2 Raja-raja 1:2-3

1:2 Ahaziah fell through a window lattice in his upper chamber in Samaria ¹  and was injured. He sent messengers with these orders, ²  “Go, ask ³  Baal Zebub, ⁴  the god of Ekron, if I will survive this injury.”

1:3 But the Lord’s angelic messenger told Elijah the Tishbite, “Get up, go to meet the messengers from the king of Samaria. Say this to them: ‘You must think there is no God in Israel! That explains why you are on your way to seek an oracle from Baal Zebub the god of Ekron. ⁵ 

2 Raja-raja 4:10

4:10 Let’s make a small private upper room ⁶  and furnish it with ⁷  a bed, table, chair, and lamp. When he visits us, he can stay there.”

2 Raja-raja 8:9

8:9 So Hazael went to visit Elisha. ⁸  He took along a gift, ⁹  as well as ¹⁰  forty camel loads of all the fine things of Damascus. When he arrived, he stood before him and said, “Your son, ¹¹  King Ben Hadad of Syria, has sent me to you with this question, ¹²  ‘Will I recover from this sickness?’”

2 Raja-raja 8:21

8:21 Joram ¹³  crossed over to Zair with all his chariots. The Edomites, who had surrounded him, attacked at night and defeated him and his chariot officers. ¹⁴  The Israelite army retreated to their homeland. ¹⁵ 

2 Raja-raja 8:29

8:29 King Joram returned to Jezreel to recover from the wounds he received from the Syrians ¹⁶  in Ramah when he fought against King Hazael of Syria. King Ahaziah son of Jehoram of Judah went down to visit ¹⁷  Joram son of Ahab in Jezreel, for he was ill.

2 Raja-raja 9:17

9:17 Now the watchman was standing on the tower in Jezreel and saw Jehu’s troops approaching. ¹⁸  He said, “I see troops!” ¹⁹  Jehoram ordered, ²⁰  “Send a rider out to meet them and have him ask, ‘Is everything all right?’” ²¹ 

2 Raja-raja 14:13

14:13 King Jehoash of Israel captured King Amaziah of Judah, son of Jehoash son of Ahaziah, in Beth Shemesh. He ²²  attacked ²³  Jerusalem and broke down the wall of Jerusalem from the Gate of Ephraim to the Corner Gate – a distance of about six hundred feet. ²⁴ 

2 Raja-raja 15:25

15:25 His officer Pekah son of Remaliah conspired against him. He and fifty Gileadites assassinated Pekahiah, as well as Argob and Arieh, in Samaria in the fortress of the royal palace. ²⁵  Pekah then took his place as king.

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. ²⁶  King Ahaz sent to Uriah the priest a drawing of the altar and a blueprint for its design. ²⁷ 

2 Raja-raja 18:17

18:17 The king of Assyria sent his commanding general, the chief eunuch, and the chief adviser ²⁸  from Lachish to King Hezekiah in Jerusalem, ²⁹  along with a large army. They went up and arrived at Jerusalem. They went ³⁰  and stood at the conduit of the upper pool which is located on the road to the field where they wash and dry cloth. ³¹ 

2 Raja-raja 18:27

18:27 But the chief adviser said to them, “My master did not send me to speak these words only to your master and to you. ³²  His message is also for the men who sit on the wall, for they will eat their own excrement and drink their own urine along with you.” ³³ 

2 Raja-raja 18:31

18:31 Don’t listen to Hezekiah!’ For this is what the king of Assyria says, ‘Send me a token of your submission and surrender to me. ³⁴  Then each of you may eat from his own vine and fig tree and drink water from his own cistern,

2 Raja-raja 21:3

21:3 He rebuilt the high places that his father Hezekiah had destroyed; he set up altars for Baal and made an Asherah pole just like King Ahab of Israel had done. He bowed down to all the stars in the sky ³⁵  and worshiped ³⁶  them.

2 Raja-raja 21:16

21:16 Furthermore Manasseh killed so many innocent people, he stained Jerusalem with their blood from end to end, ³⁷  in addition to encouraging Judah to sin by doing evil in the sight of the Lord. ³⁸ 

2 Raja-raja 22:19

22:19 ‘You displayed a sensitive spirit ³⁹  and humbled yourself before the Lord when you heard how I intended to make this place and its residents into an appalling example of an accursed people. ⁴⁰  You tore your clothes and wept before me, and I have heard you,’ says the Lord.

[1:2]  ¹ map For location see Map2 B1; Map4 D3; Map5 E2; Map6 A4; Map7 C1.

[1:2]  ² tn Heb “and he sent messengers and said to them.”

[1:2]  ³ tn That is, “seek an oracle from.”

[1:2]  ⁴ sn Apparently Baal Zebub refers to a local manifestation of the god Baal at the Philistine city of Ekron. The name appears to mean “Lord of the Flies,” but it may be a deliberate scribal corruption of Baal Zebul, “Baal, the Prince,” a title known from the Ugaritic texts. For further discussion and bibliography, see HALOT 261 s.v. זְבוּב בַּעַל and M. Cogan and H. Tadmor, II Kings (AB), 25.

