2 Raja-raja 5:18

5:18 May the Lord forgive your servant for this one thing: When my master enters the temple of Rimmon to worship, and he leans on my arm and I bow down in the temple of Rimmon, may the Lord forgive your servant for this.” ¹ 

2 Raja-raja 9:21

9:21 Jehoram ordered, “Hitch up my chariot.” ²  When his chariot had been hitched up, ³  King Jehoram of Israel and King Ahaziah of Judah went out in their respective chariots ⁴  to meet Jehu. They met up with him ⁵  in the plot of land that had once belonged to Naboth of Jezreel.

2 Raja-raja 10:23

10:23 Then Jehu and Jehonadab son of Rekab went to the temple of Baal. Jehu ⁶  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.” ⁷ 

2 Raja-raja 11:18

11:18 All the people of the land went and demolished ⁸  the temple of Baal. They smashed its altars and idols ⁹  to bits. ¹⁰  They killed Mattan the priest of Baal in front of the altar. Jehoiada the priest ¹¹  then placed guards at the Lord’s temple.

2 Raja-raja 13:17

13:17 Elisha ¹²  said, “Open the east window,” and he did so. ¹³  Elisha said, “Shoot!” and

he did so. ¹⁴  Elisha ¹⁵  said, “This arrow symbolizes the victory the Lord will give you over Syria. ¹⁶  You will annihilate Syria in Aphek!” ¹⁷ 

2 Raja-raja 17:15

17:15 They rejected his rules, the covenant he had made with their ancestors, and the laws he had commanded them to obey. ¹⁸  They paid allegiance to ¹⁹  worthless idols, and so became worthless to the Lord. ²⁰  They copied the practices of the surrounding nations in blatant disregard of the Lord’s command. ²¹ 

2 Raja-raja 17:35

17:35 The Lord made an agreement ²²  with them ²³  and instructed them, “You must not worship other gods. Do not bow down to them, serve them, or offer sacrifices to them.

2 Raja-raja 18:12

18:12 This happened because they did not obey ²⁴  the Lord their God and broke his agreement with them. ²⁵  They did not pay attention to and obey all that Moses, the Lord’s servant, had commanded. ²⁶ 

2 Raja-raja 18:21-22

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. 18:22 Perhaps you will tell me, ‘We are trusting in the Lord our God.’ But Hezekiah is the one who eliminated his high places and altars and then told the people of Judah and Jerusalem, ‘You must worship at this altar in Jerusalem.’

2 Raja-raja 18:27

18:27 But the chief adviser said to them, “My master did not send me to speak these words only to your master and to you. ²⁷  His message is also for the men who sit on the wall, for they will eat their own excrement and drink their own urine along with you.” ²⁸ 

2 Raja-raja 19:25-26

19:25 ²⁹ Certainly you must have heard! ³⁰ 

Long ago I worked it out,

In ancient times I planned ³¹  it;

and now I am bringing it to pass.

The plan is this:

Fortified cities will crash

into heaps of ruins. ³² 

19:26 Their residents are powerless, ³³ 

they are terrified and ashamed.

They are as short-lived as plants in the field,

or green vegetation. ³⁴ 

They are as short-lived as grass on the rooftops ³⁵ 

when it is scorched by the east wind. ³⁶ 

2 Raja-raja 22:3

22:3 In the eighteenth year of King Josiah’s reign, the king sent the scribe Shaphan son of Azaliah, son of Meshullam, to the Lord’s temple with these orders: ³⁷ 

2 Raja-raja 22:9

22:9 Shaphan the scribe went to the king and reported, ³⁸  “Your servants melted down the silver in the temple ³⁹  and handed it over to the construction foremen assigned to the Lord’s temple.”

2 Raja-raja 23:13

23:13 The king ruined the high places east of Jerusalem, south of the Mount of Destruction, ⁴⁰  that King Solomon of Israel had built for the detestable Sidonian goddess Astarte, the detestable Moabite god Chemosh, and the horrible Ammonite god Milcom.

2 Raja-raja 23:24

23:24 Josiah also got rid of ⁴¹  the ritual pits used to conjure up spirits, ⁴²  the magicians, personal idols, disgusting images, ⁴³  and all the detestable idols that had appeared in the land of Judah and in Jerusalem. In this way he carried out the terms of the law ⁴⁴  recorded on the scroll that Hilkiah the priest had discovered in the Lord’s temple.

[5:18]  ¹ tn Heb “When my master enters the house of Rimmon to bow down there, and he leans on my hand and I bow down [in] the house of Rimmon, when I bow down [in] the house of Rimmon, may the Lord forgive your servant for this thing.”

[5:18]  sn Rimmon was the Syrian storm god. See M. Cogan and H. Tadmor, II Kings (AB), 65.

[9:21]  ² tn The words “my chariot” are added for clarification.

[9:21]  ³ tn Heb “and he hitched up his chariot.”

[9:21]  ⁴ tn Heb “each in his chariot and they went out.”

[9:21]  ⁵ tn Heb “they found him.”

[10:23]  ⁶ tn Heb “he”; the referent (Jehu) has been specified in the translation for clarity.

[10:23]  ⁷ tn Heb “Search carefully and observe so that there are not here with you any servants of the Lord, only the servants of Baal.”

