1:11 The king 3 sent another captain and his fifty soldiers to retrieve Elijah. He went up and told him, 4 “Prophet, this is what the king says, ‘Come down at once!’” 5 1:12 Elijah replied to them, 6 “If I am indeed a prophet, may fire come down from the sky and consume you and your fifty soldiers!” Fire from God 7 came down from the sky and consumed him and his fifty soldiers.
2:4 Elijah said to him, “Elisha, stay here, for the Lord has sent me to Jericho.” 8 But he replied, “As certainly as the Lord lives and as you live, I will not leave you.” So they went to Jericho.
2:6 Elijah said to him, “Stay here, for the Lord has sent me to the Jordan.” But he replied, “As certainly as the Lord lives and as you live, I will not leave you.” So they traveled on together.
2:23 He went up from there to Bethel. 10 As he was traveling up the road, some young boys 11 came out of the city and made fun of him, saying, “Go on up, baldy! Go on up, baldy!”
4:31 Now Gehazi went on ahead of them. He placed the staff on the child’s face, but there was no sound or response. When he came back to Elisha 12 he told him, “The child did not wake up.”
4:38 Now Elisha went back to Gilgal, while there was famine in the land. Some of the prophets were visiting him 16 and he told his servant, “Put the big pot on the fire 17 and boil some stew for the prophets.” 18
5:1 Now Naaman, the commander of the king of Syria’s army, was esteemed and respected by his master, 19 for through him the Lord had given Syria military victories. But this great warrior had a skin disease. 20
5:8 When Elisha the prophet 24 heard that the king had torn his clothes, he sent this message to the king, “Why did you tear your clothes? Send him 25 to me so he may know there is a prophet in Israel.”
9:1 Now Elisha the prophet summoned a member of the prophetic guild 30 and told him, “Tuck your robes into your belt, take this container 31 of olive oil in your hand, and go to Ramoth Gilead.
9:17 Now the watchman was standing on the tower in Jezreel and saw Jehu’s troops approaching. 32 He said, “I see troops!” 33 Jehoram ordered, 34 “Send a rider out to meet them and have him ask, ‘Is everything all right?’” 35 9:18 So the horseman 36 went to meet him and said, “This is what the king says, ‘Is everything all right?’” 37 Jehu replied, “None of your business! 38 Follow me.” The watchman reported, “The messenger reached them, but hasn’t started back.”
18:37 Eliakim son of Hilkiah, the palace supervisor, accompanied by Shebna the scribe and Joah son of Asaph, the secretary, went to Hezekiah with their clothes torn 48 and reported to him what the chief adviser had said.
1 tn Heb “answered and said to the officer of fifty.”
2 tn Wordplay contributes to the irony here. The king tells Elijah to “come down” (Hebrew יָרַד, yarad), but Elijah calls fire down (יָרַד) on the arrogant king’s officer.
3 tn Heb “he”; the referent (the king) has been specified in the translation for clarity.
4 tc The MT reads, “he answered and said to him.” The verb “he answered” (וַיַּעַן, vayya’an) is probably a corruption of “he went up” (וַיַּעַל, vayya’al). See v. 9.
5 sn In this second panel of the three-paneled narrative, the king and his captain are more arrogant than before. The captain uses a more official sounding introduction (“this is what the king says”) and the king adds “at once” to the command.
6 tc Two medieval Hebrew
7 tn Or “intense fire.” The divine name may be used idiomatically to emphasize the intensity of the fire. Whether one translates אֱלֹהִים (’elohim) here as a proper name or idiomatically, this addition to the narrative (the name is omitted in the first panel, v. 10b) emphasizes the severity of the judgment and is appropriate given the more intense command delivered by the king to the prophet in this panel.
8 map For location see Map5-B2; Map6-E1; Map7-E1; Map8-E3; Map10-A2; Map11-A1.
9 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.
10 map For location see Map4-G4; Map5-C1; Map6-E3; Map7-D1; Map8-G3.
11 tn The word נַעַר (na’ar), here translated “boy,” can refer to a broad age range, including infants as well as young men. But the qualifying term “young” (or “small”) suggests these youths were relatively young. The phrase in question (“young boy”) occurs elsewhere in 1 Sam 20:35; 1 Kgs 3:7 (used by Solomon in an hyperbolic manner); 11:17; 2 Kgs 5:14; and Isa 11:6.
12 tn Heb “to meet him.”
