2 Raja-raja 3:13

3:13 Elisha said to the king of Israel, “Why are you here? ¹  Go to your father’s prophets or your mother’s prophets!” The king of Israel replied to him, “No, for the Lord is the one who summoned these three kings so that he can hand them over to Moab.”

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, ²  so they broke off the attack ³  and returned to their homeland.

2 Raja-raja 4:13

4:13 Elisha said to Gehazi, ⁴  “Tell her, ‘Look, you have treated us with such great respect. ⁵  What can I do for you? Can I put in a good word for you with the king or the commander of the army?’” She replied, “I’m quite secure.” ⁶ 

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. ⁷  The Lord has kept the matter hidden from me; he didn’t tell me about it.”

2 Raja-raja 7:19

7:19 But the officer replied to the prophet, “Look, even if the Lord made it rain by opening holes in the sky, could this happen so soon?” ⁸  Elisha ⁹  said, “Look, you will see it happen with your own eyes, but you will not eat any of the food!” ¹⁰ 

2 Raja-raja 19:25

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 

2 Raja-raja 21:6

21:6 He passed his son ¹⁵  through the fire ¹⁶  and practiced divination and omen reading. He set up a ritual pit to conjure up underworld spirits, and appointed magicians to supervise it. ¹⁷  He did a great amount of evil in the sight of the Lord, provoking him to anger. ¹⁸ 

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; ¹⁹  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 ²⁰  turned and saw the grave of the prophet who had foretold this. ²¹ 

2 Raja-raja 23:19

23:19 Josiah also removed all the shrines on the high places in the cities of Samaria. The kings of Israel had made them and angered the Lord. ²²  He did to them what he had done to the high place in Bethel. ²³ 

2 Raja-raja 23:24

23:24 Josiah also got rid of ²⁴  the ritual pits used to conjure up spirits, ²⁵  the magicians, personal idols, disgusting images, ²⁶  and all the detestable idols that had appeared in the land of Judah and in Jerusalem. In this way he carried out the terms of the law ²⁷  recorded on the scroll that Hilkiah the priest had discovered in the Lord’s temple.

[3:13]  ¹ tn Or “What do we have in common?” The text reads literally, “What to me and to you?”

[3:27]  ² 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]  ³ tn Heb “they departed from him.”

[4:13]  ⁴ tn Heb “he said to him.”

[4:13]  ⁵ tn Heb “you have turned trembling to us with all this trembling.” The exaggerated language is probably idiomatic. The point seems to be that she has taken great pains or gone out of her way to be kind to them. Her concern was a sign of her respect for the prophetic office.

[4:13]  ⁶ tn Heb “Among my people I am living.” This answer suggests that she has security within the context of her family.

[4:27]  ⁷ tn Heb “her soul [i.e., ‘disposition’] is bitter.”

[7:19]  ⁸ tn Heb “the Lord was making holes in the sky, could this thing be?” See the note at 7:2.

[7:19]  ⁹ tn Heb “he”; the referent (Elisha) has been specified in the translation for clarity.

[7:19]  ¹⁰ tn Heb “you will not eat from there.”

[7:19]  tn In the Hebrew text vv. 18-19a are one lengthy sentence, “When the man of God spoke to the king…, the officer replied to the man of God, ‘Look…so soon?’” The translation divides this sentence up for stylistic reasons.

[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.

[21:6]  ¹⁵ tc The LXX has the plural “his sons” here.

[21:6]  ¹⁶ sn See the note at 2 Kgs 16:3.

[21:6]  ¹⁷ tn Heb “and he set up a ritual pit, along with conjurers.” The Hebrew אוֹב (’ov), “ritual pit,” refers to a pit used by a magician to conjure up underworld spirits. In 1 Sam 28:7 the witch of Endor is called a בַעֲלַת אוֹב (ba’alat ’ov), “owner of a ritual pit.” See H. Hoffner, “Second millennium Antecedents to the Hebrew ’OñBù,” JBL 86 (1967), 385-401.

[21:6]  ¹⁸ tc Heb “and he multiplied doing what is evil in the eyes of the Lord, angering.” The third masculine singular pronominal suffix (“him”) has been accidentally omitted in the MT by haplography (note the vav that immediately follows).

[23:16]  ¹⁹ tn Heb “and he sent and took the bones from the tombs.”

[23:16]  ²⁰ tn Heb “the king”; this has been specified as “King Josiah” in the translation for clarity (cf. TEV, CEV, NLT).

[23:16]  ²¹ 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.

[23:19]  ²² tc Heb “which the kings of Israel had made, angering.” The object has been accidentally omitted in the MT. It appears in the LXX, Syriac, and Vulgate versions.

[23:19]  ²³ tn Heb “and he did to them according to all the deeds he had done in Bethel.”

[23:19]  map For location see Map4 G4; Map5 C1; Map6 E3; Map7 D1; Map8 G3.

[23:24]  ²⁴ tn Here בִּעֵר (bi’er) is not the well attested verb “burn,” but the less common homonym meaning “devastate, sweep away, remove.” See HALOT 146 s.v. בער.

[23:24]  ²⁵ sn See the note at 2 Kgs 21:6.

[23:24]  ²⁶ sn See the note at 1 Kgs 15:12.

[23:24]  ²⁷ tn Heb “carrying out the words of the law.”