2 Raja-raja 4:29

4:29 Elisha ¹  told Gehazi, “Tuck your robes into your belt, take my staff, ²  and go! Don’t stop to exchange greetings with anyone! ³  Place my staff on the child’s face.”

2 Raja-raja 5:22

5:22 He answered, “Everything is fine. ⁴  My master sent me with this message, ‘Look, two servants of the prophets just arrived from the Ephraimite hill country. ⁵  Please give them a talent ⁶  of silver and two suits of clothes.’”

2 Raja-raja 8:21

8:21 Joram ⁷  crossed over to Zair with all his chariots. The Edomites, who had surrounded him, attacked at night and defeated him and his chariot officers. ⁸  The Israelite army retreated to their homeland. ⁹ 

2 Raja-raja 10:30

10:30 The Lord said to Jehu, “You have done well. You have accomplished my will and carried out my wishes with regard to Ahab’s dynasty. Therefore four generations of your descendants will rule over Israel.” ¹⁰ 

2 Raja-raja 11:2

11:2 So Jehosheba, the daughter of King Joram and sister of Ahaziah, took Ahaziah’s son Joash and sneaked ¹¹  him away from the rest of the royal descendants who were to be executed. She hid him and his nurse in the room where the bed covers were stored. ¹²  So he was hidden from Athaliah and escaped execution. ¹³ 

2 Raja-raja 16:17

16:17 King Ahaz took off the frames of the movable stands, and removed the basins from them. He took “The Sea” ¹⁴  down from the bronze bulls that supported it ¹⁵  and put it on the pavement.

2 Raja-raja 17:21

17:21 He tore Israel away from David’s dynasty, and Jeroboam son of Nebat became their king. ¹⁶  Jeroboam drove Israel away ¹⁷  from the Lord and encouraged them to commit a serious sin. ¹⁸ 

2 Raja-raja 19:37

19:37 One day, ¹⁹  as he was worshiping in the temple of his god Nisroch, ²⁰  his sons ²¹  Adrammelech and Sharezer struck him down with the sword. ²²  They escaped to the land of Ararat; his son Esarhaddon replaced him as king.

2 Raja-raja 20:13

20:13 Hezekiah welcomed ²³  them and showed them his whole storehouse, with its silver, gold, spices, and high quality olive oil, as well as his armory and everything in his treasuries. Hezekiah showed them everything in his palace and in his whole kingdom. ²⁴ 

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. ²⁵  (She lived in Jerusalem in the Mishneh ²⁶  district.) They stated their business, ²⁷ 

2 Raja-raja 25:27

Jehoiachin in Babylon

25:27 In the thirty-seventh year of the exile of King Jehoiachin of Judah, on the twenty-seventh ²⁸  day of the twelfth month, ²⁹  King Evil-Merodach of Babylon, in the first year of his reign, pardoned ³⁰  King Jehoiachin of Judah and released him ³¹  from prison.

[4:29]  ¹ tn Heb “he”; the referent (Elisha) has been specified in the translation for clarity.

[4:29]  ² tn Heb “take my staff in your hand.”

[4:29]  ³ tn Heb “If you meet a man, do not greet him with a blessing; if a man greets you with a blessing, do not answer.”

[5:22]  ⁴ tn Heb “peace.”

[5:22]  ⁵ tn Heb “Look now, here, two servants came to me from the Ephraimite hill country, from the sons of the prophets.”

[5:22]  ⁶ tn The Hebrew term כִּכָּר (kikkar, “circle”) refers generally to something that is round. When used of metals it can refer to a disk-shaped weight made of the metal or to a standard unit of weight, generally regarded as a talent. Since the accepted weight for a talent of metal is about 75 pounds, this would have amounted to about 75 pounds of silver (cf. NCV, NLT, CEV).

[8:21]  ⁷ sn Joram is a short form of the name Jehoram.

[8:21]  ⁸ tn Heb “and he arose at night and defeated Edom, who had surrounded him, and the chariot officers.” The Hebrew text as it stands gives the impression that Joram was surrounded and launched a victorious night counterattack. It would then be quite natural to understand the last statement in the verse to refer to an Edomite retreat. Yet v. 22 goes on to state that the Edomite revolt was successful. Therefore, if the MT is retained, it may be better to understand the final statement in v. 21 as a reference to an Israelite retreat (made in spite of the success described in the preceding sentence). The translation above assumes an emendation of the Hebrew text. Adding a third masculine singular pronominal suffix to the accusative sign before Edom (reading אֶתוֹ [’eto], “him,” instead of just אֶת [’et]) and taking Edom as the subject of verbs allows one to translate the verse in a way that is more consistent with the context, which depicts an Israelite defeat, not victory. There is, however, no evidence for this emendation.

