2 Raja-raja 18:17

18:17 The king of Assyria sent his commanding general, the chief eunuch, and the chief adviser ¹  from Lachish to King Hezekiah in Jerusalem, ²  along with a large army. They went up and arrived at Jerusalem. They went ³  and stood at the conduit of the upper pool which is located on the road to the field where they wash and dry cloth. ⁴ 

2 Raja-raja 18:26-27

18:26 Eliakim son of Hilkiah, Shebna, and Joah said to the chief adviser, “Speak to your servants in Aramaic, ⁵  for we understand it. Don’t speak with us in the Judahite dialect ⁶  in the hearing of the people who are on the wall.” 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. ⁷  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.” ⁸ 

2 Raja-raja 19:4

19:4 Perhaps the Lord your God will hear all these things the chief adviser has spoken on behalf of his master, the king of Assyria, who sent him to taunt the living God. ⁹  When the Lord your God hears, perhaps he will punish him for the things he has said. ¹⁰  So pray for this remnant that remains.’” ¹¹ 

2 Raja-raja 22:3

22:3 In the eighteenth year of King Josiah’s reign, the king sent the scribe Shaphan son of Azaliah, son of Meshullam, to the Lord’s temple with these orders: ¹² 

2 Raja-raja 23:24

23:24 Josiah also got rid of ¹³  the ritual pits used to conjure up spirits, ¹⁴  the magicians, personal idols, disgusting images, ¹⁵  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 ¹⁶  recorded on the scroll that Hilkiah the priest had discovered in the Lord’s temple.

[18:17]  ¹ sn For a discussion of these titles see M. Cogan and H. Tadmor, II Kings (AB), 229-30.

[18:17]  ² map For location see Map5 B1; Map6 F3; Map7 E2; Map8 F2; Map10 B3; JP1 F4; JP2 F4; JP3 F4; JP4 F4.

[18:17]  ³ tn Heb “and they went up and came.”

[18:17]  ⁴ tn Heb “the field of the washer.”

[18:26]  ⁵ sn Aramaic was the diplomatic language of the empire.

[18:26]  ⁶ tn Or “Hebrew.”

[18:27]  ⁷ 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]  ⁸ 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.

[19:4]  ⁹ tn Heb “all the words of the chief adviser whom his master, the king of Assyria, sent to taunt the living God.”

[19:4]  ¹⁰ tn Heb “and rebuke the words which the Lord your God hears.”

[19:4]  ¹¹ tn Heb “and lift up a prayer on behalf of the remnant that is found.”

[22:3]  ¹² tn Heb “with these orders, saying.”

[23:24]  ¹³ 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]  ¹⁴ sn See the note at 2 Kgs 21:6.

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

[23:24]  ¹⁶ tn Heb “carrying out the words of the law.”