his renunciation of idolatry, should now confess his readiness to relapse into the same crime, and desire God's pardon for it beforehand; whereas to ask pardon for what he had done amiss, and to desire the prophet's intercession with God in that behalf, argued a mind truly sensible of his former transgression, and very much resolved to avoid it for the future; and accordingly it is supposed that upon his return home he refused to worship Rimmon any more, and was thereupon dismissed from being general of the king's forces.”