2 Raja-raja 1:9-10

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!’” 1:10 Elijah replied to the captain, ⁷  “If I am indeed a prophet, may fire come down from the sky and consume you and your fifty soldiers!” Fire then came down ⁸  from the sky and consumed him and his fifty soldiers.

2 Raja-raja 1:12-13

1:12 Elijah replied to them, ⁹  “If I am indeed a prophet, may fire come down from the sky and consume you and your fifty soldiers!” Fire from God ¹⁰  came down from the sky and consumed him and his fifty soldiers.

1:13 The king ¹¹  sent a third captain and his fifty soldiers. This third captain went up and fell ¹²  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 2:6

2:6 Elijah said to him, “Stay here, for the Lord has sent me to the Jordan.” But he replied, “As certainly as the Lord lives and as you live, I will not leave you.” So they traveled on together.

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 ¹³  may have carried him away and dropped him on one of the hills or in one of the valleys.” But Elisha ¹⁴  replied, “Don’t send them out.”

2 Raja-raja 4:13

4:13 Elisha said to Gehazi, ¹⁵  “Tell her, ‘Look, you have treated us with such great respect. ¹⁶  What can I do for you? Can I put in a good word for you with the king or the commander of the army?’” She replied, “I’m quite secure.” ¹⁷ 

2 Raja-raja 4:29

4:29 Elisha ¹⁸  told Gehazi, “Tuck your robes into your belt, take my staff, ¹⁹  and go! Don’t stop to exchange greetings with anyone! ²⁰  Place my staff on the child’s face.”

2 Raja-raja 5:5

5:5 The king of Syria said, “Go! I will send a letter to the king of Israel.” So Naaman ²¹  went, taking with him ten talents ²²  of silver, six thousand shekels of gold, ²³  and ten suits of clothes.

2 Raja-raja 5:20

5:20 Gehazi, the prophet Elisha’s servant, thought, ²⁴  “Look, my master did not accept what this Syrian Naaman offered him. ²⁵  As certainly as the Lord lives, I will run after him and accept something from him.”

2 Raja-raja 5:26

5:26 Elisha ²⁶  replied, “I was there in spirit when a man turned and got down from his chariot to meet you. ²⁷  This is not the proper time to accept silver or to accept clothes, olive groves, vineyards, sheep, cattle, and male and female servants. ²⁸ 

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 ²⁹  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 ³⁰  responded to the prophet, ³¹  “Look, even if the Lord made it rain by opening holes in the sky, could this happen so soon?” ³²  Elisha ³³  said, “Look, you will see it happen with your own eyes, but you will not eat any of the food!” ³⁴ 

2 Raja-raja 7:17

7:17 Now the king had placed the officer who was his right-hand man ³⁵  at the city gate. When the people rushed out, they trampled him to death in the gate. ³⁶  This fulfilled the prophet’s word which he had spoken when the king tried to arrest him. ³⁷ 

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?” ³⁸  Elisha ³⁹  said, “Look, you will see it happen with your own eyes, but you will not eat any of the food!” ⁴⁰ 

2 Raja-raja 8:1

Elisha Again Helps the Shunammite Woman

8:1 Now Elisha advised the woman whose son he had brought back to life, “You and your family should go and live somewhere else for a while, ⁴¹  for the Lord has decreed that a famine will overtake the land for seven years.”

2 Raja-raja 8:5

8:5 While Gehazi ⁴²  was telling the king how Elisha ⁴³  had brought the dead back to life, the woman whose son he had brought back to life came to ask the king for her house and field. ⁴⁴  Gehazi said, “My master, O king, this is the very woman and this is her son whom Elisha brought back to life!”

2 Raja-raja 8:8

8:8 So the king told Hazael, “Take a gift ⁴⁵  and go visit the prophet. Request from him an oracle from the Lord. Ask him, ⁴⁶  ‘Will I recover from this sickness?’”

2 Raja-raja 8:12

8:12 Hazael asked, “Why are you crying, my master?” He replied, “Because I know the trouble you will cause the Israelites. You will set fire to their fortresses, kill their young men with the sword, smash their children to bits, and rip open their pregnant women.”

2 Raja-raja 9:36

9:36 When they went back and told him, he said, “The Lord’s word through his servant, Elijah the Tishbite, has come to pass. He warned, ⁴⁷  ‘In the plot of land at Jezreel, dogs will devour Jezebel’s flesh.

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 13:19

13:19 The prophet ⁴⁸  got angry at him and said, “If you had struck the ground five or six times, you would have annihilated Syria! ⁴⁹  But now, you will defeat Syria only three times.”

2 Raja-raja 23:25

23:25 No king before or after repented before the Lord as he did, with his whole heart, soul, and being in accordance with the whole law of Moses. ⁵⁰ 

[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).

