2 Raja-raja 2:16

2:16 They said to him, “Look, there are fifty capable men with your servants. Let them go and look for your master, for the wind sent from the Lord ¹  may have carried him away and dropped him on one of the hills or in one of the valleys.” But Elisha ²  replied, “Don’t send them out.”

2 Raja-raja 3:24

3:24 When they approached the Israelite camp, the Israelites rose up and struck down the Moabites, who then ran from them. The Israelites ³  thoroughly defeated ⁴  Moab.

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. ⁵  The Lord has kept the matter hidden from me; he didn’t tell me about it.”

2 Raja-raja 7:17

7:17 Now the king had placed the officer who was his right-hand man ⁶  at the city gate. When the people rushed out, they trampled him to death in the gate. ⁷  This fulfilled the prophet’s word which he had spoken when the king tried to arrest him. ⁸ 

2 Raja-raja 9:15

9:15 But King Joram had returned to Jezreel to recover from the wounds he received from the Syrians ⁹  when he fought against King Hazael of Syria. ¹⁰  Jehu told his supporters, ¹¹  “If you really want me to be king, ¹²  then don’t let anyone escape from the city to go and warn Jezreel.”

2 Raja-raja 10:9

10:9 In the morning he went out and stood there. Then he said to all the people, “You are innocent. I conspired against my master and killed him. But who struck down all of these men?

2 Raja-raja 10:13

10:13 Jehu encountered ¹³  the relatives ¹⁴  of King Ahaziah of Judah. He asked, “Who are you?” They replied, “We are Ahaziah’s relatives. We have come down to see how ¹⁵  the king’s sons and the queen mother’s sons are doing.”

2 Raja-raja 10:23

10:23 Then Jehu and Jehonadab son of Rekab went to the temple of Baal. Jehu ¹⁶  said to the servants of Baal, “Make sure there are no servants of the Lord here with you; there must be only servants of Baal.” ¹⁷ 

2 Raja-raja 10:25

10:25 When he finished offering the burnt sacrifice, Jehu ordered the royal guard ¹⁸  and officers, “Come in and strike them down! Don’t let any escape!” So the royal guard and officers struck them down with the sword and left their bodies lying there. ¹⁹  Then they entered the inner sanctuary of the temple of Baal. ²⁰ 

2 Raja-raja 11:2

11:2 So Jehosheba, the daughter of King Joram and sister of Ahaziah, took Ahaziah’s son Joash and sneaked ²¹  him away from the rest of the royal descendants who were to be executed. She hid him and his nurse in the room where the bed covers were stored. ²²  So he was hidden from Athaliah and escaped execution. ²³ 

2 Raja-raja 11:4

11:4 In the seventh year Jehoiada summoned ²⁴  the officers of the units of hundreds of the Carians ²⁵  and the royal bodyguard. ²⁶  He met with them ²⁷  in the Lord’s temple. He made an agreement ²⁸  with them and made them swear an oath of allegiance in the Lord’s temple. Then he showed them the king’s son.

2 Raja-raja 14:9

14:9 King Jehoash of Israel sent this message back to King Amaziah of Judah, “A thornbush in Lebanon sent this message to a cedar in Lebanon, ‘Give your daughter to my son as a wife.’ Then a wild animal ²⁹  of Lebanon came by and trampled down the thorn. ³⁰ 

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 17:24

The King of Assyria Populates Israel with Foreigners

17:24 The king of Assyria brought foreigners ³³  from Babylon, Cuthah, Avva, Hamath, and Sepharvaim and settled them in the cities of Samaria ³⁴  in place of the Israelites. They took possession of Samaria and lived in its cities.

2 Raja-raja 17:27

17:27 So the king of Assyria ordered, “Take back one of the priests whom you ³⁵  deported from there. He must settle there and teach them the requirements of the God of the land.” ³⁶ 

2 Raja-raja 18:17

18:17 The king of Assyria sent his commanding general, the chief eunuch, and the chief adviser ³⁷  from Lachish to King Hezekiah in Jerusalem, ³⁸  along with a large army. They went up and arrived at Jerusalem. They went ³⁹  and stood at the conduit of the upper pool which is located on the road to the field where they wash and dry cloth. ⁴⁰ 

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. ⁴¹ 

He will not attack it with his shield-carrying warriors, ⁴² 

nor will he build siege works against it.

