2 Raja-raja 1:5-12

1:5 When the messengers returned to the king, ¹  he asked them, “Why have you returned?” 1:6 They replied, ²  “A man came up to meet us. He told us, “Go back to the king who sent you and tell him, ‘This is what the Lord says: “You must think there is no God in Israel! That explains why you are sending for an oracle from Baal Zebub, the god of Ekron. ³  Therefore you will not leave the bed you lie on, for you will certainly die.”’” 1:7 The king ⁴  asked them, “Describe the appearance ⁵  of this man who came up to meet you and told you these things.” 1:8 They replied, ⁶  “He was a hairy man ⁷  and had a leather belt ⁸  tied around his waist.” The king ⁹  said, “He is Elijah the Tishbite.”

1:9 The king ¹⁰  sent a captain and his fifty soldiers ¹¹  to retrieve Elijah. ¹²  The captain ¹³  went up to him, while he was sitting on the top of a hill. ¹⁴  He told him, “Prophet, ¹⁵  the king says, ‘Come down!’” 1:10 Elijah replied to the captain, ¹⁶  “If I am indeed a prophet, may fire come down from the sky and consume you and your fifty soldiers!” Fire then came down ¹⁷  from the sky and consumed him and his fifty soldiers.

1:11 The king ¹⁸  sent another captain and his fifty soldiers to retrieve Elijah. He went up and told him, ¹⁹  “Prophet, this is what the king says, ‘Come down at once!’” ²⁰  1:12 Elijah replied to them, ²¹  “If I am indeed a prophet, may fire come down from the sky and consume you and your fifty soldiers!” Fire from God ²²  came down from the sky and consumed him and his fifty soldiers.

[1:5]  ¹ tn Heb “to him.”

[1:5]  sn The narrative is elliptical and telescoped here. The account of Elijah encountering the messengers and delivering the Lord’s message is omitted; we only here of it as the messengers report what happened to the king.

[1:6]  ² tn Heb “said to him.”

[1:6]  ³ tn Heb “Is it because there is no God in Israel [that] you are sending to inquire of Baal Zebub, the god of Ekron?” The translation seeks to bring out the sarcastic tone of the rhetorical question. In v. 3 the messengers are addressed (in the phrase “you are on your way” the second person plural pronoun is used in Hebrew), but here the king is addressed (in the phrase “you are sending” the second person singular pronoun is used).

[1:7]  ⁴ tn Heb “he”; the referent (the king) has been specified in the translation for clarity.

[1:7]  ⁵ tn Heb “What was the manner…?”

[1:8]  ⁶ tn Heb “said to him.”

[1:8]  ⁷ tn Heb “an owner of hair.” This idiomatic expression indicates that Elijah was very hairy. For other examples where the idiom “owner of” is used to describe a characteristic of someone, see HALOT 143 s.v. בַּעַל. For example, an “owner of dreams” is one who frequently has dreams (Gen 37:19) and an “owner of anger” is a hot-tempered individual (Prov 22:24).

[1:8]  ⁸ tn Heb “belt of skin” (i.e., one made from animal hide).

[1:8]  ⁹ tn Heb “he”; the referent (the king) has been specified in the translation for clarity.

[1:9]  ¹⁰ tn Heb “he”; the referent (the king) has been specified in the translation for clarity.

[1:9]  ¹¹ tn Heb “officer of fifty and his fifty.”

[1:9]  ¹² tn Heb “to him.”

[1:9]  ¹³ tn Heb “he”; the referent (the captain) has been specified in the translation for clarity.

[1:9]  ¹⁴ sn The prophet Elijah’s position on the top of the hill symbolizes his superiority to the king and his messengers.

[1:9]  ¹⁵ tn Heb “man of God” (also in vv. 10, 11, 12, 13).

[1:10]  ¹⁶ tn Heb “answered and said to the officer of fifty.”

[1:10]  ¹⁷ tn Wordplay contributes to the irony here. The king tells Elijah to “come down” (Hebrew יָרַד, yarad), but Elijah calls fire down (יָרַד) on the arrogant king’s officer.

[1:11]  ¹⁸ tn Heb “he”; the referent (the king) has been specified in the translation for clarity.

[1:11]  ¹⁹ tc The MT reads, “he answered and said to him.” The verb “he answered” (וַיַּעַן, vayya’an) is probably a corruption of “he went up” (וַיַּעַל, vayya’al). See v. 9.

[1:11]  ²⁰ sn In this second panel of the three-paneled narrative, the king and his captain are more arrogant than before. The captain uses a more official sounding introduction (“this is what the king says”) and the king adds “at once” to the command.

[1:12]  ²¹ tc Two medieval Hebrew mss, the LXX, and the Syriac Peshitta have the singular “to him.”

[1:12]  ²² tn Or “intense fire.” The divine name may be used idiomatically to emphasize the intensity of the fire. Whether one translates אֱלֹהִים (’elohim) here as a proper name or idiomatically, this addition to the narrative (the name is omitted in the first panel, v. 10b) emphasizes the severity of the judgment and is appropriate given the more intense command delivered by the king to the prophet in this panel.