to the porters of the city telling them what they had seen, and the porters told the king's household within. The king arose in the night, and told his servants that he suspected that the Arameans had hidden in the field, thinking that when the Samaritans came out, they would be able to get into the city. One of his servants suggested that some men take five of the horses that remained and go see, and they took two chariots with horses to go and see. They went after the Arameans as far as the Jordan River, and all the way was littered with garments and vessels that the Arameans had cast away in their haste, and the messengers returned and told the king. So the people went out and looted the Arameans' camp, so that the price of fine flour and two measures of barley each dropped to a shekel, as God had said it would. And the king appointed the captain on whom he leaned to take charge of the gate, and the people trampled him and killed him before he could taste of the flour, just as the man of God Elisha had said. Connection to the double parashah Both the double parashah and the haftarah deal with people stricken with skin disease. Both the parashah and the haftarah employ the term for the person affected by skin disease (metzora, ). In parashah Tazria, provides that the person with skin disease "shall dwell alone; without the camp shall his dwelling be," thus explaining why the four leprous men in the haftarah lived outside the gate. Rabbi Johanan taught that the four leprous men at the gate in were none other than Elisha's former servant Gehazi (whom the Midrash, above, cited as having been stricken with leprosy for profanation of the Divine Name) and his three sons. In parashah Metzora, when there "seems" to be a plague in the house, the priest must not jump to conclusions, but must examine the facts. Just before the opening of the haftarah, in , the captain on whom the king leaned jumps to the conclusion that Elisha's prophecy could not come true, and the captain meets his punishment in and 19. On Shabbat Rosh Chodesh When the combined parashah coincides with Shabbat Rosh Chodesh (as it does in 2020, 2023, and 2026), the haftarah is . Notes Further reading The parashah