2 Raja-raja 1:9

1:9 The king ¹  sent a captain and his fifty soldiers ²  to retrieve Elijah. ³  The captain ⁴  went up to him, while he was sitting on the top of a hill. ⁵  He told him, “Prophet, ⁶  the king says, ‘Come down!’”

2 Raja-raja 1:13

1:13 The king ⁷  sent a third captain and his fifty soldiers. This third captain went up and fell ⁸  on his knees before Elijah. He begged for mercy, “Prophet, please have respect for my life and for the lives of these fifty servants of yours.

2 Raja-raja 1:17

1:17 He died just as the Lord had prophesied through Elijah. ⁹  In the second year of the reign of King Jehoram son of Jehoshaphat over Judah, Ahaziah’s brother Jehoram replaced him as king of Israel, because he had no son. ¹⁰ 

2 Raja-raja 2:16

2:16 They said to him, “Look, there are fifty capable men with your servants. Let them go and look for your master, for the wind sent from the Lord ¹¹  may have carried him away and dropped him on one of the hills or in one of the valleys.” But Elisha ¹²  replied, “Don’t send them out.”

2 Raja-raja 3:11

3:11 Jehoshaphat asked, “Is there no prophet of the Lord here that we might seek the Lord’s direction?” ¹³  One of the servants of the king of Israel answered, “Elisha son of Shapat is here; he used to be Elijah’s servant.” ¹⁴ 

2 Raja-raja 3:21

3:21 Now all Moab had heard that the kings were attacking, ¹⁵  so everyone old enough to fight was mustered and placed at the border. ¹⁶ 

2 Raja-raja 3:27

3:27 So he took his firstborn son, who was to succeed him as king, and offered him up as a burnt sacrifice on the wall. There was an outburst of divine anger against Israel, ¹⁷  so they broke off the attack ¹⁸  and returned to their homeland.

2 Raja-raja 4:10

4:10 Let’s make a small private upper room ¹⁹  and furnish it with ²⁰  a bed, table, chair, and lamp. When he visits us, he can stay there.”

2 Raja-raja 4:38

Elisha Makes a Meal Edible

4:38 Now Elisha went back to Gilgal, while there was famine in the land. Some of the prophets were visiting him ²¹  and he told his servant, “Put the big pot on the fire ²²  and boil some stew for the prophets.” ²³ 

2 Raja-raja 4:42

Elisha Miraculously Feeds a Hundred People

4:42 Now a man from Baal Shalisha brought some food for the prophet ²⁴  – twenty loaves of bread made from the firstfruits of the barley harvest, as well as fresh ears of grain. ²⁵  Elisha ²⁶  said, “Set it before the people so they may eat.”

2 Raja-raja 5:20

5:20 Gehazi, the prophet Elisha’s servant, thought, ²⁷  “Look, my master did not accept what this Syrian Naaman offered him. ²⁸  As certainly as the Lord lives, I will run after him and accept something from him.”

2 Raja-raja 7:8-9

7:8 When the men with a skin disease reached the edge of the camp, they entered a tent and had a meal. ²⁹  They also took some silver, gold, and clothes and went and hid it all. ³⁰  Then they went back and entered another tent. They looted it ³¹  and went and hid what they had taken. 7:9 Then they said to one another, “It’s not right what we’re doing! This is a day to celebrate, but we haven’t told anyone. ³²  If we wait until dawn, ³³  we’ll be punished. ³⁴  So come on, let’s go and inform the royal palace.”

2 Raja-raja 8:6

8:6 The king asked the woman about it, and she gave him the details. ³⁵  The king assigned a eunuch to take care of her request and ordered him, ³⁶  “Give her back everything she owns, as well as the amount of crops her field produced from the day she left the land until now.”

2 Raja-raja 8:8

8:8 So the king told Hazael, “Take a gift ³⁷  and go visit the prophet. Request from him an oracle from the Lord. Ask him, ³⁸  ‘Will I recover from this sickness?’”

2 Raja-raja 9:18

9:18 So the horseman ³⁹  went to meet him and said, “This is what the king says, ‘Is everything all right?’” ⁴⁰  Jehu replied, “None of your business! ⁴¹  Follow me.” The watchman reported, “The messenger reached them, but hasn’t started back.”

2 Raja-raja 10:29

A Summary of Jehu’s Reign

10:29 However, Jehu did not repudiate the sins which Jeroboam son of Nebat had encouraged Israel to commit; the golden calves remained in Bethel ⁴²  and Dan. ⁴³ 

2 Raja-raja 14:28

14:28 The rest of the events of Jeroboam’s reign, including all his accomplishments, his military success in restoring Israelite control over Damascus and Hamath, are recorded in the scroll called the Annals of the Kings of Israel. ⁴⁴ 

2 Raja-raja 15:25

15:25 His officer Pekah son of Remaliah conspired against him. He and fifty Gileadites assassinated Pekahiah, as well as Argob and Arieh, in Samaria in the fortress of the royal palace. ⁴⁵  Pekah then took his place as king.

