2 Raja-raja 1:8

1:8 They replied, ¹  “He was a hairy man ²  and had a leather belt ³  tied around his waist.” The king ⁴  said, “He is Elijah the Tishbite.”

2 Raja-raja 1:11

1:11 The king ⁵  sent another captain and his fifty soldiers to retrieve Elijah. He went up and told him, ⁶  “Prophet, this is what the king says, ‘Come down at once!’” ⁷ 

2 Raja-raja 2:17

2:17 But they were so insistent, he became embarrassed. So he said, “Send them out.” They sent the fifty men out and they looked for three days, but could not find Elijah. ⁸ 

2 Raja-raja 3:23

3:23 The Moabites ⁹  said, “It’s blood! The kings are totally destroyed! ¹⁰  They have struck one another down! Now, Moab, seize the plunder!”

2 Raja-raja 4:9

4:9 She said to her husband, “Look, I’m sure ¹¹  that the man who regularly passes through here is a very special prophet. ¹² 

2 Raja-raja 4:16

4:16 He said, “About this time next year ¹³  you will be holding a son.” She said, “No, my master! O prophet, do not lie to your servant!”

2 Raja-raja 4:22

4:22 She called to her husband, “Send me one of the servants and one of the donkeys, so I can go see the prophet quickly and then return.”

2 Raja-raja 4:40

4:40 The stew was poured out ¹⁴  for the men to eat. When they ate some of the stew, they cried out, “Death is in the pot, O prophet!” They could not eat it.

2 Raja-raja 4:43

4:43 But his attendant said, “How can I feed a hundred men with this?” ¹⁵  He replied, “Set it before the people so they may eat, for this is what the Lord says, ‘They will eat and have some left over.’” ¹⁶ 

2 Raja-raja 5:14

5:14 So he went down and dipped in the Jordan seven times, as the prophet had instructed. ¹⁷  His skin became as smooth as a young child’s ¹⁸  and he was healed.

2 Raja-raja 6:2

6:2 Let’s go to the Jordan. Each of us will get a log from there and we will build a meeting place for ourselves there.” He said, “Go.”

2 Raja-raja 6:6

6:6 The prophet ¹⁹  asked, “Where did it drop in?” When he showed him the spot, Elisha ²⁰  cut off a branch, threw it in at that spot, and made the ax head float.

2 Raja-raja 6:9-10

6:9 But the prophet sent this message to the king of Israel, “Make sure you don’t pass through this place because Syria is invading there.” 6:10 So the king of Israel sent a message to the place the prophet had pointed out, warning it ²¹  to be on its guard. This happened on several occasions. ²² 

2 Raja-raja 7:3

7:3 Now four men with a skin disease ²³  were sitting at the entrance of the city gate. They said to one another, “Why are we just sitting here waiting to die? ²⁴ 

2 Raja-raja 7:5

7:5 So they started toward ²⁵  the Syrian camp at dusk. When they reached the edge of the Syrian camp, there was no one there.

2 Raja-raja 7:18

7:18 The prophet told the king, “Two seahs of barley will sell for a shekel, and a seah of finely milled flour for a shekel; this will happen about this time tomorrow in the gate of Samaria.”

2 Raja-raja 8:2

8:2 So the woman did as the prophet said. ²⁶  She and her family went and lived in the land of the Philistines for seven years.

2 Raja-raja 8:4

8:4 Now the king was talking to Gehazi, the prophet’s ²⁷  servant, and said, “Tell me all the great things which Elisha has done.”

2 Raja-raja 8:7

Elisha Meets with Hazael

8:7 Elisha traveled to Damascus while King Ben Hadad of Syria was sick. The king ²⁸  was told, “The prophet ²⁹  has come here.”

2 Raja-raja 9:13

9:13 Each of them quickly took off his cloak and they spread them out at Jehu’s ³⁰  feet on the steps. ³¹  The trumpet was blown ³²  and they shouted, “Jehu is ³³  king!”

2 Raja-raja 10:7

10:7 When they received the letter, they seized the king’s sons and executed all seventy of them. ³⁴  They put their heads in baskets and sent them to him in Jezreel.

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.” ³⁵ 

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 

2 Raja-raja 12:5

12:5 The priests should receive the silver they need from the treasurers and repair any damage to the temple they discover.” ³⁸ 

2 Raja-raja 23:10

23:10 The king ³⁹  ruined Topheth in the Valley of Ben Hinnom so that no one could pass his son or his daughter through the fire to Molech. ⁴⁰ 

2 Raja-raja 23:18

23:18 The king ⁴¹  said, “Leave it alone! No one must touch his bones.” So they left his bones undisturbed, as well as the bones of the Israelite prophet buried beside him. ⁴² 

[1:8]  ¹ tn Heb “said to him.”

[1:8]  ² tn Heb “an owner of hair.” This idiomatic expression indicates that Elijah was very hairy. For other examples where the idiom “owner of” is used to describe a characteristic of someone, see HALOT 143 s.v. בַּעַל. For example, an “owner of dreams” is one who frequently has dreams (Gen 37:19) and an “owner of anger” is a hot-tempered individual (Prov 22:24).

[1:8]  ³ tn Heb “belt of skin” (i.e., one made from animal hide).

[1:8]  ⁴ tn Heb “he”; the referent (the king) has been specified in the translation for clarity.

[1:11]  ⁵ tn Heb “he”; the referent (the king) has been specified in the translation for clarity.

