2 Raja-raja 1:2

1:2 Ahaziah fell through a window lattice in his upper chamber in Samaria ¹  and was injured. He sent messengers with these orders, ²  “Go, ask ³  Baal Zebub, ⁴  the god of Ekron, if I will survive this injury.”

2 Raja-raja 3:13

3:13 Elisha said to the king of Israel, “Why are you here? ⁵  Go to your father’s prophets or your mother’s prophets!” The king of Israel replied to him, “No, for the Lord is the one who summoned these three kings so that he can hand them over to Moab.”

2 Raja-raja 4:8

Elisha Gives Life to a Boy

4:8 One day Elisha traveled to Shunem, where a prominent ⁶  woman lived. She insisted that he stop for a meal. ⁷  So whenever he was passing through, he would stop in there for a meal. ⁸ 

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. ⁹  The Lord has kept the matter hidden from me; he didn’t tell me about it.”

2 Raja-raja 5:22

5:22 He answered, “Everything is fine. ¹⁰  My master sent me with this message, ‘Look, two servants of the prophets just arrived from the Ephraimite hill country. ¹¹  Please give them a talent ¹²  of silver and two suits of clothes.’”

2 Raja-raja 6:15

6:15 The prophet’s ¹³  attendant got up early in the morning. When he went outside there was an army surrounding the city, along with horses and chariots. He said to Elisha, ¹⁴  “Oh no, my master! What will we do?”

2 Raja-raja 6:20

6:20 When they had entered Samaria, Elisha said, “O Lord, open their eyes, so they can see.” The Lord opened their eyes and they saw that they were in the middle of Samaria. ¹⁵ 

2 Raja-raja 6:26

6:26 While the king of Israel was passing by on the city wall, a woman shouted to him, “Help us, my master, O king!”

2 Raja-raja 8:6

8:6 The king asked the woman about it, and she gave him the details. ¹⁶  The king assigned a eunuch to take care of her request and ordered him, ¹⁷  “Give her back everything she owns, as well as the amount of crops her field produced from the day she left the land until now.”

2 Raja-raja 9:14-15

9:14 Then Jehu son of Jehoshaphat son of Nimshi conspired against Joram.

Jehu the Assassin

Now Joram had been in Ramoth Gilead with the whole Israelite army, ¹⁸  guarding against an invasion by King Hazael of Syria. 9:15 But King Joram had returned to Jezreel to recover from the wounds he received from the Syrians ¹⁹  when he fought against King Hazael of Syria. ²⁰  Jehu told his supporters, ²¹  “If you really want me to be king, ²²  then don’t let anyone escape from the city to go and warn Jezreel.”

2 Raja-raja 13:7

13:7 Jehoahaz had no army left ²³  except for fifty horsemen, ten chariots, and 10,000 foot soldiers. The king of Syria had destroyed his troops ²⁴  and trampled on them like dust. ²⁵ 

2 Raja-raja 13:21

13:21 One day some men ²⁶  were burying a man when they spotted ²⁷  a raiding party. So they threw the dead man ²⁸  into Elisha’s tomb. When the body ²⁹  touched Elisha’s bones, the dead man ³⁰  came to life and stood on his feet.

2 Raja-raja 16:10

16:10 When King Ahaz went to meet with King Tiglath-pileser of Assyria in Damascus, he saw the altar there. ³¹  King Ahaz sent to Uriah the priest a drawing of the altar and a blueprint for its design. ³² 

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” ³³  down from the bronze bulls that supported it ³⁴  and put it on the pavement.

2 Raja-raja 17:4

17:4 The king of Assyria discovered that Hoshea was planning a revolt. ³⁵  Hoshea had sent messengers to King So ³⁶  of Egypt and had not sent his annual tribute to the king of Assyria. So the king of Assyria arrested him and imprisoned him. ³⁷ 

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. ³⁸  They paid allegiance to ³⁹  worthless idols, and so became worthless to the Lord. ⁴⁰  They copied the practices of the surrounding nations in blatant disregard of the Lord’s command. ⁴¹ 

2 Raja-raja 18:22

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 18:26-27

18:26 Eliakim son of Hilkiah, Shebna, and Joah said to the chief adviser, “Speak to your servants in Aramaic, ⁴²  for we understand it. Don’t speak with us in the Judahite dialect ⁴³  in the hearing of the people who are on the wall.” 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. ⁴⁴  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.” ⁴⁵ 

2 Raja-raja 19:32

19:32 So this is what the Lord says about the king of Assyria:

“He will not enter this city,

nor will he shoot an arrow here. ⁴⁶ 

He will not attack it with his shield-carrying warriors, ⁴⁷ 

nor will he build siege works against it.

