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 6 he told him, “The child did not wake up.”
9:17 Now the watchman was standing on the tower in Jezreel and saw Jehu’s troops approaching. 16 He said, “I see troops!” 17 Jehoram ordered, 18 “Send a rider out to meet them and have him ask, ‘Is everything all right?’” 19 9:18 So the horseman 20 went to meet him and said, “This is what the king says, ‘Is everything all right?’” 21 Jehu replied, “None of your business! 22 Follow me.” The watchman reported, “The messenger reached them, but hasn’t started back.” 9:19 So he sent a second horseman out to them 23 and he said, “This is what the king says, ‘Is everything all right?’” 24 Jehu replied, “None of your business! Follow me.”
10:1 Ahab had seventy sons living in Samaria. 25 So Jehu wrote letters and sent them to Samaria to the leading officials of Jezreel and to the guardians of Ahab’s dynasty. This is what the letters said, 26
16:17 King Ahaz took off the frames of the movable stands, and removed the basins from them. He took “The Sea” 33 down from the bronze bulls that supported it 34 and put it on the pavement.
17:24 The king of Assyria brought foreigners 38 from Babylon, Cuthah, Avva, Hamath, and Sepharvaim and settled them in the cities of Samaria 39 in place of the Israelites. They took possession of Samaria and lived in its cities.
17:29 But each of these nations made 42 its own gods and put them in the shrines on the high places that the people of Samaria 43 had made. Each nation did this in the cities where they lived.
24:20 What follows is a record of what happened to Jerusalem and Judah because of the Lord’s anger; he finally threw them out of his presence. 53 Zedekiah rebelled against the king of Babylon.
1 tc Two medieval Hebrew
2 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.
3 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 tn Heb “him”; the referent (Elijah) has been specified in the translation for clarity.
5 tn Heb “the king of Israel and the king of Judah and the king of Edom.”
6 tn Heb “to meet him.”
7 tn Heb “peace.”
8 tn Heb “Look now, here, two servants came to me from the Ephraimite hill country, from the sons of the prophets.”
9 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 pounds of silver (cf. NCV, NLT, CEV).
10 tn The Hebrew text also has “look” here.
11 tn Heb “came down to him.”
12 tn Heb “Look, this is a disaster from the
13 tn Heb “went after.”
14 tn Heb “and look, all the road was full of clothes and equipment that Syria had thrown away in their haste.”
15 tn Or “messengers.”
16 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).
17 tn The term שִׁפְעַת (shifat) appears to be a construct form of the noun, but no genitive follows.
18 tn Heb “said.”
19 tn Heb “Get a rider and send [him] to meet him and let him ask, ‘Is there peace?’”
20 tn Heb “the rider of the horse.”
21 tn Heb “Is there peace?”
22 tn Heb “What concerning you and concerning peace?” That is, “What concern is that to you?”
23 tn Heb “and he came to them.”
24 tc The MT has simply “peace,” omitting the prefixed interrogative particle. It is likely that the particle has been accidentally omitted; several ancient witnesses include it or assume its presence.
25 map For location see Map2-B1; Map4-D3; Map5-E2; Map6-A4; Map7-C1.
26 tn Heb “to the officers of Jezreel, the elders, and to the guardians of Ahab, saying.” It is not certain why the officials of Jezreel would be in Samaria. They may have fled there after they heard what happened to Joram and before Jehu entered the city. They would have had time to flee while Jehu was pursuing Ahaziah.
27 tn Heb “him”; the referent (Jehu) has been specified in the translation for clarity.
28 tn Heb “he”; the referent (Jehu) has been specified in the translation for clarity.
29 tn Heb “The man who escapes from the men whom I am bringing into your hands, [it will be] his life in place of his life.”
30 tn Heb “Indeed he did not leave to Jehoahaz people.” The identity of the subject is uncertain, but the king of Syria, mentioned later in the verse, is a likely candidate.
31 tn Heb “them,” i.e., the remainder of this troops.
32 tn Heb “and made them like dust for trampling.”
33 sn See the note at 1 Kgs 7:23.
34 tn Heb “that [were] under it.”
35 tn Heb “and they made Jeroboam son of Nebat king.”
36 tc The consonantal text (Kethib) assumes the verb is נָדָא (nada’), an alternate form of נָדָה (nadah), “push away.” The marginal reading (Qere) assumes the verb נָדָח (nadakh), “drive away.”
37 tn Heb “a great sin.”
38 tn The object is supplied in the translation.
39 sn In vv. 24-29 Samaria stands for the entire northern kingdom of Israel.
40 tc The second plural subject may refer to the leaders of the Assyrian army. However, some prefer to read “whom I deported,” changing the verb to a first person singular form with a third masculine plural pronominal suffix. This reading has some support from Hebrew, Greek, and Aramaic witnesses.
41 tc Heb “and let them go and let them live there, and let him teach them the requirements of the God of the land.” The two plural verbs seem inconsistent with the preceding and following contexts, where only one priest is sent back to Samaria. The singular has the support of Greek, Syriac, and Latin witnesses.
42 sn The verb “make” refers to the production of idols. See M. Cogan and H. Tadmor, II Kings (AB), 210-11.
43 tn Heb “Samaritans.” This refers to the Israelites who had been deported from the land.
44 tn The Hebrew text has simply “Israel” as the object of the verb.
45 tn Heb “listen to the voice of.”
46 tn Heb “his covenant.”
47 tn Heb “all that Moses, the
48 tn Heb “At that time Hezekiah stripped the doors of the
49 tn Heb “by which the servants of the king of Assyria have insulted me.”
50 tn Heb “and they put their gods in the fire.”
51 tn Heb “so they destroyed them.”
52 tn Heb “he sent them against Judah to destroy it, according to the word of the
53 tn Heb “Surely [or, ‘for’] because of the anger of the