2 Raja-raja 2:3-6

2:3 Some members of the prophetic guild ¹  in Bethel came out to Elisha and said, “Do you know that today the Lord is going to take your master from you?” ²  He answered, “Yes, I know. Be quiet.”

2:4 Elijah said to him, “Elisha, stay here, for the Lord has sent me to Jericho.” ³  But he replied, “As certainly as the Lord lives and as you live, I will not leave you.” So they went to Jericho. 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.”

2:6 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 7:9

7:9 Then they said to one another, “It’s not right what we’re doing! This is a day to celebrate, but we haven’t told anyone. ⁴  If we wait until dawn, ⁵  we’ll be punished. ⁶  So come on, let’s go and inform the royal palace.”

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. ⁷  They paid allegiance to ⁸  worthless idols, and so became worthless to the Lord. ⁹  They copied the practices of the surrounding nations in blatant disregard of the Lord’s command. ¹⁰ 

2 Raja-raja 19:25-26

19:25 ¹¹ Certainly you must have heard! ¹² 

Long ago I worked it out,

In ancient times I planned ¹³  it;

and now I am bringing it to pass.

The plan is this:

Fortified cities will crash

into heaps of ruins. ¹⁴ 

19:26 Their residents are powerless, ¹⁵ 

they are terrified and ashamed.

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

or green vegetation. ¹⁶ 

They are as short-lived as grass on the rooftops ¹⁷ 

when it is scorched by the east wind. ¹⁸ 

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. ¹⁹ 

He will not attack it with his shield-carrying warriors, ²⁰ 

nor will he build siege works against it.

2 Raja-raja 20:1

Hezekiah is Healed

20:1 In those days Hezekiah was stricken with a terminal illness. ²¹  The prophet Isaiah son of Amoz visited him and told him, “This is what the Lord says, ‘Give your household instructions, for you are about to die; you will not get well.’” ²² 

2 Raja-raja 23:35

23:35 Jehoiakim paid Pharaoh the required amount of silver and gold, but to meet Pharaoh’s demands Jehoiakim had to tax the land. He collected an assessed amount from each man among the people of the land in order to pay Pharaoh Necho. ²³ 

[2:3]  ¹ tn Heb “the sons of the prophets.”

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

[2:4]  ³ map For location see Map5 B2; Map6 E1; Map7 E1; Map8 E3; Map10 A2; Map11 A1.

[7:9]  ⁴ tn Heb “this day is a day of good news and we are keeping silent.”

[7:9]  ⁵ tn Heb “the light of the morning.”

[7:9]  ⁶ tn Heb “punishment will find us.”

[17:15]  ⁷ tn Or “and his warnings he had given them.”

[17:15]  ⁸ 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]  ⁹ 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]  ¹⁰ tn Heb “and [they walked] after the nations which were around them, concerning which the Lord commanded them not to do like them.”

[19:25]  ¹¹ tn Having quoted the Assyrian king’s arrogant words in vv. 23-24, the Lord now speaks to the king.

[19:25]  ¹² 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]  ¹³ tn Heb “formed.”

[19:25]  ¹⁴ 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]  ¹⁵ tn Heb “short of hand.”

[19:26]  ¹⁶ 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]  ¹⁷ tn Heb “[they are] grass on the rooftops.” See the preceding note.

[19:26]  ¹⁸ 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).

[19:32]  ¹⁹ tn Heb “there.”

[19:32]  ²⁰ tn Heb “[with] a shield.” By metonymy the “shield” stands for the soldier who carries it.

[20:1]  ²¹ tn Heb “was sick to the point of dying.”

[20:1]  ²² tn Heb “will not live.”

[23:35]  ²³ tn Heb “And the silver and the gold Jehoiakim gave to Pharaoh, but he taxed the land to give the silver at the command of Pharaoh, [from] each according to his tax he collected the silver and the gold, from the people of the land, to give to Pharaoh Necho.”