2 Raja-raja 2:12

2:12 While Elisha was watching, he was crying out, “My father, my father! The chariot and horsemen of Israel!” ¹  Then he could no longer see him. He grabbed his clothes and tore them in two.

2 Raja-raja 4:5

4:5 So she left him and closed the door behind her and her sons. As they were bringing the containers to her, she was pouring the olive oil.

2 Raja-raja 4:7

4:7 She went and told the prophet. ²  He said, “Go, sell the olive oil. Repay your creditor, and then you and your sons can live off the rest of the profit.”

2 Raja-raja 4:43

4:43 But his attendant said, “How can I feed a hundred men with this?” ³  He replied, “Set it before the people so they may eat, for this is what the Lord says, ‘They will eat and have some left over.’” ⁴ 

2 Raja-raja 5:21

5:21 So Gehazi ran after Naaman. When Naaman saw someone running after him, he got down from his chariot to meet him and asked, “Is everything all right?” ⁵ 

2 Raja-raja 6:12

6:12 One of his advisers said, “No, my master, O king. The prophet Elisha who lives in Israel keeps telling the king of Israel the things you say in your bedroom.”

2 Raja-raja 6:18

6:18 As they approached him, ⁶  Elisha prayed to the Lord, “Strike these people ⁷  with blindness.” ⁸  The Lord ⁹  struck them with blindness as Elisha requested. ¹⁰ 

2 Raja-raja 9:7

9:7 You will destroy the family of your master Ahab. ¹¹  I will get revenge against Jezebel for the shed blood of my servants the prophets and for the shed blood of all the Lord’s servants. ¹² 

2 Raja-raja 10:8

10:8 The messenger came and told Jehu, ¹³  “They have brought the heads of the king’s sons.” Jehu ¹⁴  said, “Stack them in two piles at the entrance of the city gate until morning.”

2 Raja-raja 12:11-12

12:11 They would then hand over ¹⁵  the silver that had been weighed to the construction foremen ¹⁶  assigned to the Lord’s temple. They hired carpenters and builders to work on the Lord’s temple, 12:12 as well as masons and stonecutters. They bought wood and chiseled stone to repair the damage to the Lord’s temple and also paid for all the other expenses. ¹⁷ 

2 Raja-raja 15:19-20

15:19 Pul ¹⁸  king of Assyria invaded the land, and Menahem paid ¹⁹  him ²⁰  a thousand talents ²¹  of silver to gain his support ²²  and to solidify his control of the kingdom. ²³  15:20 Menahem got this silver by taxing all the wealthy men in Israel; he took fifty shekels of silver from each one of them and paid it to the king of Assyria. ²⁴  Then the king of Assyria left; he did not stay there in the land.

2 Raja-raja 16:6

16:6 (At that time King Rezin of Syria ²⁵  recovered Elat for Syria; he drove the Judahites from there. ²⁶  Syrians ²⁷  arrived in Elat and live there to this very day.)

2 Raja-raja 17:9

17:9 The Israelites said things about the Lord their God that were not right. ²⁸  They built high places in all their cities, from the watchtower to the fortress. ²⁹ 

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. ³⁰ 

2 Raja-raja 17:16

17:16 They abandoned all the commandments of the Lord their God; they made two metal calves and an Asherah pole, bowed down to all the stars in the sky, ³¹  and worshiped ³²  Baal.

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. ³³ 

2 Raja-raja 19:16

19:16 Pay attention, Lord, and hear! Open your eyes, Lord, and observe! Listen to the message Sennacherib sent and how he taunts the living God! ³⁴ 

2 Raja-raja 19:35

19:35 That very night the Lord’s messenger went out and killed 185,000 men in the Assyrian camp. When they ³⁵  got up early the next morning, there were all the corpses. ³⁶ 

2 Raja-raja 21:14-15

21:14 I will abandon this last remaining tribe among my people ³⁷  and hand them over to their enemies; they will be plundered and robbed by all their enemies, ³⁸  21:15 because they have done evil in my sight ³⁹  and have angered me from the time their ancestors left Egypt right up to this very day!’”