[1:10]  ⁷ tn Heb “answered and said to the officer of fifty.”

[1:10]  ⁸ 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.

[1:12]  ⁹ tc Two medieval Hebrew mss, the LXX, and the Syriac Peshitta have the singular “to him.”

[1:12]  ¹⁰ 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.

[1:13]  ¹¹ tn Heb “he”; the referent (the king) has been specified in the translation for clarity.

[1:13]  ¹² tn Heb “went up and approached and kneeled.”

[2:16]  ¹³ tn Or “the spirit of the Lord.”

[2:16]  ¹⁴ tn Heb “he”; the referent (Elisha) has been specified in the translation for clarity.

[4:13]  ¹⁵ tn Heb “he said to him.”

[4:13]  ¹⁶ tn Heb “you have turned trembling to us with all this trembling.” The exaggerated language is probably idiomatic. The point seems to be that she has taken great pains or gone out of her way to be kind to them. Her concern was a sign of her respect for the prophetic office.

[4:13]  ¹⁷ tn Heb “Among my people I am living.” This answer suggests that she has security within the context of her family.

[4:29]  ¹⁸ tn Heb “he”; the referent (Elisha) has been specified in the translation for clarity.

[4:29]  ¹⁹ tn Heb “take my staff in your hand.”

[4:29]  ²⁰ 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.”

[5:5]  ²¹ tn Heb “he”; the referent (Naaman) has been specified in the translation for clarity.

[5:5]  ²² 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 750 pounds of silver (cf. NCV, NLT, CEV).

[5:5]  ²³ tn Heb “six thousand gold […].” The unit of measure is not given in the Hebrew text. A number of English versions supply “pieces” (e.g., KJV, ASV, NAB, TEV) or “shekels” (e.g., NASB, NIV, NRSV).

[5:20]  ²⁴ tn Heb “said” (i.e., to himself).

[5:20]  ²⁵ tn Heb “Look, my master spared this Syrian Naaman by not taking from his hand what he brought.”

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

[5:26]  ²⁷ 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]  ²⁸ tn In the MT the statement is phrased as a rhetorical question, “Is this the time…?” It expects an emphatic negative response.

[7:1]  ²⁹ sn A seah was a dry measure equivalent to about 7 quarts.

[7:2]  ³⁰ tn Heb “the officer on whose hand the king leans.”

[7:2]  ³¹ tn Heb “man of God.”

[7:2]  ³² 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]  ³³ tn Heb “he”; the referent (Elisha) has been specified in the translation for clarity.

[7:2]  ³⁴ tn Heb “you will not eat from there.”

[7:17]  ³⁵ tn Heb “the officer on whose hand he leans.”

[7:17]  ³⁶ tn Heb “and the people trampled him in the gate and he died.”

[7:17]  ³⁷ tn Heb “just as the man of God had spoken, [the word] which he spoke when the king came down to him.”

[7:19]  ³⁸ tn Heb “the Lord was making holes in the sky, could this thing be?” See the note at 7:2.

[7:19]  ³⁹ tn Heb “he”; the referent (Elisha) has been specified in the translation for clarity.

[7:19]  ⁴⁰ 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.

[8:1]  ⁴¹ tn Heb “Get up and go, you and your house, and live temporarily where you can live temporarily.”

[8:5]  ⁴² tn Heb “he”; the referent (Gehazi) has been specified in the translation for clarity.

[8:5]  ⁴³ tn Heb “he”; the referent (Elisha) has been specified in the translation for clarity.

[8:5]  ⁴⁴ tn Heb “and look, the woman whose son he had brought back to life was crying out to the king for her house and her field.”

[8:5]  sn The legal background of the situation is uncertain. For a discussion of possibilities, see M. Cogan and H. Tadmor, II Kings (AB), 87-88.

[8:8]  ⁴⁵ tn The Hebrew text also has “in your hand.”

[8:8]  ⁴⁶ tn Heb “Inquire of the Lord through him, saying.”

[9:36]  ⁴⁷ tn Heb “It is the word of the Lord, which he spoke by the hand of his servant, Elijah the Tishbite, saying.”

[13:19]  ⁴⁸ tn Heb “man of God.”

[13:19]  ⁴⁹ tn Heb “[It was necessary] to strike five or six times, then you would strike down Syria until destruction.” On the syntax of the infinitive construct, see GKC 349 §114.k.

[23:25]  ⁵⁰ tn Heb “and like him there was not a king before him who returned to the Lord with all his heart, and with all his soul, and with all his being according to all the law of Moses, and after him none arose like him.”

[23:25]  sn The description of Josiah’s devotion as involving his whole “heart, soul, and being” echoes the language of Deut 6:5.