2 Raja-raja 14:3

14:3 He did what the Lord approved, ¹  but not like David his father. He followed the example of his father Joash. ² 

2 Raja-raja 25:4

25:4 The enemy broke through the city walls, ³  and all the soldiers tried to escape. They left the city during the night. ⁴  They went through the gate between the two walls that is near the king’s garden. ⁵  (The Babylonians were all around the city.) Then they headed for the Jordan Valley. ⁶ 

2 Raja-raja 5:16

5:16 But Elisha ⁷  replied, “As certainly as the Lord lives (whom I serve), ⁸  I will take nothing from you.” Naaman ⁹  insisted that he take it, but he refused.

2 Raja-raja 21:7

21:7 He put an idol of Asherah he had made in the temple, about which the Lord had said to David and to his son Solomon, “This temple in Jerusalem, which I have chosen out of all the tribes of Israel, will be my permanent home. ¹⁰ 

2 Raja-raja 17:12

17:12 They worshiped ¹¹  the disgusting idols ¹²  in blatant disregard of the Lord’s command. ¹³ 

2 Raja-raja 23:9

23:9 (Now the priests of the high places did not go up to the altar of the Lord in Jerusalem, but they did eat unleavened cakes among their fellow priests.) ¹⁴ 

2 Raja-raja 17:15

17:15 They rejected his rules, the covenant he had made with their ancestors, and the laws he had commanded them to obey. ¹⁵  They paid allegiance to ¹⁶  worthless idols, and so became worthless to the Lord. ¹⁷  They copied the practices of the surrounding nations in blatant disregard of the Lord’s command. ¹⁸ 

2 Raja-raja 3:2

3:2 He did evil in the sight of ¹⁹  the Lord, but not to the same degree as his father and mother. He did remove the sacred pillar of Baal that his father had made.

2 Raja-raja 9:34

9:34 He went inside and had a meal. ²⁰  Then he said, “Dispose of this accursed woman’s corpse. Bury her, for after all, she was a king’s daughter.” ²¹ 

2 Raja-raja 13:6

13:6 But they did not repudiate ²²  the sinful ways of the family ²³  of Jeroboam, who encouraged Israel to sin; they continued in those sins. ²⁴  There was even an Asherah pole ²⁵  standing in Samaria.

2 Raja-raja 17:11

17:11 They burned incense on all the high places just like the nations whom the Lord had driven away from before them. Their evil practices made the Lord angry. ²⁶ 

2 Raja-raja 18:24

18:24 Certainly you will not refuse one of my master’s minor officials and trust in Egypt for chariots and horsemen. ²⁷ 

2 Raja-raja 18:4

18:4 He eliminated the high places, smashed the sacred pillars to bits, and cut down the Asherah pole. ²⁸  He also demolished the bronze serpent that Moses had made, for up to that time ²⁹  the Israelites had been offering incense to it; it was called Nehushtan. ³⁰ 

2 Raja-raja 18:17

18:17 The king of Assyria sent his commanding general, the chief eunuch, and the chief adviser ³¹  from Lachish to King Hezekiah in Jerusalem, ³²  along with a large army. They went up and arrived at Jerusalem. They went ³³  and stood at the conduit of the upper pool which is located on the road to the field where they wash and dry cloth. ³⁴ 

[14:3]  ¹ tn Heb “he did what was proper in the eyes of the Lord.”

[14:3]  ² tn Heb “according to all which Joash his father had done, he did.”

[25:4]  ³ tn Heb “the city was breached.”

[25:4]  ⁴ tn The Hebrew text is abrupt here: “And all the men of war by the night.” The translation attempts to capture the sense.

[25:4]  ⁵ sn The king’s garden is mentioned again in Neh 3:15 in conjunction with the pool of Siloam and the stairs that go down from the city of David. This would have been in the southern part of the city near the Tyropean Valley which agrees with the reference to the “two walls” which were probably the walls on the eastern and western hills.

[25:4]  ⁶ sn Heb “toward the Arabah.” The Arabah was the rift valley north and south of the Dead Sea. Here the intention was undoubtedly to escape across the Jordan to Moab or Ammon. It appears from Jer 40:14; 41:15 that the Ammonites were known to harbor fugitives from the Babylonians.

[5:16]  ⁷ tn Heb “he”; the referent (Elisha) has been specified in the translation for clarity.

[5:16]  ⁸ tn Heb “before whom I stand.”

[5:16]  ⁹ tn Heb “he”; the referent (Naaman) has been specified in the translation for clarity.

[21:7]  ¹⁰ tn Heb “In this house and in Jerusalem, which I chose from all the tribes of Israel, I will place my name perpetually (or perhaps “forever”).”

[17:12]  ¹¹ tn Or “served.”