2 Raja-raja 22:17

22:17 This will happen because they have abandoned me and offered sacrifices ⁴⁰  to other gods, angering me with all the idols they have made. ⁴¹  My anger will ignite against this place and will not be extinguished!’”

2 Raja-raja 23:7

23:7 He tore down the quarters ⁴²  of the male cultic prostitutes in the Lord’s temple, where women were weaving shrines ⁴³  for Asherah.

2 Raja-raja 24:7

24:7 The king of Egypt did not march out from his land again, for the king of Babylon conquered all the territory that the king of Egypt had formerly controlled between the Brook of Egypt and the Euphrates River.

2 Raja-raja 25:22

Gedaliah Appointed Governor

25:22 Now King Nebuchadnezzar of Babylon appointed Gedaliah son of Ahikam, son of Shaphan, as governor over the people whom he allowed to remain in the land of Judah. ⁴⁴ 

2 Raja-raja 25:24

25:24 Gedaliah took an oath so as to give them and their troops some assurance of safety. ⁴⁵  He said, “You don’t need to be afraid to submit to the Babylonian officials. Settle down in the land and submit to the king of Babylon. Then things will go well for you.”

[2:12]  ¹ sn Elisha may be referring to the fiery chariot(s) and horses as the Lord’s spiritual army that fights on behalf of Israel (see 2 Kgs 6:15-17; 7:6). However, the juxtaposition with “my father” (clearly a reference to Elijah as Elisha’s mentor), and the parallel in 2 Kgs 13:14 (where the king addresses Elisha with these words), suggest that Elisha is referring to Elijah. In this case Elijah is viewed as a one man army, as it were. When the Lord spoke through him, his prophetic word was as powerful as an army of chariots and horses. See M. A. Beek, “The Meaning of the Expression ‘The Chariots and Horsemen of Israel’ (II Kings ii 12),” The Witness of Tradition (OTS 17), 1-10.

[4:7]  ² tn Heb “man of God” (also in vv. 16, 22, 25, 27 [twice]).

[4:43]  ³ tn Heb “How can I set this before a hundred men?”

[4:43]  ⁴ tn The verb forms are infinitives absolute (Heb “eating and leaving over”) and have to be translated in light of the context.

[5:21]  ⁵ tn Heb “Is there peace?”

[6:18]  ⁶ tn Heb “and they came down to him.”

[6:18]  ⁷ tn Or “this nation,” perhaps emphasizing the strength of the Syrian army.

[6:18]  ⁸ tn On the basis of the Akkadian etymology of the word, M. Cogan and H. Tadmor (II Kings [AB], 74) translate “blinding light.” HALOT 761 s.v. סַנְוֵרִים suggests the glosses “dazzling, deception.”

[6:18]  ⁹ tn Heb “he”; the referent (the Lord) has been specified in the translation for clarity.

[6:18]  ¹⁰ tn Heb “according to the word of Elisha.”

[9:7]  ¹¹ tn Or “strike down the house of Ahab your master.”

[9:7]  ¹² tn Heb “I will avenge the shed blood of my servants the prophets and the shed blood of all the servants of the Lord from the hand of Jezebel.”

[10:8]  ¹³ tn Heb “him”; the referent (Jehu) has been specified in the translation for clarity.

[10:8]  ¹⁴ tn Heb “he”; the referent (Jehu) has been specified in the translation for clarity.

[12:11]  ¹⁵ tn Heb “would give.”

[12:11]  ¹⁶ tn Heb “doers of the work.”

[12:12]  ¹⁷ tn Heb “and for all that which was going out concerning the house for repair.”

[15:19]  ¹⁸ sn Pul was a nickname of Tiglath-pileser III (cf. 15:29). See M. Cogan and H. Tadmor, II Kings (AB), 171-72.

[15:19]  ¹⁹ tn Heb “gave.”

[15:19]  ²⁰ tn Heb “Pul.” The proper name has been replaced by the pronoun (“him”) in the translation for stylistic reasons.

[15:19]  ²¹ tn The Hebrew term כִּכָּר (kikkar, “circle”) refers generally to something that is round. When used of metals it can refer to a disk-shaped weight made of the metal or to a standard unit of weight, generally regarded as a talent. Since the accepted weight for a talent of metal is about 75 pounds, this would have amounted to about 75,000 pounds of silver (cf. NCV “about seventy-four thousand pounds”); NLT “thirty-seven tons”; CEV “over thirty tons”; TEV “34,000 kilogrammes.”

