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 ¹  the hill was full of horses and chariots of fire all around Elisha.

2 Raja-raja 8:21

8:21 Joram ²  crossed over to Zair with all his chariots. The Edomites, who had surrounded him, attacked at night and defeated him and his chariot officers. ³  The Israelite army retreated to their homeland. ⁴ 

2 Raja-raja 25:1

25:1 So King Nebuchadnezzar of Babylon came against Jerusalem with his whole army and set up camp outside ⁵  it. They built siege ramps all around it. He arrived on the tenth day of the tenth month in the ninth year of Zedekiah’s reign. ⁶ 

2 Raja-raja 25:10

25:10 The whole Babylonian army that came with the captain of the royal guard tore down the walls that surrounded Jerusalem.

2 Raja-raja 11:8

11:8 You must surround the king. Each of you must hold his weapon in his hand. Whoever approaches your ranks must be killed. You must accompany the king wherever he goes.” ⁷ 

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. ⁸  They paid allegiance to ⁹  worthless idols, and so became worthless to the Lord. ¹⁰  They copied the practices of the surrounding nations in blatant disregard of the Lord’s command. ¹¹ 

2 Raja-raja 3:9

3:9 So the kings of Israel, Judah, and Edom ¹²  set out together. They wandered around on the road for seven days and finally ran out of water for the men and animals they had with them.

2 Raja-raja 25:17

25:17 Each of the pillars was about twenty-seven feet ¹³  high. The bronze top of one pillar was about four and a half feet ¹⁴  high and had bronze latticework and pomegranate shaped ornaments all around it. The second pillar with its latticework was like it.

2 Raja-raja 25:4

25:4 The enemy broke through the city walls, ¹⁵  and all the soldiers tried to escape. They left the city during the night. ¹⁶  They went through the gate between the two walls that is near the king’s garden. ¹⁷  (The Babylonians were all around the city.) Then they headed for the Jordan Valley. 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 18:8

18:8 He defeated the Philistines as far as Gaza and its territory, from the watchtower to the city fortress. ²¹ 

2 Raja-raja 11:7

11:7 The two units who are off duty on the Sabbath will guard the Lord’s temple and protect the king. ²² 

2 Raja-raja 6:15

6:15 The prophet’s ²³  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, ²⁴  “Oh no, my master! What will we do?”

2 Raja-raja 11:13-14

11:13 When Athaliah heard the royal guard ²⁵  shout, she joined the crowd ²⁶  at the Lord’s temple. 11:14 Then she saw ²⁷  the king standing by the pillar, according to custom. The officers stood beside the king with their trumpets and all the people of the land were celebrating and blowing trumpets. Athaliah tore her clothes and screamed, “Treason, treason!” ²⁸ 

2 Raja-raja 15:16

15:16 At that time Menahem came from Tirzah and attacked Tiphsah. He struck down all who lived in the city and the surrounding territory, because they would not surrender. ²⁹  He even ripped open the pregnant women.

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; ³⁰  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 ³¹  turned and saw the grave of the prophet who had foretold this. ³² 

2 Raja-raja 23:5

23:5 He eliminated ³³  the pagan priests whom the kings of Judah had appointed to offer sacrifices ³⁴  on the high places in the cities of Judah and in the area right around Jerusalem. (They offered sacrifices ³⁵  to Baal, the sun god, the moon god, the constellations, and all the stars in the sky.)

2 Raja-raja 11:11

11:11 The royal bodyguard ³⁶  took their stations, each holding his weapon in his hand. They lined up from the south side of the temple to the north side and stood near the altar and the temple, surrounding the king. ³⁷ 

[6:17]  ¹ tn Heb “and he saw, and look.”

[8:21]  ² sn Joram is a short form of the name Jehoram.