2 Raja-raja 16:7

16:7 Ahaz sent messengers to King Tiglath-pileser of Assyria, saying, “I am your servant and your dependent. ⁴⁶  March up and rescue me from the power ⁴⁷  of the king of Syria and the king of Israel, who have attacked ⁴⁸  me.”

2 Raja-raja 16:14

16:14 He moved the bronze altar that stood in the Lord’s presence from the front of the temple (between the altar and the Lord’s temple) and put it on the north side of the new ⁴⁹  altar.

2 Raja-raja 17:24

The King of Assyria Populates Israel with Foreigners

17:24 The king of Assyria brought foreigners ⁵⁰  from Babylon, Cuthah, Avva, Hamath, and Sepharvaim and settled them in the cities of Samaria ⁵¹  in place of the Israelites. They took possession of Samaria and lived in its cities.

2 Raja-raja 18:4

18:4 He eliminated the high places, smashed the sacred pillars to bits, and cut down the Asherah pole. ⁵²  He also demolished the bronze serpent that Moses had made, for up to that time ⁵³  the Israelites had been offering incense to it; it was called Nehushtan. ⁵⁴ 

2 Raja-raja 18:17

18:17 The king of Assyria sent his commanding general, the chief eunuch, and the chief adviser ⁵⁵  from Lachish to King Hezekiah in Jerusalem, ⁵⁶  along with a large army. They went up and arrived at Jerusalem. They went ⁵⁷  and stood at the conduit of the upper pool which is located on the road to the field where they wash and dry cloth. ⁵⁸ 

2 Raja-raja 18:21

18:21 Now look, you must be trusting in Egypt, that splintered reed staff. If a man leans for support on it, it punctures his hand and wounds him. That is what Pharaoh king of Egypt does to all who trust in him.

2 Raja-raja 18:31

18:31 Don’t listen to Hezekiah!’ For this is what the king of Assyria says, ‘Send me a token of your submission and surrender to me. ⁵⁹  Then each of you may eat from his own vine and fig tree and drink water from his own cistern,

2 Raja-raja 19:23

19:23 Through your messengers you taunted the sovereign master, ⁶⁰ 

‘With my many chariots ⁶¹ 

I climbed up the high mountains,

the slopes of Lebanon.

I cut down its tall cedars,

and its best evergreens.

I invaded its most remote regions, ⁶² 

its thickest woods.

2 Raja-raja 22:14

22:14 So Hilkiah the priest, Ahikam, Acbor, Shaphan, and Asaiah went to Huldah the prophetess, the wife of Shullam son of Tikvah, the son of Harhas, the supervisor of the wardrobe. ⁶³  (She lived in Jerusalem in the Mishneh ⁶⁴  district.) They stated their business, ⁶⁵ 

2 Raja-raja 22:19

22:19 ‘You displayed a sensitive spirit ⁶⁶  and humbled yourself before the Lord when you heard how I intended to make this place and its residents into an appalling example of an accursed people. ⁶⁷  You tore your clothes and wept before me, and I have heard you,’ says the Lord.

2 Raja-raja 23:19

23:19 Josiah also removed all the shrines on the high places in the cities of Samaria. The kings of Israel had made them and angered the Lord. ⁶⁸  He did to them what he had done to the high place in Bethel. ⁶⁹ 

2 Raja-raja 24:13-14

24:13 Nebuchadnezzar ⁷⁰  took from there all the riches in the treasuries of the Lord’s temple and of the royal palace. He removed all the gold items which King Solomon of Israel had made for the Lord’s temple, just as the Lord had warned. 24:14 He deported all the residents of Jerusalem, including all the officials and all the soldiers (10,000 people in all). This included all the craftsmen and those who worked with metal. No one was left except for the poorest among the people of the land.

[1:9]  ¹ tn Heb “he”; the referent (the king) has been specified in the translation for clarity.

[1:9]  ² tn Heb “officer of fifty and his fifty.”

[1:9]  ³ tn Heb “to him.”

[1:9]  ⁴ tn Heb “he”; the referent (the captain) has been specified in the translation for clarity.

[1:9]  ⁵ sn The prophet Elijah’s position on the top of the hill symbolizes his superiority to the king and his messengers.

[1:9]  ⁶ tn Heb “man of God” (also in vv. 10, 11, 12, 13).

