But he said, [As] the LORD liveth, before whom I stand, I will receive none. And he urged him to take [it]; but he refused.
Ver. 16. Before whom I stand.] As his menial servant, being θεοφορος, i.e., carrying God in him, as Isidor Pelusiot was called, full of God. Particeps Dei est vir sapiens, saith a philosopher, a wise man is a partaker of God, and therefore holds everything else worthless: as Abraham, when once assured that God, "the possessor of heaven and earth," was his "shield and exceeding great reward," would not take of the king of Sodom anything, to a shoelatchet. Genesis 14:23 ; Gen 15:1
I will receive none.] Lest I should seem covetous, or to be thy beneficiary, or pensioner engaged. This made also Abraham so resolute. Gen 14:22-23 Epaminondas, the famous Theban, though very poor, would by no means accept of a great mass of money sent him by the king of Persia; et ut mea fert sententia, magnificentior fuit is qui non aurum accepit, quam qui donavit, a saith Aelian, and it was very bravely done of him. It was God's glory that the prophet in this refusal aimed at, and Naaman's soul's good: that he might give all the honour of his cure to God alone; and learn to set light by earthly property, and pomp of the world.
a Var., Hist., lib. v.