2 Raja-raja 23:12

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 ⁴³  and threw the dust in the Kidron Valley.

2 Raja-raja 23:15

23:15 He also tore down the altar in Bethel ⁴⁴  at the high place made by Jeroboam son of Nebat, who encouraged Israel to sin. ⁴⁵  He burned all the combustible items at that high place and crushed them to dust; including the Asherah pole. ⁴⁶ 

2 Raja-raja 25:1

25:1 So King Nebuchadnezzar of Babylon came against Jerusalem with his whole army and set up camp outside ⁴⁷  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. ⁴⁸ 

2 Raja-raja 25:25

25:25 But in the seventh month ⁴⁹  Ishmael son of Nethaniah, son of Elishama, who was a member of the royal family, ⁵⁰  came with ten of his men and murdered Gedaliah, ⁵¹  as well as the Judeans and Babylonians who were with him at Mizpah.

[2:16]  ¹ tn Or “the spirit of the Lord.”

[2:16]  ² tn Heb “he”; the referent (Elisha) has been specified in the translation for clarity.

[3:24]  ³ tn Heb “they.”

[3:24]  ⁴ tc The consonantal text (Kethib) suggests, “and they went, striking down,” but the marginal reading (Qere) is “they struck down, striking down.” For a discussion of the textual problem, see M. Cogan and H. Tadmor, II Kings (AB), 46.

[4:27]  ⁵ tn Heb “her soul [i.e., ‘disposition’] is bitter.”

[7:17]  ⁶ tn Heb “the officer on whose hand he leans.”

[7:17]  ⁷ tn Heb “and the people trampled him in the gate and he died.”

[7:17]  ⁸ tn Heb “just as the man of God had spoken, [the word] which he spoke when the king came down to him.”

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

[9:15]  ¹⁰ sn See 2 Kgs 8:28-29a.

[9:15]  ¹¹ tn The words “his supporters” are added for clarification.

[9:15]  ¹² 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.

[10:13]  ¹³ tn Heb “found.”

[10:13]  ¹⁴ tn Or “brothers.”

[10:13]  ¹⁵ tn Heb “for the peace of.”

[10:23]  ¹⁶ tn Heb “he”; the referent (Jehu) has been specified in the translation for clarity.

[10:23]  ¹⁷ tn Heb “Search carefully and observe so that there are not here with you any servants of the Lord, only the servants of Baal.”

[10:25]  ¹⁸ tn Heb “runners.”

[10:25]  ¹⁹ tn Heb “and they threw.” No object appears. According to M. Cogan and H. Tadmor (II Kings [AB], 116), this is an idiom for leaving a corpse unburied.

[10:25]  ²⁰ tn Heb “and they came to the city of the house of Baal.” It seems unlikely that a literal city is meant. Some emend עִיר (’ir), “city,” to דְּבִיר (dÿvir) “holy place,” or suggest that עִיר is due to dittography of the immediately preceding עַד (’ad) “to.” Perhaps עִיר is here a technical term meaning “fortress” or, more likely, “inner room.”

[11:2]  ²¹ tn Heb “stole.”

[11:2]  ²² tn Heb “him and his nurse in an inner room of beds.” The verb is missing in the Hebrew text. The parallel passage in 2 Chr 22:11 has “and she put” at the beginning of the clause. M. Cogan and H. Tadmor (II Kings [AB], 126) regard the Chronicles passage as an editorial attempt to clarify the difficulty of the original text. They prefer to take “him and his nurse” as objects of the verb “stole” and understand “in the bedroom” as the place where the royal descendants were executed. The phrase בַּחֲדַר הַמִּטּוֹת (bakhadar hammittot), “an inner room of beds,” is sometimes understood as referring to a bedroom (HALOT 293 s.v. חֶדֶר), though some prefer to see here a “room where the covers and cloths were kept for the beds (HALOT 573 s.v. מִטָּת). In either case, it may have been a temporary hideout, for v. 3 indicates that the child hid in the temple for six years.