2 Raja-raja 21:7

21:7 He put an idol of Asherah he had made in the temple, about which the Lord had said to David and to his son Solomon, “This temple in Jerusalem, which I have chosen out of all the tribes of Israel, will be my permanent home. ⁴⁸ 

2 Raja-raja 23:12-13

23:12 The king tore down the altars the kings of Judah had set up on the roof of Ahaz’s upper room, as well as the altars Manasseh had set up in the two courtyards of the Lord’s temple. He crushed them up ⁴⁹  and threw the dust in the Kidron Valley. 23:13 The king ruined the high places east of Jerusalem, south of the Mount of Destruction, ⁵⁰  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 23:15

23:15 He also tore down the altar in Bethel ⁵¹  at the high place made by Jeroboam son of Nebat, who encouraged Israel to sin. ⁵²  He burned all the combustible items at that high place and crushed them to dust; including the Asherah pole. ⁵³ 

2 Raja-raja 25:4

25:4 The enemy broke through the city walls, ⁵⁴  and all the soldiers tried to escape. They left the city during the night. ⁵⁵  They went through the gate between the two walls that is near the king’s garden. ⁵⁶  (The Babylonians were all around the city.) Then they headed for the Jordan Valley. ⁵⁷ 

[1:2]  ¹ map For location see Map2 B1; Map4 D3; Map5 E2; Map6 A4; Map7 C1.

[1:2]  ² tn Heb “and he sent messengers and said to them.”

[1:2]  ³ tn That is, “seek an oracle from.”

[1:2]  ⁴ sn Apparently Baal Zebub refers to a local manifestation of the god Baal at the Philistine city of Ekron. The name appears to mean “Lord of the Flies,” but it may be a deliberate scribal corruption of Baal Zebul, “Baal, the Prince,” a title known from the Ugaritic texts. For further discussion and bibliography, see HALOT 261 s.v. זְבוּב בַּעַל and M. Cogan and H. Tadmor, II Kings (AB), 25.

[3:13]  ⁵ tn Or “What do we have in common?” The text reads literally, “What to me and to you?”

[4:8]  ⁶ tn Heb “great,” perhaps “wealthy.”

[4:8]  ⁷ tn Or “she urged him to eat some food.”

[4:8]  ⁸ tn Or “he would turn aside there to eat some food.”

[4:27]  ⁹ tn Heb “her soul [i.e., ‘disposition’] is bitter.”

[5:22]  ¹⁰ tn Heb “peace.”

[5:22]  ¹¹ tn Heb “Look now, here, two servants came to me from the Ephraimite hill country, from the sons of the prophets.”

[5:22]  ¹² 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).

[6:15]  ¹³ tn Heb “man of God’s.”

[6:15]  ¹⁴ tn Heb “his young servant said to him.”

[6:20]  ¹⁵ tn Heb “and they saw, and look, [they were] in the middle of Samaria.”

[8:6]  ¹⁶ tn Heb “and the king asked the woman and she told him.”

[8:6]  ¹⁷ tn Heb “and he assigned to her an official, saying.”

[9:14]  ¹⁸ tn Heb “he and all Israel.”

[9:15]  ¹⁹ tn Heb “which the Syrians inflicted [on] him.”

[9:15]  ²⁰ sn See 2 Kgs 8:28-29a.

[9:15]  ²¹ tn The words “his supporters” are added for clarification.

[9:15]  ²² tn Heb “If this is your desire.” נֶפֶשׁ (nefesh) refers here to the seat of the emotions and will. For other examples of this use of the word, see BDB 660-61 s.v.

[13:7]  ²³ tn Heb “Indeed he did not leave to Jehoahaz people.” The identity of the subject is uncertain, but the king of Syria, mentioned later in the verse, is a likely candidate.

[13:7]  ²⁴ tn Heb “them,” i.e., the remainder of this troops.