[15:19]  ²² tn Heb “so his hands would be with him.”

[15:19]  ²³ tn Heb “to keep hold of the kingdom in his hand.”

[15:20]  ²⁴ tn Heb “and Menahem brought out the silver over Israel, over the prominent men of means, to give to the king of Assyria, fifty shekels of silver for each man.”

[16:6]  ²⁵ tc Some prefer to read “the king of Edom” and “for Edom” here. The names Syria (Heb “Aram,” אֲרָם, ’aram) and Edom (אֱדֹם, ’edom) are easily confused in the Hebrew consonantal script.

[16:6]  ²⁶ tn Heb “from Elat.”

[16:6]  ²⁷ tc The consonantal text (Kethib), supported by many medieval Hebrew mss, the Syriac version, and some mss of the Targum and Vulgate, read “Syrians” (Heb “Arameans”). The marginal reading (Qere), supported by the LXX, Targums, and Vulgate, reads “Edomites.”

[17:9]  ²⁸ tn The meaning of the verb וַיְחַפְּאוּ (vayÿkhappÿ’u), translated here “said,” is uncertain. Some relate it to the verbal root חָפַה (khafah), “to cover,” and translate “they did it in secret” (see BDB 341 s.v. חָפָא). However, the pagan practices specified in the following sentences were hardly done in secret. Others propose a meaning “ascribe, impute,” which makes good contextual sense but has little etymological support (see HALOT 339 s.v. חפא). In this case Israel claimed that the Lord authorized their pagan practices.

[17:9]  ²⁹ sn That is, from the city’s perimeter to the central citadel.

[17:11]  ³⁰ tn Heb “and they did evil things, angering the Lord.”

[17:16]  ³¹ tn The phrase כָל צְבָא הַשָּׁמַיִם (khol tsÿva’ hashamayim), traditionally translated “all the host of heaven,” refers to the heavenly lights, including stars and planets. In 1 Kgs 22:19 these heavenly bodies are pictured as members of the Lord’s royal court or assembly, but many other texts view them as the illegitimate objects of pagan and Israelite worship.

[17:16]  ³² tn Or “served.”

[18:24]  ³³ 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.”

[19:16]  ³⁴ tn Heb “Hear the words of Sennacherib which he sent to taunt the living God.”

[19:35]  ³⁵ tn This refers to the Israelites and/or the rest of the Assyrian army.

[19:35]  ³⁶ tn Heb “look, all of them were dead bodies.”

[21:14]  ³⁷ tn Heb “the remnant of my inheritance.” In this context the Lord’s remnant is the tribe of Judah, which had been preserved when the Assyrians conquered and deported the northern tribes. See 17:18 and M. Cogan and H. Tadmor, II Kings (AB), 269.

[21:14]  ³⁸ tn Heb “they will become plunder and spoils of war for all their enemies.”

[21:15]  ³⁹ tn Heb “in my eyes.”

[22:17]  ⁴⁰ tn Or “burned incense.”

[22:17]  ⁴¹ tn Heb “angering me with all the work of their hands.” The translation assumes that this refers to idols they have manufactured (note the preceding reference to “other gods,” as well as 19:18). However, it is possible that this is a general reference to their sinful practices, in which case one might translate, “angering me by all the things they do.”

[23:7]  ⁴² tn Or “cubicles.” Heb “houses.”

[23:7]  ⁴³ tn Heb “houses.” Perhaps tent-shrines made from cloth are in view (see BDB 109 s.v. בַּיִת). M. Cogan and H. Tadmor (II Kings [AB], 286) understand this as referring to clothes made for images of the goddess.

[25:22]  ⁴⁴ tn Heb “And the people who were left in the land of Judah, whom Nebuchadnezzar king of Babylon left, he appointed over them Gedaliah son of Ahikam, son of Shaphan.”

[25:24]  ⁴⁵ tn The words “so as to give them…some assurance of safety” are supplied in the translation for clarification.