[17:12]  ¹² sn See the note at 1 Kgs 15:12.

[17:12]  ¹³ tn Heb “about which the Lord had said to them, ‘You must not do this thing.’”

[23:9]  ¹⁴ tn Heb “their brothers.”

[17:15]  ¹⁵ tn Or “and his warnings he had given them.”

[17:15]  ¹⁶ tn Heb “They went [or, ‘followed’] after.” This idiom probably does not mean much if translated literally. It is found most often in Deuteronomy or in literature related to the covenant. It refers in the first instance to loyalty to God and to His covenant or His commandments (1 Kgs 14:8; 2 Chr 34:31) with the metaphor of a path or way underlying it (Deut 11:28; 28:14). To “follow other gods” was to abandon this way and this loyalty (to “abandon” or “forget” God, Judg 2:12; Hos 2:13) and to follow the customs or religious traditions of the pagan nations (2 Kgs 17:15). The classic text on “following” God or another god is 1 Kgs 18:18, 21 where Elijah taunts the people with “halting between two opinions” whether the Lord was the true God or Baal was. The idiom is often found followed by “to serve and to worship” or “they served and worshiped” such and such a god or entity (Jer 8:2; 11:10; 13:10; 16:11; 25:6; 35:15).

[17:15]  ¹⁷ tn Heb “they followed after the worthless thing/things and became worthless.” The words “to the Lord” are not in the Hebrew text but are implicit from the context. There is an obvious wordplay on the verb “became worthless” and the noun “worthless thing”, which is probably to be understood collectively and to refer to idols as it does in Jer 8:19; 10:8; 14:22; Jonah 2:8.

[17:15]  ¹⁸ tn Heb “and [they walked] after the nations which were around them, concerning which the Lord commanded them not to do like them.”

[3:2]  ¹⁹ tn Heb “in the eyes of.”

[9:34]  ²⁰ tn Heb “and he went and ate and drank.”

[9:34]  ²¹ tn Heb “Attend to this accursed woman and bury her for she was the daughter of a king.”

[13:6]  ²² tn Heb “they did not turn away from.”

[13:6]  ²³ tn Heb “house.”

[13:6]  ²⁴ tc Heb “in it he walked.” The singular verb (הָלַךְ, halakh) is probably due to an error of haplography and should be emended to the plural (הָלְכּוּ, halÿku). Note that a vav immediately follows (on the form וְגַם, vÿgam).

[13:6]  ²⁵ tn Or “an image of Asherah”; ASV, NASB “the Asherah”; NCV “the Asherah idol.”

[13:6]  sn Asherah was a leading deity of the Canaanite pantheon, wife/sister of El and goddess of fertility. She was commonly worshiped at shrines in or near groves of evergreen trees, or, failing that, at places marked by wooden poles. These were to be burned or cut down (Deut 12:3; 16:21; Judg 6:25, 28, 30; 2 Kgs 18:4).

[17:11]  ²⁶ tn Heb “and they did evil things, angering the Lord.”

[18:24]  ²⁷ tn Heb “How can you turn back the face of an official [from among] the least of my master’s servants and trust in Egypt for chariots and horsemen?” In vv. 23-24 the chief adviser develops further the argument begun in v. 21. His reasoning seems to be as follows: “In your weakened condition you obviously need military strength. Agree to the king’s terms and I will personally give you more horses than you are capable of outfitting. If I, a mere minor official, am capable of giving you such military might, just think what power the king has. There is no way the Egyptians can match our strength. It makes much better sense to deal with us.”

[18:4]  ²⁸ tn The term is singular in the MT but plural in the LXX and other ancient versions. It is also possible to regard the singular as a collective singular, especially in the context of other plural items.

[18:4]  sn Asherah was a leading deity of the Canaanite pantheon, wife/sister of El and goddess of fertility. She was commonly worshiped at shrines in or near groves of evergreen trees, or, failing that, at places marked by wooden poles. These were to be burned or cut down (Deut 12:3; 16:21; Judg 6:25, 28, 30; 2 Kgs 18:4).

[18:4]  ²⁹ tn Heb “until those days.”

[18:4]  ³⁰ tn In Hebrew the name sounds like the phrase נְחַשׁ הַנְּחֹשֶׁת (nÿkhash hannÿkhoshet), “bronze serpent.”

[18:17]  ³¹ sn For a discussion of these titles see M. Cogan and H. Tadmor, II Kings (AB), 229-30.

[18:17]  ³² map For location see Map5 B1; Map6 F3; Map7 E2; Map8 F2; Map10 B3; JP1 F4; JP2 F4; JP3 F4; JP4 F4.

[18:17]  ³³ tn Heb “and they went up and came.”

[18:17]  ³⁴ tn Heb “the field of the washer.”