[1:13]  ⁷ tn Heb “he”; the referent (the king) has been specified in the translation for clarity.

[1:13]  ⁸ tn Heb “went up and approached and kneeled.”

[1:17]  ⁹ tn Heb “according to the word of the Lord which he spoke through Elijah.”

[1:17]  ¹⁰ tn Heb “Jehoram replaced him as king…because he had no son.” Some ancient textual witnesses add “his brother,” which was likely added on the basis of the statement later in the verse that Ahaziah had no son.

[2:16]  ¹¹ tn Or “the spirit of the Lord.”

[2:16]  ¹² tn Heb “he”; the referent (Elisha) has been specified in the translation for clarity.

[3:11]  ¹³ tn Heb “that we might inquire of the Lord through him?”

[3:11]  ¹⁴ tn Heb “who poured water on the hands of Elijah.” This refers to one of the typical tasks of a servant.

[3:21]  ¹⁵ tn Heb “had come up to fight them.”

[3:21]  ¹⁶ tn Heb “and they mustered all who tied on a belt and upwards, and they stood at the border.”

[3:27]  ¹⁷ tn Heb “there was great anger against Israel.”

[3:27]  sn The meaning of this statement is uncertain, for the subject of the anger is not indicated. Except for two relatively late texts, the noun קֶצֶף (qetsef) refers to an outburst of divine anger. But it seems unlikely the Lord would be angry with Israel, for he placed his stamp of approval on the campaign (vv. 16-19). D. N. Freedman suggests the narrator, who obviously has a bias against the Omride dynasty, included this observation to show that the Lord would not allow the Israelite king to “have an undiluted victory” (as quoted in M. Cogan and H. Tadmor, II Kings [AB], 52, n. 8). Some suggest that the original source identified Chemosh the Moabite god as the subject and that his name was later suppressed by a conscientious scribe, but this proposal raises more questions than it answers. For a discussion of various views, see M. Cogan and H. Tadmor, II Kings (AB), 47-48, 51-52.

[3:27]  ¹⁸ tn Heb “they departed from him.”

[4:10]  ¹⁹ tn Heb “a small upper room of a wall”; according to HALOT 832 s.v. עֲלִיָּה, this refers to “a fully walled upper room.”

[4:10]  ²⁰ tn Heb “and let’s put there for him.”

[4:38]  ²¹ tn Heb “the sons of the prophets were sitting before him.”

[4:38]  ²² tn The words “the fire” are added for clarification.

[4:38]  ²³ tn Heb “sons of the prophets.”

[4:42]  ²⁴ tn Heb “man of God.”

[4:42]  ²⁵ tn On the meaning of the word צִקְלוֹן (tsiqlon), “ear of grain,” see HALOT 148 s.v. בָּצֵק and M. Cogan and H. Tadmor, II Kings (AB), 59.

[4:42]  ²⁶ tn Heb “he”; the referent (Elisha) has been specified in the translation for clarity.

[5:20]  ²⁷ tn Heb “said” (i.e., to himself).

[5:20]  ²⁸ tn Heb “Look, my master spared this Syrian Naaman by not taking from his hand what he brought.”

[7:8]  ²⁹ tn Heb “they ate and drank.”

[7:8]  ³⁰ tn Heb “and they hid [it].”

[7:8]  ³¹ tn Heb “and they took from there.”

[7:9]  ³² tn Heb “this day is a day of good news and we are keeping silent.”

[7:9]  ³³ tn Heb “the light of the morning.”

[7:9]  ³⁴ tn Heb “punishment will find us.”

[8:6]  ³⁵ tn Heb “and the king asked the woman and she told him.”

[8:6]  ³⁶ tn Heb “and he assigned to her an official, saying.”

[8:8]  ³⁷ tn The Hebrew text also has “in your hand.”

[8:8]  ³⁸ tn Heb “Inquire of the Lord through him, saying.”

[9:18]  ³⁹ tn Heb “the rider of the horse.”

[9:18]  ⁴⁰ tn Heb “Is there peace?”

[9:18]  ⁴¹ tn Heb “What concerning you and concerning peace?” That is, “What concern is that to you?”

[10:29]  ⁴² map For location see Map4 G4; Map5 C1; Map6 E3; Map7 D1; Map8 G3.

[10:29]  ⁴³ tn Heb “Except the sins of Jeroboam son of Nebat which he caused Israel to commit, Jehu did not turn aside from after them – the golden calves which [were in] Bethel and which [were] in Dan.”