[8:21]  ⁹ tn Heb “and the people fled to their tents.”

[10:30]  ¹⁰ tn Heb “Because you have done well by doing what is proper in my eyes – according to all which was in my heart you have done to the house of Ahab – sons of four generations will sit for you on the throne of Israel.” In the Hebrew text the Lord’s statement is one long sentence (with a parenthesis). The translation above divides it into shorter sentences for stylistic reasons.

[10:30]  sn Jehu ruled over Israel from approximately 841-814 b.c. Four of his descendants (Jehoahaz, Jehoash, Jeroboam II, and Zechariah) ruled from approximately 814-753 b.c. The dynasty came to an end when Shallum assassinated Zechariah in 753 b.c. See 2 Kgs 15:8-12.

[11:2]  ¹¹ tn Heb “stole.”

[11:2]  ¹² tn Heb “him and his nurse in an inner room of beds.” The verb is missing in the Hebrew text. The parallel passage in 2 Chr 22:11 has “and she put” at the beginning of the clause. M. Cogan and H. Tadmor (II Kings [AB], 126) regard the Chronicles passage as an editorial attempt to clarify the difficulty of the original text. They prefer to take “him and his nurse” as objects of the verb “stole” and understand “in the bedroom” as the place where the royal descendants were executed. The phrase בַּחֲדַר הַמִּטּוֹת (bakhadar hammittot), “an inner room of beds,” is sometimes understood as referring to a bedroom (HALOT 293 s.v. חֶדֶר), though some prefer to see here a “room where the covers and cloths were kept for the beds (HALOT 573 s.v. מִטָּת). In either case, it may have been a temporary hideout, for v. 3 indicates that the child hid in the temple for six years.

[11:2]  ¹³ tn Heb “and they hid him from Athaliah and he was not put to death.” The subject of the plural verb (“they hid”) is probably indefinite.

[16:17]  ¹⁴ sn See the note at 1 Kgs 7:23.

[16:17]  ¹⁵ tn Heb “that [were] under it.”

[17:21]  ¹⁶ tn Heb “and they made Jeroboam son of Nebat king.”

[17:21]  ¹⁷ tc The consonantal text (Kethib) assumes the verb is נָדָא (nada’), an alternate form of נָדָה (nadah), “push away.” The marginal reading (Qere) assumes the verb נָדָח (nadakh), “drive away.”

[17:21]  ¹⁸ tn Heb “a great sin.”

[19:37]  ¹⁹ sn The assassination probably took place in 681 b.c.

[19:37]  ²⁰ sn No such Mesopotamian god is presently known. Perhaps the name is a corruption of Nusku.

[19:37]  ²¹ tc Although “his sons” is absent in the Kethib, it is supported by the Qere, along with many medieval Hebrew mss and the ancient versions. Cf. Isa 37:38.

[19:37]  ²² sn Extra-biblical sources also mention the assassination of Sennacherib, though they refer to only one assassin. See M. Cogan and H. Tadmor, II Kings (AB), 239-40.

[20:13]  ²³ tc Heb “listened to.” Some Hebrew mss, as well as the LXX, Syriac, and Vulgate versions agree with the parallel passage in Isa 39:2 and read, “was happy with.”

[20:13]  ²⁴ tn Heb “there was nothing which Hezekiah did not show them in his house and in all his kingdom.”

[22:14]  ²⁵ tn Heb “the keeper of the clothes.”

[22:14]  ²⁶ 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]  ²⁷ tn Heb “and they spoke to her.”

[25:27]  ²⁸ sn The parallel account in Jer 52:31 has “twenty-fifth.”

[25:27]  ²⁹ sn The twenty-seventh day would be March 22, 561 b.c. in modern reckoning.

[25:27]  ³⁰ tn Heb “lifted up the head of.”

[25:27]  ³¹ tn The words “released him” are supplied in the translation on the basis of Jer 52:31.