21:15 When Jezebel heard that Naboth had been stoned to death, she 1 said to Ahab, “Get up, take possession of the vineyard Naboth the Jezreelite refused to sell you for silver, for Naboth is no longer alive; he’s dead.”
1 tn Heb “Jezebel”; the proper name has been replaced by the pronoun (“she”) in the translation for stylistic reasons.
2 tn The introductory formula “the
3 sn Disaster. There is a wordplay in the Hebrew text. The word translated “disaster” (רָעָה, ra’ah) is similar to the word translated “evil” (v. 20, הָרַע, hara’). Ahab’s sins would receive an appropriate punishment.
4 tn Heb “I will burn after you.” Some take the verb בָּעַר (ba’ar) to mean here “sweep away.” See the discussion of this verb in the notes at 14:10 and 16:3.
5 tn Heb “and I will cut off from Ahab those who urinate against a wall, [including both those who are] restrained and let free [or “abandoned”] in Israel.” The precise meaning of the idiomatic phrase עָצוּר וְעָזוּב (’atsur vÿ’azuv, translated here “weak and incapacitated”) is uncertain. For various options see HALOT 871 s.v. עצר and M. Cogan and H. Tadmor, II Kings (AB), 107. The two terms are usually taken as polar opposites (“slaves and freemen” or “minors and adults”), but Cogan and Tadmor, on the basis of contextual considerations (note the usage with אֶפֶס (’efes), “nothing but”) in Deut 32:36 and 2 Kgs 14:26, argue convincingly that the terms are synonyms, meaning “restrained and abandoned,” and refer to incapable or incapacitated individuals.
6 tn Heb “who sold himself.”
7 tn Heb “in the eyes of.”
8 tn Heb “like Ahab…whom his wife Jezebel incited.”