[11:18]  ⁸ tn Or “tore down.”

[11:18]  ⁹ tn Or “images.”

[11:18]  ¹⁰ tn The Hebrew construction translated “smashed…to bits” is emphatic. The adverbial infinitive absolute (הֵיטֵב [hetev], “well”) accompanying the Piel form of the verb שָׁבַר (shavar), “break,” suggests thorough demolition.

[11:18]  ¹¹ tn Heb “the priest.” Jehoiada’s name is added for clarification.

[13:17]  ¹² tn Heb “he”; the referent (Elisha) has been specified in the translation for clarity.

[13:17]  ¹³ tn Heb “He opened [it].”

[13:17]  ¹⁴ tn Heb “and he shot.”

[13:17]  ¹⁵ tn Heb “he”; the referent (Elisha) has been specified in the translation for clarity.

[13:17]  ¹⁶ tn Heb “The arrow of victory of the Lord and the arrow of victory over Syria.”

[13:17]  ¹⁷ tn Heb “you will strike down Syria in Aphek until destruction.”

[17:15]  ¹⁸ tn Or “and his warnings he had given them.”

[17:15]  ¹⁹ tn Heb “They went [or, ‘followed’] after.” This idiom probably does not mean much if translated literally. It is found most often in Deuteronomy or in literature related to the covenant. It refers in the first instance to loyalty to God and to His covenant or His commandments (1 Kgs 14:8; 2 Chr 34:31) with the metaphor of a path or way underlying it (Deut 11:28; 28:14). To “follow other gods” was to abandon this way and this loyalty (to “abandon” or “forget” God, Judg 2:12; Hos 2:13) and to follow the customs or religious traditions of the pagan nations (2 Kgs 17:15). The classic text on “following” God or another god is 1 Kgs 18:18, 21 where Elijah taunts the people with “halting between two opinions” whether the Lord was the true God or Baal was. The idiom is often found followed by “to serve and to worship” or “they served and worshiped” such and such a god or entity (Jer 8:2; 11:10; 13:10; 16:11; 25:6; 35:15).

[17:15]  ²⁰ tn Heb “they followed after the worthless thing/things and became worthless.” The words “to the Lord” are not in the Hebrew text but are implicit from the context. There is an obvious wordplay on the verb “became worthless” and the noun “worthless thing”, which is probably to be understood collectively and to refer to idols as it does in Jer 8:19; 10:8; 14:22; Jonah 2:8.

[17:15]  ²¹ tn Heb “and [they walked] after the nations which were around them, concerning which the Lord commanded them not to do like them.”

[17:35]  ²² tn Or “covenant.”

[17:35]  ²³ sn That is, the descendants of Jacob/Israel (see v. 35b).

[18:12]  ²⁴ tn Heb “listen to the voice of.”

[18:12]  ²⁵ tn Heb “his covenant.”

[18:12]  ²⁶ tn Heb “all that Moses, the Lord’s servant, had commanded, and they did not listen and they did not act.”

[18:27]  ²⁷ tn Heb “To your master and to you did my master send me to speak these words?” The rhetorical question expects a negative answer.

[18:27]  ²⁸ tn Heb “[Is it] not [also] to the men…?” The rhetorical question expects the answer, “Yes, it is.”

[18:27]  sn The chief adviser alludes to the horrible reality of siege warfare, when the starving people in the besieged city would resort to eating and drinking anything to stay alive.

[19:25]  ²⁹ tn Having quoted the Assyrian king’s arrogant words in vv. 23-24, the Lord now speaks to the king.

[19:25]  ³⁰ 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]  ³¹ tn Heb “formed.”

[19:25]  ³² 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.

[19:26]  ³³ tn Heb “short of hand.”

[19:26]  ³⁴ tn Heb “they are plants in the field and green vegetation.” The metaphor emphasizes how short-lived these seemingly powerful cities really were. See Ps 90:5-6; Isa 40:6-8, 24.

[19:26]  ³⁵ tn Heb “[they are] grass on the rooftops.” See the preceding note.

[19:26]  ³⁶ tc The Hebrew text has “scorched before the standing grain” (perhaps meaning “before it reaches maturity”), but it is preferable to emend קָמָה (qamah), “standing grain,” to קָדִים (qadim), “east wind” (with the support of 1Q Isa^a in Isa 37:27).

[22:3]  ³⁷ tn Heb “with these orders, saying.”

[22:9]  ³⁸ tn Heb “returned the king a word and said.”

[22:9]  ³⁹ tn Heb “that was found in the house.”

[23:13]  ⁴⁰ sn This is a derogatory name for the Mount of Olives, involving a wordplay between מָשְׁחָה (mashÿkhah), “anointing,” and מַשְׁחִית (mashÿkhit), “destruction.” See HALOT 644 s.v. מַשְׁחִית and M. Cogan and H. Tadmor, II Kings (AB), 289.

[23:24]  ⁴¹ tn Here בִּעֵר (bi’er) is not the well attested verb “burn,” but the less common homonym meaning “devastate, sweep away, remove.” See HALOT 146 s.v. בער.

[23:24]  ⁴² sn See the note at 2 Kgs 21:6.

[23:24]  ⁴³ sn See the note at 1 Kgs 15:12.

[23:24]  ⁴⁴ tn Heb “carrying out the words of the law.”