11:17 Jehoiada then drew up a covenant between the Lord and the king and people, stipulating that they should be loyal to the Lord. 25
16:5 At that time King Rezin of Syria and King Pekah son of Remaliah of Israel attacked Jerusalem. 29 They besieged Ahaz, 30 but were unable to conquer him. 31
1 tn Heb “said to him.”
2 tn Heb “an owner of hair.” This idiomatic expression indicates that Elijah was very hairy. For other examples where the idiom “owner of” is used to describe a characteristic of someone, see HALOT 143 s.v. בַּעַל. For example, an “owner of dreams” is one who frequently has dreams (Gen 37:19) and an “owner of anger” is a hot-tempered individual (Prov 22:24).
3 tn Heb “belt of skin” (i.e., one made from animal hide).
4 tn Heb “he”; the referent (the king) has been specified in the translation for clarity.
5 tn Heb “he”; the referent (Elisha) has been specified in the translation for clarity.
6 tn Heb “they”; the referent (the Moabites) has been specified in the translation for clarity.
7 tn The translation assumes the verb is חָרַב (kharav, “to be desolate”). The infinitive absolute precedes the finite verb form for emphasis. (For another example of the Hophal infinitive with a Niphal finite verb, see Lev 19:20. Cf. also IBHS 582 §35.2.1c.) Some prefer to derive the verb from a proposed homonym meaning “at HALOT 349 s.v. II חרב and BDB 352 s.v. חָרְבָה).
8 tn Heb “they.”
9 tc The consonantal text (Kethib) suggests, “and they went, striking down,” but the marginal reading (Qere) is “they struck down, striking down.” For a discussion of the textual problem, see M. Cogan and H. Tadmor, II Kings (AB), 46.
10 tn Heb “and the king of Moab saw that the battle was too strong for him.”
11 tn Heb “he took with him seven hundred men, who drew the sword, to break through against.”
12 tn Heb “heavy force.”
13 tn Heb “and they came down to him.”
14 tn Or “this nation,” perhaps emphasizing the strength of the Syrian army.
15 tn On the basis of the Akkadian etymology of the word, M. Cogan and H. Tadmor (II Kings [AB], 74) translate “blinding light.” HALOT 761 s.v. סַנְוֵרִים suggests the glosses “dazzling, deception.”
16 tn Heb “he”; the referent (the
17 tn Heb “according to the word of Elisha.”
18 tn Heb “and the king sent [them] after the Syrian camp.”
19 tn Heb “Go and see.”
20 tn Or “pulled down.”
21 tn The verb “they demolished” is repeated in the Hebrew text.
22 tn Heb “and they made it into.”
23 tn The consonantal text (Kethib) has the hapax legomenon מַחֲרָאוֹת (makhara’ot), “places to defecate” or “dung houses” (note the related noun חרא (khr’)/חרי (khri), “dung,” HALOT 348-49 s.v. *חֲרָאִים). The marginal reading (Qere) glosses this, perhaps euphemistically, מוֹצָאוֹת (motsa’ot), “outhouses.”
24 tn Heb “and they placed hands on her, and she went the way of the entrance of the horses [into] the house of the king.”
25 tn Heb “and Jehoiada made a covenant between the
26 sn The identity of this unnamed “deliverer” is debated. For options see M. Cogan and H. Tadmor, II Kings (AB), 143.
27 tn Heb “and they went from under the hand of Syria.”
28 tn Heb “and the sons of Israel lived in their tents as before.”
29 tn Heb “went up to Jerusalem for battle.”
30 tn That is, Jerusalem, Ahaz’s capital city.
31 tn Heb “they were unable to fight.” The object must be supplied from the preceding sentence. Elsewhere when the Niphal infinitive of לָחָם (lakham) follows the verb יָכֹל (yakhol), the infinitive appears to have the force of “prevail against.” See Num 22:11; 1 Sam 17:9; and the parallel passage in Isa 7:1.
32 tn Heb “walked in the customs.”
33 tn Heb “and [the practices of] the kings of Israel which they did.”
34 tn The meaning of the verb וַיְחַפְּאוּ (vayÿkhappÿ’u), translated here “said,” is uncertain. Some relate it to the verbal root חָפַה (khafah), “to cover,” and translate “they did it in secret” (see BDB 341 s.v. חָפָא). However, the pagan practices specified in the following sentences were hardly done in secret. Others propose a meaning “ascribe, impute,” which makes good contextual sense but has little etymological support (see HALOT 339 s.v. חפא). In this case Israel claimed that the
35 sn That is, from the city’s perimeter to the central citadel.
36 tn Heb “and they did evil things, angering the
37 tn Heb and they stiffened their neck like the neck of their fathers.”
38 map For location see Map4-G4; Map5-C1; Map6-E3; Map7-D1; Map8-G3.
39 tn Heb “fear.”
40 tn Heb “and they got [a fig cake].”
41 tn Heb “and he lived.”
42 tn Heb “the remnant of my inheritance.” In this context the Lord’s remnant is the tribe of Judah, which had been preserved when the Assyrians conquered and deported the northern tribes. See 17:18 and M. Cogan and H. Tadmor, II Kings (AB), 269.
43 tn Heb “they will become plunder and spoils of war for all their enemies.”
44 tn Heb “in my eyes.”
45 tn Heb “the people of the land.” The pronoun “they” has been used in the translation for stylistic reasons, to avoid the repetition of the phrase “the people of the land” from the beginning of the verse.
46 tn Heb “doers of the work.”
47 tn Heb “and let them give it to the doers of the work who are in the house of the
48 map For location see Map5-B2; Map6-E1; Map7-E1; Map8-E3; Map10-A2; Map11-A1.
49 sn Riblah was a strategic town on the Orontes River in Syria. It was at a crossing of the major roads between Egypt and Mesopotamia. Pharaoh Necho had earlier received Jehoahaz there and put him in chains (2 Kgs 23:33) prior to taking him captive to Egypt. Nebuchadnezzar had set up his base camp for conducting his campaigns against the Palestinian states there and was now sitting in judgment on prisoners brought to him.
50 tn The Hebrew text has the plural form of the verb, but the parallel passage in Jer 52:9 has the singular.