2 Raja-raja 1:13

1:13 The king ¹  sent a third captain and his fifty soldiers. This third captain went up and fell ²  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 2:3

2:3 Some members of the prophetic guild ³  in Bethel came out to Elisha and said, “Do you know that today the Lord is going to take your master from you?” ⁴  He answered, “Yes, I know. Be quiet.”

2 Raja-raja 2:5

2:5 Some members of the prophetic guild in Jericho approached Elisha and said, “Do you know that today the Lord is going to take your master from you?” He answered, “Yes, I know. Be quiet.”

2 Raja-raja 4:27

4:27 But when she reached the prophet on the mountain, she grabbed hold of his feet. Gehazi came near to push her away, but the prophet said, “Leave her alone, for she is very upset. ⁵  The Lord has kept the matter hidden from me; he didn’t tell me about it.”

2 Raja-raja 4:39

4:39 Someone went out to the field to gather some herbs and found a wild vine. ⁶  He picked some of its fruit, ⁷  enough to fill up the fold of his robe. He came back, cut it up, and threw the slices ⁸  into the stew pot, not knowing they were harmful. ⁹ 

2 Raja-raja 5:13

5:13 His servants approached and said to him, “O master, ¹⁰  if the prophet had told you to do some difficult task, ¹¹  you would have been willing to do it. ¹²  It seems you should be happy that he simply said, “Wash and you will be healed.” ¹³ 

2 Raja-raja 5:15

5:15 He and his entire entourage returned to the prophet. Naaman ¹⁴  came and stood before him. He said, “For sure ¹⁵  I know that there is no God in all the earth except in Israel! Now, please accept a gift from your servant.”

2 Raja-raja 5:26

5:26 Elisha ¹⁶  replied, “I was there in spirit when a man turned and got down from his chariot to meet you. ¹⁷  This is not the proper time to accept silver or to accept clothes, olive groves, vineyards, sheep, cattle, and male and female servants. ¹⁸ 

2 Raja-raja 6:17

6:17 Then Elisha prayed, “O Lord, open his eyes so he can see.” The Lord opened the servant’s eyes and he saw that ¹⁹  the hill was full of horses and chariots of fire all around Elisha.

2 Raja-raja 7:1-2

7:1 Elisha replied, “Hear the word of the Lord! This is what the Lord says, ‘About this time tomorrow a seah ²⁰  of finely milled flour will sell for a shekel and two seahs of barley for a shekel at the gate of Samaria.’” 7:2 An officer who was the king’s right-hand man ²¹  responded to the prophet, ²²  “Look, even if the Lord made it rain by opening holes in the sky, could this happen so soon?” ²³  Elisha ²⁴  said, “Look, you will see it happen with your own eyes, but you will not eat any of the food!” ²⁵ 

2 Raja-raja 7:8

7:8 When the men with a skin disease reached the edge of the camp, they entered a tent and had a meal. ²⁶  They also took some silver, gold, and clothes and went and hid it all. ²⁷  Then they went back and entered another tent. They looted it ²⁸  and went and hid what they had taken.

2 Raja-raja 7:10

7:10 So they went and called out to the gatekeepers ²⁹  of the city. They told them, “We entered the Syrian camp and there was no one there. We didn’t even hear a man’s voice. ³⁰  But the horses and donkeys are still tied up, and the tents remain up.” ³¹ 

2 Raja-raja 7:13

7:13 One of his advisers replied, “Pick some men and have them take five of the horses that are left in the city. (Even if they are killed, their fate will be no different than that of all the Israelite people – we’re all going to die!) ³²  Let’s send them out so we can know for sure what’s going on.” ³³ 

2 Raja-raja 7:15

7:15 So they tracked them ³⁴  as far as the Jordan. The road was filled with clothes and equipment that the Syrians had discarded in their haste. ³⁵  The scouts ³⁶  went back and told the king.

2 Raja-raja 7:19

7:19 But the officer replied to the prophet, “Look, even if the Lord made it rain by opening holes in the sky, could this happen so soon?” ³⁷  Elisha ³⁸  said, “Look, you will see it happen with your own eyes, but you will not eat any of the food!” ³⁹ 

2 Raja-raja 9:25

9:25 Jehu ordered ⁴⁰  his officer Bidkar, “Pick him up and throw him into the part of the field that once belonged to Naboth of Jezreel. Remember, you and I were riding together behind his father Ahab, when the Lord pronounced this judgment on him,

2 Raja-raja 9:27

9:27 When King Ahaziah of Judah saw what happened, he took off ⁴¹  up the road to Beth Haggan. Jehu chased him and ordered, “Shoot him too.” They shot him while he was driving his chariot up the ascent of Gur near Ibleam. ⁴²  He fled to Megiddo ⁴³  and died there.