13 tn Heb “he”; the referent (Elisha) has been specified in the translation for clarity.
14 tn Heb “and he returned and went into the house, once here and once there.”
15 tn Heb “and he went up.”
16 tn Heb “the sons of the prophets were sitting before him.”
17 tn The words “the fire” are added for clarification.
18 tn Heb “sons of the prophets.”
19 tn Heb “was a great man before his master and lifted up with respect to the face.”
20 tn For a discussion of מְצֹרָע (mÿtsora’), traditionally translated “leprous,” see M. Cogan and H. Tadmor, II Kings (AB), 63. Naaman probably had a skin disorder of some type, not leprosy/Hansen’s disease.
21 tn Heb “he”; the referent (Naaman) has been specified in the translation for clarity.
22 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 750 pounds of silver (cf. NCV, NLT, CEV).
23 tn Heb “six thousand gold […].” The unit of measure is not given in the Hebrew text. A number of English versions supply “pieces” (e.g., KJV, ASV, NAB, TEV) or “shekels” (e.g., NASB, NIV, NRSV).
24 tn Heb “man of God” (also in vv. 15, 20).
25 tn Heb “Let him come.”
26 tn Heb “man of God” (also in v. 9).
27 tn Heb “he”; the referent (Elisha) has been specified in the translation for clarity.
28 tn Heb “he”; the referent (Hazael) has been specified in the translation for clarity.
29 tn Heb “his”; the referent (Ben Hadad) has been specified in the translation for clarity.
30 tn Heb “one of the sons of the prophets.”
31 tn Or “flask.”
32 tn Heb “the quantity [of the men] of Jehu, when he approached.” Elsewhere שִׁפְעַה (shif’ah), “quantity,” is used of a quantity of camels (Isa 60:6) or horses (Ezek 26:10) and of an abundance of water (Job 22:11; 38:34).
33 tn The term שִׁפְעַת (shifat) appears to be a construct form of the noun, but no genitive follows.
34 tn Heb “said.”
35 tn Heb “Get a rider and send [him] to meet him and let him ask, ‘Is there peace?’”
36 tn Heb “the rider of the horse.”
37 tn Heb “Is there peace?”
38 tn Heb “What concerning you and concerning peace?” That is, “What concern is that to you?”
39 tn Heb “It is the word of the
40 tn Heb “and when the letter came to them, they took the sons of the king and slaughtered seventy men.”
41 tn Heb “man of God.”
42 tn Heb “[It was necessary] to strike five or six times, then you would strike down Syria until destruction.” On the syntax of the infinitive construct, see GKC 349 §114.k.
43 tn Heb “from the hand of.”
44 tn Heb “and he struck him down in Samaria in the fortress of the house of the king, Argob and Arieh, and with him fifty men from the sons of the Gileadites, and they killed him.”
sn The precise identity of Argob and Arieh, as well as their relationship to the king, are uncertain. The usual assumption is that they were officials assassinated along with Pekahiah, or that they were two of the more prominent Gileadites involved in the revolt. For discussion see M. Cogan and H. Tadmor, II Kings (AB), 173.
45 tn Heb “and struck him down and killed him.”
46 sn See the note at 2 Kgs 16:3.
47 tn Heb “they sold themselves to doing what was evil in the eyes of the
48 sn As a sign of grief and mourning.
49 tn Heb “I will put in him a spirit.” The precise sense of רוּחַ (ruakh), “spirit,” is uncertain in this context. It may refer to a spiritual being who will take control of his mind (see 1 Kgs 22:19), or it could refer to a disposition of concern and fear. In either case the
50 tn Heb “hear.”
51 tn Heb “cause him to fall,” that is, “kill him.”
52 tc The MT has וְיַתֵּם (vÿyattem), “and let them add up” (Hiphil of תָּמָם [tammam], “be complete”), but the appearance of הִתִּיכוּ (hitikhu), “they melted down” (Hiphil of נָתַךְ [natakh], “pour out”) in v. 9 suggests that the verb form should be emended to וְיַתֵּךְ (vÿyattekh), “and let him melt down” (a Hiphil of נָתַךְ [natakh]). For a discussion of this and other options see M. Cogan and H. Tadmor, II Kings (AB), 281.
53 tn Heb “he”; the referent (the king) has been specified in the translation for clarity.
54 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.
55 tn Heb “he sent them against Judah to destroy it, according to the word of the