[8:21]  ³ tn Heb “and he arose at night and defeated Edom, who had surrounded him, and the chariot officers.” The Hebrew text as it stands gives the impression that Joram was surrounded and launched a victorious night counterattack. It would then be quite natural to understand the last statement in the verse to refer to an Edomite retreat. Yet v. 22 goes on to state that the Edomite revolt was successful. Therefore, if the MT is retained, it may be better to understand the final statement in v. 21 as a reference to an Israelite retreat (made in spite of the success described in the preceding sentence). The translation above assumes an emendation of the Hebrew text. Adding a third masculine singular pronominal suffix to the accusative sign before Edom (reading אֶתוֹ [’eto], “him,” instead of just אֶת [’et]) and taking Edom as the subject of verbs allows one to translate the verse in a way that is more consistent with the context, which depicts an Israelite defeat, not victory. There is, however, no evidence for this emendation.

[8:21]  ⁴ tn Heb “and the people fled to their tents.”

[25:1]  ⁵ tn Or “against.”

[25:1]  ⁶ sn This would have been Jan 15, 588 b.c. The reckoning is based on the calendar that begins the year in the spring (Nisan = March/April).

[11:8]  ⁷ tn Heb “and be with the king in his going out and in his coming in.”

[17:15]  ⁸ tn Or “and his warnings he had given them.”

[17:15]  ⁹ 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]  ¹⁰ 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]  ¹¹ tn Heb “and [they walked] after the nations which were around them, concerning which the Lord commanded them not to do like them.”

[3:9]  ¹² tn Heb “the king of Israel and the king of Judah and the king of Edom.”

[25:17]  ¹³ tn Heb “eighteen cubits.” The standard cubit in the OT is assumed by most authorities to be about eighteen inches (45 cm) long.

[25:17]  ¹⁴ tn Heb “three cubits.” The parallel passage in Jer 52:22 has “five.”

[25:4]  ¹⁵ tn Heb “the city was breached.”

[25:4]  ¹⁶ 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]  ¹⁷ 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]  ¹⁸ 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.

[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.

[18:8]  ²¹ sn See the note at 2 Kgs 17:9.

[11:7]  ²² tn Verses 5b-7 read literally, “the third of you, the ones entering [on] the Sabbath and the ones guarding the guard of the house of the king, and the third in the gate of Sur, and the third in the gate behind the runners, and you will guard the guard of the house, alternating. And the two units of you, all the ones going out [on] the Sabbath, and they will guard the guard of the house of the Lord for the king.” The precise meaning of this text is impossible to determine. It would appear that the Carians and royal bodyguard were divided into three units. One unit would serve during the Sabbath; the other two would be off duty on the Sabbath. Jehoiada divided the first unit into three groups and assigned them different locations. The two off duty units were assigned the task of guarding the king.

[6:15]  ²³ tn Heb “man of God’s.”

[6:15]  ²⁴ tn Heb “his young servant said to him.”

[11:13]  ²⁵ tc The MT reads, “and Athaliah heard the sound of the runners, the people.” The term הָעָם (ha’am), “the people,” is probably a scribal addition anticipating the reference to the people later in the verse and in v. 14.

[11:13]  ²⁶ tn Heb “she came to the people.”

[11:14]  ²⁷ tn Heb “and she saw, and look.”

[11:14]  ²⁸ tn Or “conspiracy, conspiracy.”

[15:16]  ²⁹ tn Heb “then Menahem attacked Tiphsah and all who were in it and its borders from Tirzah, for it would not open, and he attacked.”

[15:16]  tn Instead of “Tiphsah,” the LXX has “Tirzah,” while Lucian’s Greek version reads “Tappuah.” For discussion see M. Cogan and H. Tadmor, II Kings (AB), 171.

[23:16]  ³⁰ tn Heb “and he sent and took the bones from the tombs.”

[23:16]  ³¹ tn Heb “the king”; this has been specified as “King Josiah” in the translation for clarity (cf. TEV, CEV, NLT).

[23:16]  ³² 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.

[23:5]  ³³ tn Perhaps, “destroyed.”

[23:5]  ³⁴ tn Or “burn incense.”

[23:5]  ³⁵ tn Or “burned incense.”

[11:11]  ³⁶ tn Heb “the runners” (also in v. 19).

[11:11]  ³⁷ tn Heb “and the runners stood, each with his weapons in his hand, from the south shoulder of the house to the north shoulder of the house, at the altar and at the house, near the king all around.”