1:13 The king 1 sent a third captain and his fifty soldiers. This third captain went up and fell 2 on his knees before Elijah. He begged for mercy, “Prophet, please have respect for my life and for the lives of these fifty servants of yours.
7:12 The king got up in the night and said to his advisers, 12 “I will tell you what the Syrians have done to us. They know we are starving, so they left the camp and hid in the field, thinking, ‘When they come out of the city, we will capture them alive and enter the city.’” 7:13 One of his advisers replied, “Pick some men and have them take five of the horses that are left in the city. (Even if they are killed, their fate will be no different than that of all the Israelite people – we’re all going to die!) 13 Let’s send them out so we can know for sure what’s going on.” 14
19:29 25 This will be your confirmation that I have spoken the truth: 26 This year you will eat what grows wild, 27 and next year 28 what grows on its own from that. But in the third year you will plant seed and harvest crops; you will plant vines and consume their produce. 29
1 tn Heb “he”; the referent (the king) has been specified in the translation for clarity.
2 tn Heb “went up and approached and kneeled.”
3 tn Or “the spirit of the
4 tn Heb “he”; the referent (Elisha) has been specified in the translation for clarity.
5 tn Heb “he said to him.”
6 tn Heb “you have turned trembling to us with all this trembling.” The exaggerated language is probably idiomatic. The point seems to be that she has taken great pains or gone out of her way to be kind to them. Her concern was a sign of her respect for the prophetic office.
7 tn Heb “Among my people I am living.” This answer suggests that she has security within the context of her family.
8 tn Heb “my father,” reflecting the perspective of each individual servant. To address their master as “father” would emphasize his authority and express their respect. See BDB 3 s.v. אָב and the similar idiomatic use of “father” in 2 Kgs 2:12.
9 tn Heb “a great thing.”
10 tn Heb “would you not do [it]?” The rhetorical question expects the answer, “Of course you would.”
11 tn Heb “How much more [when] he said, “Wash and be healed.” The second imperative (“be healed”) states the expected result of obeying the first (‘wash”).
12 tn Heb “servants” (also in v. 13).
13 tn Heb “Let them take five of the remaining horses that remain in it. Look, they are like all the people of Israel that remain in it. Look, they are like all the people of Israel that have come to an end.” The MT is dittographic here; the words “that remain in it. Look they are like all the people of Israel” have been accidentally repeated. The original text read, “Let them take five of the remaining horses that remain in it. Look, they are like all the people of Israel that have come to an end.”
14 tn Heb “and let us send so we might see.”
15 tn Heb “he”; the referent (Jehu) has been specified in the translation for clarity.
16 tn Heb “he”; the referent (the prophet) has been specified in the translation for clarity.
17 tn Heb “So he said, ‘Like this and like this he said to me, saying.’” The words “like this and like this” are probably not a direct quote of Jehu’s words to his colleagues. Rather this is the narrator’s way of avoiding repetition and indicating that Jehu repeated, or at least summarized, what the prophet had said to him.
18 tn Heb “found.”
19 tn Or “brothers.”
20 tn Heb “for the peace of.”
21 tn Heb “Now, do not take silver from your treasurers, because for the damages to the temple you must give it.”
22 tn Or “I have done wrong.”
23 tn Heb “Return from upon me; what you place upon me, I will carry.”
24 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 22,500 pounds of silver and 2,250 pounds of gold.
25 tn At this point the word concerning the king of Assyria (vv. 21-28) ends and the Lord again directly addresses Hezekiah and the people (see v. 20).
26 tn Heb “and this is your sign.” In this case the אוֹת (’ot), “sign,” is a future confirmation of God’s intervention designated before the actual intervention takes place. For similar “signs” see Exod 3:12 and Isa 7:14-25.
27 sn This refers to crops that grew up on their own (that is, without cultivation) from the seed planted in past years.
28 tn Heb “and in the second year.”
29 tn The four plural imperatival verb forms in v. 29b are used rhetorically. The Lord commands the people to plant, harvest, etc. to emphasize the certainty of restored peace and prosperity. See IBHS 572 §34.4.c.
30 tn Heb “In this house and in Jerusalem, which I chose from all the tribes of Israel, I will place my name perpetually (or perhaps “forever”).”
31 tn Or “inquire of.”
32 tn Heb “concerning.”
33 tn Heb “for great is the anger of the
34 tn Heb “by doing all that is written concerning us.” Perhaps עָלֵינוּ (’alenu), “concerning us,” should be altered to עָלָיו (’alav), “upon it,” in which case one could translate, “by doing all that is written in it.”
35 tn Heb “Because your heart was tender.”
36 tn Heb “how I said concerning this place and its residents to become [an object of] horror and [an example of] a curse.” The final phrase (“horror and a curse”) refers to Judah becoming a prime example of an accursed people. In curse formulations they would be held up as a prime example of divine judgment. For an example of such a curse, see Jer 29:22.