[1:11]  ⁶ tc The MT reads, “he answered and said to him.” The verb “he answered” (וַיַּעַן, vayya’an) is probably a corruption of “he went up” (וַיַּעַל, vayya’al). See v. 9.

[1:11]  ⁷ sn In this second panel of the three-paneled narrative, the king and his captain are more arrogant than before. The captain uses a more official sounding introduction (“this is what the king says”) and the king adds “at once” to the command.

[2:17]  ⁸ tn Heb “him”; the referent (Elijah) has been specified in the translation for clarity.

[3:23]  ⁹ tn Heb “they”; the referent (the Moabites) has been specified in the translation for clarity.

[3:23]  ¹⁰ tn The translation assumes the verb is חָרַב (kharav, “to be desolate”). The infinitive absolute precedes the finite verb form for emphasis. (For another example of the Hophal infinitive with a Niphal finite verb, see Lev 19:20. Cf. also IBHS 582 §35.2.1c.) Some prefer to derive the verb from a proposed homonym meaning “at HALOT 349 s.v. II חרב and BDB 352 s.v. חָרְבָה).

[4:9]  ¹¹ tn Heb “I know.”

[4:9]  ¹² tn Heb “holy man of God.”

[4:16]  ¹³ tn Heb “at this appointed time, at the time [when it is] reviving.” For a discussion of the second phrase see M. Cogan and H. Tadmor, II Kings (AB), 57.

[4:40]  ¹⁴ tn Heb “and they poured out [the stew].” The plural subject is probably indefinite.

[4:43]  ¹⁵ tn Heb “How can I set this before a hundred men?”

[4:43]  ¹⁶ tn The verb forms are infinitives absolute (Heb “eating and leaving over”) and have to be translated in light of the context.

[5:14]  ¹⁷ tn Heb “according to the word of the man of God.”

[5:14]  ¹⁸ tn Heb “and his skin was restored, like the skin of a small child.”

[6:6]  ¹⁹ tn Heb “man of God” (also in v. 9).

[6:6]  ²⁰ tn Heb “he”; the referent (Elisha) has been specified in the translation for clarity.

[6:10]  ²¹ tn The vav + perfect here indicates action contemporary with the preceding main verb (“sent”). See IBHS 533-34 §32.2.3e.

[6:10]  ²² tn Heb “and the king of Israel sent to the place about which the man of God spoke to him, and he warned it and he guarded himself there, not once and not twice.”

[7:3]  ²³ sn See the note at 2 Kgs 5:1.

[7:3]  ²⁴ tn Heb “until we die.”

[7:5]  ²⁵ tn Heb “they arose to go to.”

[8:2]  ²⁶ tn Heb “and the woman got up and did according to the word of the man of God.”

[8:4]  ²⁷ tn Heb “man of God’s.”

[8:7]  ²⁸ tn Heb “he”; the referent (the king) has been specified in the translation for clarity.

[8:7]  ²⁹ tn Heb “man of God” (also a second time in this verse and in v. 11).

[9:13]  ³⁰ tn Heb “his”; the referent (Jehu) has been specified in the translation for clarity.

[9:13]  ³¹ tn Heb “and they hurried and took, each one his garment, and they placed [them] beneath him on the bone [?] of the steps.” The precise nuance of גֶרֶם (gerem), “bone,” is unclear. Some suggest the nuance “bare” here; it may be a technical architectural term in this context.

[9:13]  ³² tn Heb “they blew the trumpet.” This has been translated as a passive to avoid the implication that the same ones who shouted had all blown trumpets.

[9:13]  ³³ tn Or “has become.”

[10:7]  ³⁴ tn Heb “and when the letter came to them, they took the sons of the king and slaughtered seventy men.”

[11:8]  ³⁵ tn Heb “and be with the king in his going out and in his coming in.”

[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.”

[12:5]  ³⁸ tn Heb “Let the priests take for themselves, each from his treasurer, and let them repair the damage of the temple, with respect to all the damage that is found there.” The word מַכָּר (makar), translated here “treasurer,” occurs only in this passage. Some suggest it means “merchant” or “benefactor.” Its usage in Ugaritic texts, where it appears in a list of temple officials, suggests that it refers in this context to individuals who were in charge of disbursing temple funds.

[23:10]  ³⁹ tn Heb “he”; the referent (the king) has been specified in the translation for clarity.

[23:10]  ⁴⁰ sn Attempts to identify this deity with a god known from the ancient Near East have not yet yielded a consensus. For brief discussions see M. Cogan and H. Tadmor II Kings (AB), 288 and HALOT 592 s.v. מֹלֶךְ. For more extensive studies see George C. Heider, The Cult of Molek, and John Day, Molech: A God of Human Sacrifice in the Old Testament.

[23:18]  ⁴¹ tn Heb “he”; the referent (the king) has been specified in the translation for clarity.

[23:18]  ⁴² tn Heb “and they left undisturbed his bones, the bones of the prophet who came from Samaria.” If the phrase “the bones of the prophet” were appositional to “his bones,” one would expect the sentence to end “from Judah” (see v. 17). Apparently the “prophet” referred to in the second half of the verse is the old prophet from Bethel who buried the man of God from Judah in his own tomb and instructed his sons to bury his bones there as well (1 Kgs 13:30-31). One expects the text to read “from Bethel,” but “Samaria” (which was not even built at the time of the incident recorded in 1 Kgs 13) is probably an anachronistic reference to the northern kingdom in general. See the note at 1 Kgs 13:32 and the discussion in M. Cogan and H. Tadmor, II Kings (AB), 290.