2 Raja-raja 10:9

10:9 In the morning he went out and stood there. Then he said to all the people, “You are innocent. I conspired against my master and killed him. But who struck down all of these men?

2 Raja-raja 10:23

10:23 Then Jehu and Jehonadab son of Rekab went to the temple of Baal. Jehu ⁴⁴  said to the servants of Baal, “Make sure there are no servants of the Lord here with you; there must be only servants of Baal.” ⁴⁵ 

2 Raja-raja 12:4

12:4 Jehoash said to the priests, “I place at your disposal ⁴⁶  all the consecrated silver that has been brought to the Lord’s temple, including the silver collected from the census tax, ⁴⁷  the silver received from those who have made vows, ⁴⁸  and all the silver that people have voluntarily contributed to the Lord’s temple. ⁴⁹ 

2 Raja-raja 14:9

14:9 King Jehoash of Israel sent this message back to King Amaziah of Judah, “A thornbush in Lebanon sent this message to a cedar in Lebanon, ‘Give your daughter to my son as a wife.’ Then a wild animal ⁵⁰  of Lebanon came by and trampled down the thorn. ⁵¹ 

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. ⁵² 

2 Raja-raja 18:26

18:26 Eliakim son of Hilkiah, Shebna, and Joah said to the chief adviser, “Speak to your servants in Aramaic, ⁵³  for we understand it. Don’t speak with us in the Judahite dialect ⁵⁴  in the hearing of the people who are on the wall.”

2 Raja-raja 18:32

18:32 until I come and take you to a land just like your own – a land of grain and new wine, a land of bread and vineyards, a land of olive trees and honey. Then you will live and not die. Don’t listen to Hezekiah, for he is misleading you when he says, “The Lord will rescue us.”

2 Raja-raja 19:25

19:25 ⁵⁵ Certainly you must have heard! ⁵⁶ 

Long ago I worked it out,

In ancient times I planned ⁵⁷  it;

and now I am bringing it to pass.

The plan is this:

Fortified cities will crash

into heaps of ruins. ⁵⁸ 

2 Raja-raja 23:16

23:16 When Josiah turned around, he saw the tombs there on the hill. So he ordered the bones from the tombs to be brought; ⁵⁹  he burned them on the altar and defiled it. This fulfilled the Lord’s announcement made by the prophet while Jeroboam stood by the altar during a festival. King Josiah ⁶⁰  turned and saw the grave of the prophet who had foretold this. ⁶¹ 

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. ⁶²  He did to them what he had done to the high place in Bethel. ⁶³ 

2 Raja-raja 23:27

23:27 The Lord announced, “I will also spurn Judah, ⁶⁴  just as I spurned Israel. I will reject this city that I chose – both Jerusalem and the temple, about which I said, “I will live there.” ⁶⁵ 

2 Raja-raja 24:2

24:2 The Lord sent against him Babylonian, Syrian, Moabite, and Ammonite raiding bands; he sent them to destroy Judah, as he had warned he would do through his servants the prophets. ⁶⁶ 

2 Raja-raja 24:13-14

24:13 Nebuchadnezzar ⁶⁷  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.

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

[1:13]  ² tn Heb “went up and approached and kneeled.”

[2:3]  ³ tn Heb “the sons of the prophets.”

[2:3]  ⁴ tn Heb “from your head.” The same expression occurs in v. 5.

[4:27]  ⁵ tn Heb “her soul [i.e., ‘disposition’] is bitter.”

[4:39]  ⁶ tn Heb “a vine of the field.”

[4:39]  ⁷ tn Heb “[some] of the gourds of the field.”

[4:39]  ⁸ tn Heb “he came and cut [them up].”