[1:3]  ⁵ tn Heb “Is it because there is no God in Israel [that] you are going to inquire of Baal Zebub, the god of Ekron?” The translation seeks to bring out the sarcastic tone of the rhetorical question.

[4:10]  ⁶ tn Heb “a small upper room of a wall”; according to HALOT 832 s.v. עֲלִיָּה, this refers to “a fully walled upper room.”

[4:10]  ⁷ tn Heb “and let’s put there for him.”

[8:9]  ⁸ tn Heb “him”; the referent (Elisha) has been specified in the translation for clarity.

[8:9]  ⁹ tn The Hebrew text also has “in his hand.”

[8:9]  ¹⁰ tn Heb “and.” It is possible that the conjunction is here explanatory, equivalent to English “that is.” In this case the forty camel loads constitute the “gift” and one should translate, “He took along a gift, consisting of forty camel loads of all the fine things of Damascus.”

[8:9]  ¹¹ sn The words “your son” emphasize the king’s respect for the prophet.

[8:9]  ¹² tn Heb “saying.”

[8:21]  ¹³ sn Joram is a short form of the name Jehoram.

[8:21]  ¹⁴ 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]  ¹⁵ tn Heb “and the people fled to their tents.”

[8:29]  ¹⁶ tn Heb “which the Syrians inflicted [on] him.”

[8:29]  ¹⁷ tn Heb “to see.”

[9:17]  ¹⁸ tn Heb “the quantity [of the men] of Jehu, when he approached.” Elsewhere שִׁפְעַה (shif’ah), “quantity,” is used of a quantity of camels (Isa 60:6) or horses (Ezek 26:10) and of an abundance of water (Job 22:11; 38:34).

[9:17]  ¹⁹ tn The term שִׁפְעַת (shifat) appears to be a construct form of the noun, but no genitive follows.

[9:17]  ²⁰ tn Heb “said.”

[9:17]  ²¹ tn Heb “Get a rider and send [him] to meet him and let him ask, ‘Is there peace?’”

[14:13]  ²² tc The MT has the plural form of the verb, but the final vav (ו) is virtually dittographic. The word that immediately follows in the Hebrew text begins with a yod (י). The form should be emended to the singular, which is consistent in number with the verb (“he broke down”) that follows.

[14:13]  ²³ tn Heb “came to.”

[14:13]  ²⁴ tn Heb “four hundred cubits.” The standard cubit in the OT is assumed by most authorities to be about eighteen inches (45 cm) long.

[15:25]  ²⁵ tn Heb “and he struck him down in Samaria in the fortress of the house of the king, Argob and Arieh, and with him fifty men from the sons of the Gileadites, and they killed him.”

[15:25]  sn The precise identity of Argob and Arieh, as well as their relationship to the king, are uncertain. The usual assumption is that they were officials assassinated along with Pekahiah, or that they were two of the more prominent Gileadites involved in the revolt. For discussion see M. Cogan and H. Tadmor, II Kings (AB), 173.

[16:10]  ²⁶ tn Heb “in Damascus.”

[16:10]  ²⁷ tn Heb “the likeness of the altar and its pattern for all its work.”

[18:17]  ²⁸ sn For a discussion of these titles see M. Cogan and H. Tadmor, II Kings (AB), 229-30.

[18:17]  ²⁹ map For location see Map5 B1; Map6 F3; Map7 E2; Map8 F2; Map10 B3; JP1 F4; JP2 F4; JP3 F4; JP4 F4.

[18:17]  ³⁰ tn Heb “and they went up and came.”

[18:17]  ³¹ tn Heb “the field of the washer.”

[18:27]  ³² tn Heb “To your master and to you did my master send me to speak these words?” The rhetorical question expects a negative answer.

[18:27]  ³³ tn Heb “[Is it] not [also] to the men…?” The rhetorical question expects the answer, “Yes, it is.”

[18:27]  sn The chief adviser alludes to the horrible reality of siege warfare, when the starving people in the besieged city would resort to eating and drinking anything to stay alive.

[18:31]  ³⁴ tn Heb “make with me a blessing and come out to me.”

[21:3]  ³⁵ sn See the note at 2 Kgs 17:16.

[21:3]  ³⁶ tn Or “served.”

[21:16]  ³⁷ tn Heb “and also Manasseh shed very much innocent blood, until he filled Jerusalem from mouth to mouth.”

[21:16]  ³⁸ tn Heb “apart from his sin which he caused Judah to commit, by doing what is evil in the eyes of the Lord.”

[22:19]  ³⁹ tn Heb “Because your heart was tender.”

[22:19]  ⁴⁰ tn Heb “how I said concerning this place and its residents to become [an object of] horror and [an example of] a curse.” The final phrase (“horror and a curse”) refers to Judah becoming a prime example of an accursed people. In curse formulations they would be held up as a prime example of divine judgment. For an example of such a curse, see Jer 29:22.