2 Kings 1:3

1:3 But the Lord’s angelic messenger told Elijah the Tishbite, “Get up, go to meet the messengers from the king of Samaria. Say this to them: ‘You must think there is no God in Israel! That explains why you are on your way to seek an oracle from Baal Zebub the god of Ekron. ¹ 

2 Kings 2:16

2:16 They said to him, “Look, there are fifty capable men with your servants. Let them go and look for your master, for the wind sent from the Lord ²  may have carried him away and dropped him on one of the hills or in one of the valleys.” But Elisha ³  replied, “Don’t send them out.”

2 Kings 3:13

3:13 Elisha said to the king of Israel, “Why are you here? ⁴  Go to your father’s prophets or your mother’s prophets!” The king of Israel replied to him, “No, for the Lord is the one who summoned these three kings so that he can hand them over to Moab.”

2 Kings 6:22

6:22 He replied, “Do not strike them down! You did not capture them with your sword or bow, so what gives you the right to strike them down? ⁵  Give them some food and water, so they can eat and drink and then go back to their master.”

2 Kings 7:4

7:4 If we go into the city, we’ll die of starvation, ⁶  and if we stay here we’ll die! So come on, let’s defect ⁷  to the Syrian camp! If they spare us, ⁸  we’ll live; if they kill us – well, we were going to die anyway.” ⁹ 

2 Kings 7:9

7:9 Then they said to one another, “It’s not right what we’re doing! This is a day to celebrate, but we haven’t told anyone. ¹⁰  If we wait until dawn, ¹¹  we’ll be punished. ¹²  So come on, let’s go and inform the royal palace.”

2 Kings 8:1

Elisha Again Helps the Shunammite Woman

8:1 Now Elisha advised the woman whose son he had brought back to life, “You and your family should go and live somewhere else for a while, ¹³  for the Lord has decreed that a famine will overtake the land for seven years.”

2 Kings 9:15

9:15 But King Joram had returned to Jezreel to recover from the wounds he received from the Syrians ¹⁴  when he fought against King Hazael of Syria. ¹⁵  Jehu told his supporters, ¹⁶  “If you really want me to be king, ¹⁷  then don’t let anyone escape from the city to go and warn Jezreel.”

2 Kings 22:13

22:13 “Go, seek an oracle from ¹⁸  the Lord for me and the people – for all Judah. Find out about ¹⁹  the words of this scroll that has been discovered. For the Lord’s fury has been ignited against us, ²⁰  because our ancestors have not obeyed the words of this scroll by doing all that it instructs us to do.” ²¹ 

2 Kings 25:24

25:24 Gedaliah took an oath so as to give them and their troops some assurance of safety. ²²  He said, “You don’t need to be afraid to submit to the Babylonian officials. Settle down in the land and submit to the king of Babylon. Then things will go well for you.”

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¹ tn Heb “Is it because there is no God in Israel [that] you are going to inquire of Baal Zebub, the god of Ekron?” The translation seeks to bring out the sarcastic tone of the rhetorical question.

² tn Or “the spirit of the Lord.”

³ tn Heb “he”; the referent (Elisha) has been specified in the translation for clarity.

⁴ tn Or “What do we have in common?” The text reads literally, “What to me and to you?”

⁵ tn Heb “Are [they] ones you captured with your sword or your bow (that) you can strike (them) down?”

⁶ tn Heb “If we say, ‘We will enter the city,’ the famine is in the city and we will die there.”

⁷ tn Heb “fall.”

⁸ tn Heb “keep us alive.”

⁹ tn Heb “we will die.” The paraphrastic translation attempts to bring out the logical force of their reasoning.

¹⁰ tn Heb “this day is a day of good news and we are keeping silent.”

¹¹ tn Heb “the light of the morning.”

¹² tn Heb “punishment will find us.”

¹³ tn Heb “Get up and go, you and your house, and live temporarily where you can live temporarily.”

¹⁴ tn Heb “which the Syrians inflicted [on] him.”

¹⁵ sn See 2 Kgs 8:28-29a.

¹⁶ tn The words “his supporters” are added for clarification.

¹⁷ tn Heb “If this is your desire.” נֶפֶשׁ (nefesh) refers here to the seat of the emotions and will. For other examples of this use of the word, see BDB 660-61 s.v.

¹⁸ tn Or “inquire of.”

¹⁹ tn Heb “concerning.”

²⁰ tn Heb “for great is the anger of the Lord which has been ignited against us.”

²¹ 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.”

²² tn The words “so as to give them…some assurance of safety” are supplied in the translation for clarification.