[4:39]  ⁹ tc The Hebrew text reads, “for they did not know” (יָדָעוּ, yada’u) but some emend the final shureq (וּ, indicating a third plural subject) to holem vav (וֹ, a third masculine singular pronominal suffix on a third singular verb) and read “for he did not know it.” Perhaps it is best to omit the final vav as dittographic (note the vav at the beginning of the next verb form) and read simply, “for he did not know.” See M. Cogan and H. Tadmor, II Kings (AB), 59.

[5:13]  ¹⁰ tn Heb “my father,” reflecting the perspective of each individual servant. To address their master as “father” would emphasize his authority and express their respect. See BDB 3 s.v. אָב and the similar idiomatic use of “father” in 2 Kgs 2:12.

[5:13]  ¹¹ tn Heb “a great thing.”

[5:13]  ¹² tn Heb “would you not do [it]?” The rhetorical question expects the answer, “Of course you would.”

[5:13]  ¹³ tn Heb “How much more [when] he said, “Wash and be healed.” The second imperative (“be healed”) states the expected result of obeying the first (‘wash”).

[5:15]  ¹⁴ tn Heb “he”; the referent (Naaman) has been specified in the translation for clarity.

[5:15]  ¹⁵ tn Heb “look.”

[5:26]  ¹⁶ tn Heb “he”; the referent (Elisha) has been specified in the translation for clarity.

[5:26]  ¹⁷ tn Heb “Did not my heart go as a man turned from his chariot to meet you?” The rhetorical question emphasizes that he was indeed present in “heart” (or “spirit”) and was very much aware of what Gehazi had done. In the MT the interrogative particle has been accidentally omitted before the negative particle.

[5:26]  ¹⁸ tn In the MT the statement is phrased as a rhetorical question, “Is this the time…?” It expects an emphatic negative response.

[6:17]  ¹⁹ tn Heb “and he saw, and look.”

[7:1]  ²⁰ sn A seah was a dry measure equivalent to about 7 quarts.

[7:2]  ²¹ tn Heb “the officer on whose hand the king leans.”

[7:2]  ²² tn Heb “man of God.”

[7:2]  ²³ tn Heb “the Lord was making holes in the sky, could this thing be?” Opening holes in the sky would allow the waters stored up there to pour to the earth and assure a good crop. But, the officer argues, even if this were to happen, it would take a long time to grow and harvest the crop.

[7:2]  ²⁴ tn Heb “he”; the referent (Elisha) has been specified in the translation for clarity.

[7:2]  ²⁵ tn Heb “you will not eat from there.”

[7:8]  ²⁶ tn Heb “they ate and drank.”

[7:8]  ²⁷ tn Heb “and they hid [it].”

[7:8]  ²⁸ tn Heb “and they took from there.”

[7:10]  ²⁹ tn The MT has a singular form (“gatekeeper”), but the context suggests a plural. The pronoun that follows (“them”) is plural and a plural noun appears in v. 11. The Syriac Peshitta and the Targum have the plural here.

[7:10]  ³⁰ tn Heb “and, look, there was no man or voice of a man there.”

[7:10]  ³¹ tn Heb “but the horses are tied up and the donkeys are tied up and the tents are as they were.”

[7:13]  ³² tn Heb “Let them take five of the remaining horses that remain in it. Look, they are like all the people of Israel that remain in it. Look, they are like all the people of Israel that have come to an end.” The MT is dittographic here; the words “that remain in it. Look they are like all the people of Israel” have been accidentally repeated. The original text read, “Let them take five of the remaining horses that remain in it. Look, they are like all the people of Israel that have come to an end.”

[7:13]  ³³ tn Heb “and let us send so we might see.”

[7:15]  ³⁴ tn Heb “went after.”

[7:15]  ³⁵ tn Heb “and look, all the road was full of clothes and equipment that Syria had thrown away in their haste.”

[7:15]  ³⁶ tn Or “messengers.”

[7:19]  ³⁷ tn Heb “the Lord was making holes in the sky, could this thing be?” See the note at 7:2.

[7:19]  ³⁸ tn Heb “he”; the referent (Elisha) has been specified in the translation for clarity.

[7:19]  ³⁹ tn Heb “you will not eat from there.”

[7:19]  tn In the Hebrew text vv. 18-19a are one lengthy sentence, “When the man of God spoke to the king…, the officer replied to the man of God, ‘Look…so soon?’” The translation divides this sentence up for stylistic reasons.

[9:25]  ⁴⁰ tn Heb “said to.”