[14:28]  ⁴⁴ tn Heb “As for the rest of the events of Jeroboam, and all which he did and his strength, [and] how he fought and how he restored Damascus and Hamath to Judah in Israel, are they not written on the scroll of the events of the days of the kings of Israel?” The phrase “to Judah” is probably not original; it may be a scribal addition by a Judahite scribe who was trying to link Jeroboam’s conquests with the earlier achievements of David and Solomon, who ruled in Judah. The Syriac Peshitta has simply “to Israel.” M. Cogan and H. Tadmor (II Kings [AB], 162) offer this proposal, but acknowledge that it is “highly speculative.”

[15:25]  ⁴⁵ tn Heb “and he struck him down in Samaria in the fortress of the house of the king, Argob and Arieh, and with him fifty men from the sons of the Gileadites, and they killed him.”

[15:25]  sn The precise identity of Argob and Arieh, as well as their relationship to the king, are uncertain. The usual assumption is that they were officials assassinated along with Pekahiah, or that they were two of the more prominent Gileadites involved in the revolt. For discussion see M. Cogan and H. Tadmor, II Kings (AB), 173.

[16:7]  ⁴⁶ tn Heb “son.” Both terms (“servant” and “son”) reflect Ahaz’s subordinate position as Tiglath-pileser’s subject.

[16:7]  ⁴⁷ tn Heb “hand, palm.”

[16:7]  ⁴⁸ tn Heb “who have arisen against.”

[16:14]  ⁴⁹ tn The word “new” is added in the translation for clarification.

[17:24]  ⁵⁰ tn The object is supplied in the translation.

[17:24]  ⁵¹ sn In vv. 24-29 Samaria stands for the entire northern kingdom of Israel.

[18:4]  ⁵² tn The term is singular in the MT but plural in the LXX and other ancient versions. It is also possible to regard the singular as a collective singular, especially in the context of other plural items.

[18:4]  sn Asherah was a leading deity of the Canaanite pantheon, wife/sister of El and goddess of fertility. She was commonly worshiped at shrines in or near groves of evergreen trees, or, failing that, at places marked by wooden poles. These were to be burned or cut down (Deut 12:3; 16:21; Judg 6:25, 28, 30; 2 Kgs 18:4).

[18:4]  ⁵³ tn Heb “until those days.”

[18:4]  ⁵⁴ tn In Hebrew the name sounds like the phrase נְחַשׁ הַנְּחֹשֶׁת (nÿkhash hannÿkhoshet), “bronze serpent.”

[18:17]  ⁵⁵ sn For a discussion of these titles see M. Cogan and H. Tadmor, II Kings (AB), 229-30.

[18:17]  ⁵⁶ map For location see Map5 B1; Map6 F3; Map7 E2; Map8 F2; Map10 B3; JP1 F4; JP2 F4; JP3 F4; JP4 F4.

[18:17]  ⁵⁷ tn Heb “and they went up and came.”

[18:17]  ⁵⁸ tn Heb “the field of the washer.”

[18:31]  ⁵⁹ tn Heb “make with me a blessing and come out to me.”

[19:23]  ⁶⁰ tn The word is אֲדֹנָי (’adonai), “lord,” but some Hebrew mss have יְהוָה (yehvah), “Lord.”

[19:23]  ⁶¹ tc The consonantal text (Kethib) has בְּרֶכֶב (bÿrekhev), but this must be dittographic (note the following רִכְבִּי [rikhbi], “my chariots”). The marginal reading (Qere) בְּרֹב (bÿrov), “with many,” is supported by many Hebrew mss and ancient versions, as well as the parallel passage in Isa 37:24.

[19:23]  ⁶² tn Heb “the lodging place of its extremity.”

[22:14]  ⁶³ tn Heb “the keeper of the clothes.”

[22:14]  ⁶⁴ tn Or “second.” For a discussion of the possible location of this district, see M. Cogan and H. Tadmor, II Kings (AB), 283.

[22:14]  ⁶⁵ tn Heb “and they spoke to her.”

[22:19]  ⁶⁶ tn Heb “Because your heart was tender.”

[22:19]  ⁶⁷ tn Heb “how I said concerning this place and its residents to become [an object of] horror and [an example of] a curse.” The final phrase (“horror and a curse”) refers to Judah becoming a prime example of an accursed people. In curse formulations they would be held up as a prime example of divine judgment. For an example of such a curse, see Jer 29:22.

[23:19]  ⁶⁸ tc Heb “which the kings of Israel had made, angering.” The object has been accidentally omitted in the MT. It appears in the LXX, Syriac, and Vulgate versions.

[23:19]  ⁶⁹ tn Heb “and he did to them according to all the deeds he had done in Bethel.”

[23:19]  map For location see Map4 G4; Map5 C1; Map6 E3; Map7 D1; Map8 G3.

[24:13]  ⁷⁰ tn Heb “he”; the referent (Nebuchadnezzar) has been specified in the translation for clarity.