2 Raja-raja 19:21

19:21 This is what the Lord says about him: ¹ 

“The virgin daughter Zion ² 

despises you, she makes fun of you;

Daughter Jerusalem

shakes her head after you. ³ 

2 Raja-raja 23:18

23:18 The king ⁴  said, “Leave it alone! No one must touch his bones.” So they left his bones undisturbed, as well as the bones of the Israelite prophet buried beside him. ⁵ 

[19:21]  ¹ tn Heb “this is the word which the Lord has spoken about him.”

[19:21]  ² sn Zion (Jerusalem) is pictured here as a young, vulnerable daughter whose purity is being threatened by the would-be Assyrian rapist. The personification hints at the reality which the young girls of the city would face if the Assyrians conquer it.

[19:21]  ³ sn Shaking the head was a mocking gesture of derision.

[23:18]  ⁴ tn Heb “he”; the referent (the king) has been specified in the translation for clarity.

[23:18]  ⁵ tn Heb “and they left undisturbed his bones, the bones of the prophet who came from Samaria.” If the phrase “the bones of the prophet” were appositional to “his bones,” one would expect the sentence to end “from Judah” (see v. 17). Apparently the “prophet” referred to in the second half of the verse is the old prophet from Bethel who buried the man of God from Judah in his own tomb and instructed his sons to bury his bones there as well (1 Kgs 13:30-31). One expects the text to read “from Bethel,” but “Samaria” (which was not even built at the time of the incident recorded in 1 Kgs 13) is probably an anachronistic reference to the northern kingdom in general. See the note at 1 Kgs 13:32 and the discussion in M. Cogan and H. Tadmor, II Kings (AB), 290.