2 Raja-raja 1:13

1:13 The king ¹  sent a third captain and his fifty soldiers. This third captain went up and fell ²  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 3:27

3:27 So he took his firstborn son, who was to succeed him as king, and offered him up as a burnt sacrifice on the wall. There was an outburst of divine anger against Israel, ³  so they broke off the attack ⁴  and returned to their homeland.

2 Raja-raja 11:18

11:18 All the people of the land went and demolished ⁵  the temple of Baal. They smashed its altars and idols ⁶  to bits. ⁷  They killed Mattan the priest of Baal in front of the altar. Jehoiada the priest ⁸  then placed guards at the Lord’s temple.

2 Raja-raja 16:14

16:14 He moved the bronze altar that stood in the Lord’s presence from the front of the temple (between the altar and the Lord’s temple) and put it on the north side of the new ⁹  altar.

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” ¹⁰  down from the bronze bulls that supported it ¹¹  and put it on the pavement.

2 Raja-raja 17:24

The King of Assyria Populates Israel with Foreigners

17:24 The king of Assyria brought foreigners ¹²  from Babylon, Cuthah, Avva, Hamath, and Sepharvaim and settled them in the cities of Samaria ¹³  in place of the Israelites. They took possession of Samaria and lived in its cities.

2 Raja-raja 18:26

18:26 Eliakim son of Hilkiah, Shebna, and Joah said to the chief adviser, “Speak to your servants in Aramaic, ¹⁴  for we understand it. Don’t speak with us in the Judahite dialect ¹⁵  in the hearing of the people who are on the wall.”

2 Raja-raja 25:17

25:17 Each of the pillars was about twenty-seven feet ¹⁶  high. The bronze top of one pillar was about four and a half feet ¹⁷  high and had bronze latticework and pomegranate shaped ornaments all around it. The second pillar with its latticework was like it.

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

[1:13]  ² tn Heb “went up and approached and kneeled.”

[3:27]  ³ tn Heb “there was great anger against Israel.”

[3:27]  sn The meaning of this statement is uncertain, for the subject of the anger is not indicated. Except for two relatively late texts, the noun קֶצֶף (qetsef) refers to an outburst of divine anger. But it seems unlikely the Lord would be angry with Israel, for he placed his stamp of approval on the campaign (vv. 16-19). D. N. Freedman suggests the narrator, who obviously has a bias against the Omride dynasty, included this observation to show that the Lord would not allow the Israelite king to “have an undiluted victory” (as quoted in M. Cogan and H. Tadmor, II Kings [AB], 52, n. 8). Some suggest that the original source identified Chemosh the Moabite god as the subject and that his name was later suppressed by a conscientious scribe, but this proposal raises more questions than it answers. For a discussion of various views, see M. Cogan and H. Tadmor, II Kings (AB), 47-48, 51-52.

[3:27]  ⁴ tn Heb “they departed from him.”

[11:18]  ⁵ tn Or “tore down.”

[11:18]  ⁶ tn Or “images.”

[11:18]  ⁷ 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]  ⁸ tn Heb “the priest.” Jehoiada’s name is added for clarification.

[16:14]  ⁹ tn The word “new” is added in the translation for clarification.

[16:17]  ¹⁰ sn See the note at 1 Kgs 7:23.

[16:17]  ¹¹ tn Heb “that [were] under it.”

[17:24]  ¹² tn The object is supplied in the translation.

[17:24]  ¹³ sn In vv. 24-29 Samaria stands for the entire northern kingdom of Israel.

[18:26]  ¹⁴ sn Aramaic was the diplomatic language of the empire.

[18:26]  ¹⁵ tn Or “Hebrew.”

[25:17]  ¹⁶ 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]  ¹⁷ tn Heb “three cubits.” The parallel passage in Jer 52:22 has “five.”