1:16 Elijah 1 said to the king, 2 “This is what the Lord says, ‘You sent messengers to seek an oracle from Baal Zebub, the god of Ekron. You must think there is no God in Israel from whom you can seek an oracle! 3 Therefore you will not leave the bed you lie on, for you will certainly die.’” 4
9:11 When Jehu rejoined 8 his master’s servants, they 9 asked him, “Is everything all right? 10 Why did this madman visit you?” He replied, “Ah, it’s not important. You know what kind of man he is and the kinds of things he says.” 11 9:12 But they said, “You’re lying! Tell us what he said.” So he told them what he had said. He also related how he had said, 12 “This is what the Lord says, ‘I have designated you as king over Israel.’”
19:32 So this is what the Lord says about the king of Assyria:
“He will not enter this city,
nor will he shoot an arrow here. 14
He will not attack it with his shield-carrying warriors, 15
nor will he build siege works against it.
20:1 In those days Hezekiah was stricken with a terminal illness. 16 The prophet Isaiah son of Amoz visited him and told him, “This is what the Lord says, ‘Give your household instructions, for you are about to die; you will not get well.’” 17
1 tn Heb “he”; the referent (Elijah) has been specified in the translation for clarity.
2 tn Heb “him”; the referent (the king) has been specified in the translation for clarity.
3 tn Heb “Because you sent messengers to inquire of Baal Zebub, the god of Ekron, is there no God in Israel to inquire of his word?”
4 sn For the third time in this chapter we read the Lord’s sarcastic question to king and the accompanying announcement of judgment. The repetition emphasizes one of the chapter’s main themes. Israel’s leaders should seek guidance from their own God, not a pagan deity, for Israel’s sovereign God is the one who controls life and death.
5 sn A seah was a dry measure equivalent to about 7 quarts.
6 tn Heb “he”; the referent (Jehu) has been specified in the translation for clarity.
7 tn Heb “he”; the referent (the prophet) has been specified in the translation for clarity.
8 tn Heb “went out to.”
9 tc The MT has the singular, “he said,” but many witnesses correctly read the plural.
10 tn Heb “Is there peace?”
11 tn Heb “He said, ‘You, you know the man and his thoughts.’” Jehu tries to deflect their question by reminding them that the man is an eccentric individual who says strange things. His reply suggests that the man said nothing of importance. The translation seeks to bring out the tone and intent of Jehu’s reply.
12 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.
13 tn Heb “make with me a blessing and come out to me.”
14 tn Heb “there.”
15 tn Heb “[with] a shield.” By metonymy the “shield” stands for the soldier who carries it.
16 tn Heb “was sick to the point of dying.”
17 tn Heb “will not live.”
18 tn Heb “on the third day.”
19 tn Heb “Because your heart was tender.”
20 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.