[11:2]  ²³ tn Heb “and they hid him from Athaliah and he was not put to death.” The subject of the plural verb (“they hid”) is probably indefinite.

[11:4]  ²⁴ tn Heb “Jehoiada sent and took.”

[11:4]  ²⁵ sn The Carians were apparently a bodyguard, probably comprised of foreigners. See HALOT 497 s.v. כָּרִי and M. Cogan and H. Tadmor, II Kings (AB), 126.

[11:4]  ²⁶ tn Heb “the runners.”

[11:4]  ²⁷ tn Heb “he brought them to himself.”

[11:4]  ²⁸ tn Or “covenant.”

[14:9]  ²⁹ tn Heb “the animal of the field.”

[14:9]  ³⁰ sn Judah is the thorn in the allegory. Amaziah’s success has deceived him into thinking he is on the same level as the major powers in the area (symbolized by the cedar). In reality he is not capable of withstanding an attack by a real military power such as Israel (symbolized by the wild animal).

[16:10]  ³¹ tn Heb “in Damascus.”

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

[17:24]  ³³ tn The object is supplied in the translation.

[17:24]  ³⁴ sn In vv. 24-29 Samaria stands for the entire northern kingdom of Israel.

[17:27]  ³⁵ tc The second plural subject may refer to the leaders of the Assyrian army. However, some prefer to read “whom I deported,” changing the verb to a first person singular form with a third masculine plural pronominal suffix. This reading has some support from Hebrew, Greek, and Aramaic witnesses.

[17:27]  ³⁶ tc Heb “and let them go and let them live there, and let him teach them the requirements of the God of the land.” The two plural verbs seem inconsistent with the preceding and following contexts, where only one priest is sent back to Samaria. The singular has the support of Greek, Syriac, and Latin witnesses.

[18:17]  ³⁷ sn For a discussion of these titles see M. Cogan and H. Tadmor, II Kings (AB), 229-30.

[18:17]  ³⁸ map For location see Map5 B1; Map6 F3; Map7 E2; Map8 F2; Map10 B3; JP1 F4; JP2 F4; JP3 F4; JP4 F4.

[18:17]  ³⁹ tn Heb “and they went up and came.”

[18:17]  ⁴⁰ tn Heb “the field of the washer.”

[19:32]  ⁴¹ tn Heb “there.”

[19:32]  ⁴² tn Heb “[with] a shield.” By metonymy the “shield” stands for the soldier who carries it.

[23:12]  ⁴³ 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.

[23:15]  ⁴⁴ map For location see Map4 G4; Map5 C1; Map6 E3; Map7 D1; Map8 G3.

[23:15]  ⁴⁵ 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]  ⁴⁶ 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.

[25:1]  ⁴⁷ tn Or “against.”

[25:1]  ⁴⁸ 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).

[25:25]  ⁴⁹ sn It is not altogether clear whether this is in the same year that Jerusalem fell or not. The wall was breached in the fourth month (= early July; Jer 39:2) and Nebuzaradan came and burned the palace, the temple, and many of the houses and tore down the wall in the fifth month (= early August; Jer 52:12). That would have left time between the fifth month and the seventh month (October) to gather in the harvest of grapes, dates and figs, and olives (Jer 40:12). However, many commentators feel that too much activity takes place in too short a time for this to have been in the same year and posit that it happened the following year or even five years later when a further deportation took place, possibly in retaliation for the murder of Gedaliah and the Babylonian garrison at Mizpah (Jer 52:30). The assassination of Gedaliah had momentous consequences and was commemorated in one of the post exilic fast days lamenting the fall of Jerusalem (Zech 8:19).

[25:25]  ⁵⁰ tn Heb “[was] from the seed of the kingdom.”

[25:25]  ⁵¹ tn Heb “and they struck down Gedaliah and he died.”