[9:27]  ⁴¹ tn Heb “and Ahaziah king of Judah saw and fled.”

[9:27]  ⁴² tn After Jehu’s order (“kill him too”), the MT has simply, “to the chariot in the ascent of Gur which is near Ibleam.” The main verb in the clause, “they shot him” (וַיִּכְהוּ, vayyikhhu), has been accidentally omitted by virtual haplography/homoioteleuton. Note that the immediately preceding form הַכֻּהוּ (hakkuhu), “shoot him,” ends with the same suffix.

[9:27]  ⁴³ map For location see Map1 D4; Map2 C1; Map4 C2; Map5 F2; Map7 B1.

[10:23]  ⁴⁴ tn Heb “he”; the referent (Jehu) has been specified in the translation for clarity.

[10:23]  ⁴⁵ tn Heb “Search carefully and observe so that there are not here with you any servants of the Lord, only the servants of Baal.”

[12:4]  ⁴⁶ tn The words “I place at your disposal” are added in the translation for clarification.

[12:4]  ⁴⁷ tn Heb “the silver of passing over a man.” The precise meaning of the phrase is debated, but עָבַר (’avar), “pass over,” probably refers here to counting, suggesting the reference is to a census conducted for taxation purposes. See M. Cogan and H. Tadmor, II Kings (AB), 137.

[12:4]  ⁴⁸ tn Heb “the silver of persons, his valuation.” The precise meaning of the phrase is uncertain, but parallels in Lev 27 suggest that personal vows are referred to here. See M. Cogan and H. Tadmor, II Kings (AB), 137.

[12:4]  ⁴⁹ tn Heb “all the silver which goes up on the heart of a man to bring to the house of the Lord.”

[14:9]  ⁵⁰ tn Heb “the animal of the field.”

[14:9]  ⁵¹ sn Judah is the thorn in the allegory. Amaziah’s success has deceived him into thinking he is on the same level as the major powers in the area (symbolized by the cedar). In reality he is not capable of withstanding an attack by a real military power such as Israel (symbolized by the wild animal).

[14:28]  ⁵² 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.”

[18:26]  ⁵³ sn Aramaic was the diplomatic language of the empire.

[18:26]  ⁵⁴ tn Or “Hebrew.”

[19:25]  ⁵⁵ tn Having quoted the Assyrian king’s arrogant words in vv. 23-24, the Lord now speaks to the king.

[19:25]  ⁵⁶ tn Heb “Have you not heard?” The rhetorical question expresses the Lord’s amazement that anyone might be ignorant of what he is about to say.

[19:25]  ⁵⁷ tn Heb “formed.”

[19:25]  ⁵⁸ tn Heb “and it is to cause to crash into heaps of ruins fortified cities.” The subject of the third feminine singular verb תְּהִי (tÿhi) is the implied plan, referred to in the preceding lines with third feminine singular pronominal suffixes.

[23:16]  ⁵⁹ tn Heb “and he sent and took the bones from the tombs.”

[23:16]  ⁶⁰ tn Heb “the king”; this has been specified as “King Josiah” in the translation for clarity (cf. TEV, CEV, NLT).

[23:16]  ⁶¹ tc The MT is much shorter than this. It reads, “according to the word of the Lord which the man of God proclaimed, who proclaimed these words.” The LXX has a much longer text at this point. It reads: “[which was proclaimed by the man of God] while Jeroboam stood by the altar at a celebration. Then he turned and saw the grave of the man of God [who proclaimed these words].” The extra material attested in the LXX was probably accidentally omitted in the Hebrew tradition when a scribe’s eye jumped from the first occurrence of the phrase “man of God” (which appears right before the extra material) and the second occurrence of the phrase (which appears at the end of the extra material).

[23:16]  sn This recalls the prophecy recorded in 1 Kgs 13:2.

[23:19]  ⁶² 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]  ⁶³ 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.

[23:27]  ⁶⁴ tn Heb “Also Judah I will turn away from my face.”

[23:27]  ⁶⁵ tn Heb “My name will be there.”

[24:2]  ⁶⁶ tn Heb “he sent them against Judah to destroy it, according to the word of the Lord which he spoke by the hand of his servants the prophets.”

[24:13]  ⁶⁷ tn Heb “he”; the referent (Nebuchadnezzar) has been specified in the translation for clarity.