20:20 Early the next morning they marched out to the Desert of Tekoa. When they were ready to march, Jehoshaphat stood up and said: “Listen to me, you people of Judah 1 and residents of Jerusalem! Trust in the Lord your God and you will be safe! 2 Trust in the message of his prophets and you will win.”
27:5 He launched a military campaign 3 against the king of the Ammonites and defeated them. That year the Ammonites paid him 100 talents 4 of silver, 10,000 kors 5 of wheat, and 10,000 kors 6 of barley. The Ammonites also paid this same amount of annual tribute the next two years. 7
1 tn Heb “O Judah.” The words “you people of” are supplied in the translation for clarity. See the note on the word “Judah” in v. 15.
2 tn There is a wordplay in the Hebrew text. The Hiphil verb form הַאֲמִינוּ (ha’aminu, “trust”) and the Niphal form תֵאָמֵנוּ (te’amenu, “you will be safe”) come from the same verbal root (אָמַן, ’aman).
3 tn Heb “he fought with.”
4 tn The Hebrew word כִּכַּר (kikar, “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, by extension, to a standard unit of weight. According to the older (Babylonian) standard the “talent” weighed 130 lbs. (58.9 kg), but later this was lowered to 108.3 lbs. (49.1 kg). More recent research suggests the “light” standard talent was 67.3 lbs. (30.6 kg). Using this as the standard for calculation, the weight of the silver was 6,730 lbs. (3,060 kg).
5 sn As a unit of dry measure a kor was roughly equivalent to six bushels (about 220 liters).
6 tn Heb “10,000 kors of wheat and 10,000 of barley.” The unit of measure of the barley is omitted in the Hebrew text, but is understood to be “kors,” the same as the measures of wheat.
7 tn Heb “This the sons of Ammon brought to him, and in the second year and the third.”