2 Kings 1:13

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.

2 Kings 24:14

24:14 He deported all the residents of Jerusalem, including all the officials and all the soldiers (10,000 people in all). This included all the craftsmen and those who worked with metal. No one was left except for the poorest among the people of the land.

2 Kings 25:4

25:4 The enemy broke through the city walls, ³  and all the soldiers tried to escape. They left the city during the night. ⁴  They went through the gate between the two walls that is near the king’s garden. ⁵  (The Babylonians were all around the city.) Then they headed for the Jordan Valley. ⁶ 

2 Kings 25:19

25:19 From the city he took a eunuch who was in charge of the soldiers, five ⁷  of the king’s advisers ⁸  who were discovered in the city, an official army secretary who drafted citizens ⁹  for military service, and sixty citizens from the people of the land who were discovered in the city.

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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 Heb “the city was breached.”

⁴ tn The Hebrew text is abrupt here: “And all the men of war by the night.” The translation attempts to capture the sense.

⁵ sn The king’s garden is mentioned again in Neh 3:15 in conjunction with the pool of Siloam and the stairs that go down from the city of David. This would have been in the southern part of the city near the Tyropean Valley which agrees with the reference to the “two walls” which were probably the walls on the eastern and western hills.

⁶ sn Heb “toward the Arabah.” The Arabah was the rift valley north and south of the Dead Sea. Here the intention was undoubtedly to escape across the Jordan to Moab or Ammon. It appears from Jer 40:14; 41:15 that the Ammonites were known to harbor fugitives from the Babylonians.

⁷ tn The parallel passage in Jer 52:25 has “seven.”

⁸ tn Heb “five seers of the king’s face.”

⁹ tn Heb “the people of the land.”