[13:7]  ²⁵ tn Heb “and made them like dust for trampling.”

[13:21]  ²⁶ tn Heb “and it so happened [that] they.”

[13:21]  ²⁷ tn Heb “and look, they saw.”

[13:21]  ²⁸ tn Heb “the man”; the adjective “dead” has been supplied in the translation for clarity.

[13:21]  ²⁹ tn Heb “the man.”

[13:21]  ³⁰ tn Heb “he”; the referent (the dead man) has been specified in the translation for clarity. Otherwise the reader might think it was Elisha rather than the unnamed dead man who came back to life.

[16:10]  ³¹ tn Heb “in Damascus.”

[16:10]  ³² tn Heb “the likeness of the altar and its pattern for all its work.”

[16:17]  ³³ sn See the note at 1 Kgs 7:23.

[16:17]  ³⁴ tn Heb “that [were] under it.”

[17:4]  ³⁵ tn Heb “and the king of Assyria found in Hoshea conspiracy.”

[17:4]  ³⁶ sn For discussion of this name, see HALOT 744 s.v. סוֹא and M. Cogan and H. Tadmor, II Kings (AB), 196.

[17:4]  ³⁷ tn Heb “and bound him in the house of confinement.”

[17:15]  ³⁸ tn Or “and his warnings he had given them.”

[17:15]  ³⁹ 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]  ⁴⁰ 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]  ⁴¹ tn Heb “and [they walked] after the nations which were around them, concerning which the Lord commanded them not to do like them.”

[18:26]  ⁴² sn Aramaic was the diplomatic language of the empire.

[18:26]  ⁴³ tn Or “Hebrew.”

[18:27]  ⁴⁴ 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]  ⁴⁵ 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.

[19:32]  ⁴⁶ tn Heb “there.”

[19:32]  ⁴⁷ tn Heb “[with] a shield.” By metonymy the “shield” stands for the soldier who carries it.

[21:7]  ⁴⁸ tn Heb “In this house and in Jerusalem, which I chose from all the tribes of Israel, I will place my name perpetually (or perhaps “forever”).”

[23:12]  ⁴⁹ tc The MT reads, “he ran from there,” which makes little if any sense in this context. Some prefer to emend the verbal form (Qal of רוּץ [ruts], “run”) to a Hiphil of רוּץ with third plural suffix and translate, “he quickly removed them” (see BDB 930 s.v. רוּץ, and M. Cogan and H. Tadmor, II Kings [AB], 289). The suffix could have been lost in MT by haplography (note the mem [מ] that immediately follows the verb on the form מִשֳׁם, misham, “from there”). Another option, the one reflected in the translation, is to emend the verb to a Piel of רָצַץ (ratsats), “crush,” with third plural suffix.

[23:13]  ⁵⁰ 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.

[23:15]  ⁵¹ map For location see Map4 G4; Map5 C1; Map6 E3; Map7 D1; Map8 G3.

[23:15]  ⁵² tn Heb “And also the altar that is in Bethel, the high place that Jeroboam son of Nebat who encouraged Israel to sin, also that altar and the high place he tore down.” The more repetitive Hebrew text is emphatic.

[23:15]  ⁵³ tn Heb “he burned the high place, crushing to dust, and he burned the Asherah pole.” High places per se are never referred to as being burned elsewhere. בָּמָה (bamah) here stands by metonymy for the combustible items located on the high place. See M. Cogan and H. Tadmor, II Kings (AB), 289.

[25:4]  ⁵⁴ tn Heb “the city was breached.”

[25:4]  ⁵⁵ tn The Hebrew text is abrupt here: “And all the men of war by the night.” The translation attempts to capture the sense.

[25:4]  ⁵⁶ sn The king’s garden is mentioned again in Neh 3:15 in conjunction with the pool of Siloam and the stairs that go down from the city of David. This would have been in the southern part of the city near the Tyropean Valley which agrees with the reference to the “two walls” which were probably the walls on the eastern and western hills.

[25:4]  ⁵⁷ sn Heb “toward the Arabah.” The Arabah was the rift valley north and south of the Dead Sea. Here the intention was undoubtedly to escape across the Jordan to Moab or Ammon. It appears from Jer 40:14; 41:15 that the Ammonites were known to harbor fugitives from the Babylonians.