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 5:13

5:13 His servants approached and said to him, “O master, ²  if the prophet had told you to do some difficult task, ³  you would have been willing to do it. ⁴  It seems you should be happy that he simply said, “Wash and you will be healed.” ⁵ 

2 Kings 7:9-10

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. ⁶  If we wait until dawn, ⁷  we’ll be punished. ⁸  So come on, let’s go and inform the royal palace.” 7:10 So they went and called out to the gatekeepers ⁹  of the city. They told them, “We entered the Syrian camp and there was no one there. We didn’t even hear a man’s voice. ¹⁰  But the horses and donkeys are still tied up, and the tents remain up.” ¹¹ 

2 Kings 9:12

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.’”

2 Kings 9:15

9:15 But King Joram had returned to Jezreel to recover from the wounds he received from the Syrians ¹³  when he fought against King Hazael of Syria. ¹⁴  Jehu told his supporters, ¹⁵  “If you really want me to be king, ¹⁶  then don’t let anyone escape from the city to go and warn Jezreel.”

2 Kings 17:26

17:26 The king of Assyria was told, ¹⁷  “The nations whom you deported and settled in the cities of Samaria do not know the requirements of the God of the land, so he has sent lions among them. They are killing the people ¹⁸  because they do not know the requirements of the God of the land.”

2 Kings 18:22

18:22 Perhaps you will tell me, ‘We are trusting in the Lord our God.’ But Hezekiah is the one who eliminated his high places and altars and then told the people of Judah and Jerusalem, ‘You must worship at this altar in Jerusalem.’

2 Kings 20:1

Hezekiah is Healed

20:1 In those days Hezekiah was stricken with a terminal illness. ¹⁹  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.’” ²⁰ 

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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 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.

³ tn Heb “a great thing.”

⁴ tn Heb “would you not do [it]?” The rhetorical question expects the answer, “Of course you would.”

⁵ 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”).

⁶ tn Heb “this day is a day of good news and we are keeping silent.”

⁷ tn Heb “the light of the morning.”

⁸ tn Heb “punishment will find us.”

⁹ tn The MT has a singular form (“gatekeeper”), but the context suggests a plural. The pronoun that follows (“them”) is plural and a plural noun appears in v. 11. The Syriac Peshitta and the Targum have the plural here.

¹⁰ tn Heb “and, look, there was no man or voice of a man there.”

¹¹ tn Heb “but the horses are tied up and the donkeys are tied up and the tents are as they were.”

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 “which the Syrians inflicted [on] him.”

¹⁴ sn See 2 Kgs 8:28-29a.

¹⁵ tn The words “his supporters” are added for clarification.

¹⁶ 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.

¹⁷ tn Heb “and they said to the king of Assyria, saying.” The plural subject of the verb is indefinite.

¹⁸ tn Heb “Look they are killing them.”

¹⁹ tn Heb “was sick to the point of dying.”

²⁰ tn Heb “will not live.”