2 Kings 2:12

2:12 While Elisha was watching, he was crying out, “My father, my father! The chariot and horsemen of Israel!” ¹  Then he could no longer see him. He grabbed his clothes and tore them in two.

2 Kings 2:14

2:14 He took the cloak that had fallen off Elijah, ²  hit the water with it, and said, “Where is the Lord, the God of Elijah?” When he hit the water, it divided and Elisha crossed over.

2 Kings 2:24

2:24 When he turned around and saw them, he called God’s judgment down on them. ³  Two female bears came out of the woods and ripped forty-two of the boys to pieces.

2 Kings 3:14

3:14 Elisha said, “As certainly as the Lord who rules over all ⁴  lives (whom I serve), ⁵  if I did not respect King Jehoshaphat of Judah, ⁶  I would not pay attention to you or acknowledge you. ⁷ 

2 Kings 5:5

5:5 The king of Syria said, “Go! I will send a letter to the king of Israel.” So Naaman ⁸  went, taking with him ten talents ⁹  of silver, six thousand shekels of gold, ¹⁰  and ten suits of clothes.

2 Kings 7:10

7:10 So they went and called out to the gatekeepers ¹¹  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. ¹²  But the horses and donkeys are still tied up, and the tents remain up.” ¹³ 

2 Kings 9:19

9:19 So he sent a second horseman out to them ¹⁴  and he said, “This is what the king says, ‘Is everything all right?’” ¹⁵  Jehu replied, “None of your business! Follow me.”

2 Kings 13:7

13:7 Jehoahaz had no army left ¹⁶  except for fifty horsemen, ten chariots, and 10,000 foot soldiers. The king of Syria had destroyed his troops ¹⁷  and trampled on them like dust. ¹⁸ 

2 Kings 16:2

16:2 Ahaz was twenty years old when he began to reign, and he reigned for sixteen years in Jerusalem. ¹⁹  He did not do what pleased the Lord his God, in contrast to his ancestor David. ²⁰ 

2 Kings 16:17

16:17 King Ahaz took off the frames of the movable stands, and removed the basins from them. He took “The Sea” ²¹  down from the bronze bulls that supported it ²²  and put it on the pavement.

2 Kings 17:7

A Summary of Israel’s Sinful History

17:7 This happened because the Israelites sinned against the Lord their God, who brought them up from the land of Egypt and freed them from the power of ²³  Pharaoh king of Egypt. They worshiped ²⁴  other gods;

2 Kings 19:6

19:6 Isaiah said to them, “Tell your master this: ‘This is what the Lord says: “Don’t be afraid because of the things you have heard – these insults the king of Assyria’s servants have hurled against me. ²⁵ 

2 Kings 19:25

19:25 ²⁶ Certainly you must have heard! ²⁷ 

Long ago I worked it out,

In ancient times I planned ²⁸  it;

and now I am bringing it to pass.

The plan is this:

Fortified cities will crash

into heaps of ruins. ²⁹ 

2 Kings 20:3

20:3 “Please, Lord. Remember how I have served you ³⁰  faithfully and with wholehearted devotion, ³¹  and how I have carried out your will.” ³²  Then Hezekiah wept bitterly. ³³ 

2 Kings 21:16

21:16 Furthermore Manasseh killed so many innocent people, he stained Jerusalem with their blood from end to end, ³⁴  in addition to encouraging Judah to sin by doing evil in the sight of the Lord. ³⁵ 

2 Kings 23:17

23:17 He asked, “What is this grave marker I see?” The men from the city replied, “It’s the grave of the prophet ³⁶  who came from Judah and foretold these very things you have done to the altar of Bethel.”

2 Kings 23:35

23:35 Jehoiakim paid Pharaoh the required amount of silver and gold, but to meet Pharaoh’s demands Jehoiakim had to tax the land. He collected an assessed amount from each man among the people of the land in order to pay Pharaoh Necho. ³⁷ 

2 Kings 24:12

24:12 King Jehoiachin of Judah, along with his mother, his servants, his officials, and his eunuchs surrendered ³⁸  to the king of Babylon. The king of Babylon, in the eighth year of his reign, ³⁹  took Jehoiachin ⁴⁰  prisoner.

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¹ sn Elisha may be referring to the fiery chariot(s) and horses as the Lord’s spiritual army that fights on behalf of Israel (see 2 Kgs 6:15-17; 7:6). However, the juxtaposition with “my father” (clearly a reference to Elijah as Elisha’s mentor), and the parallel in 2 Kgs 13:14 (where the king addresses Elisha with these words), suggest that Elisha is referring to Elijah. In this case Elijah is viewed as a one man army, as it were. When the Lord spoke through him, his prophetic word was as powerful as an army of chariots and horses. See M. A. Beek, “The Meaning of the Expression ‘The Chariots and Horsemen of Israel’ (II Kings ii 12),” The Witness of Tradition (OTS 17), 1-10.

² tn Heb “Elijah’s cloak, which had fallen off him.” The wording is changed slightly in the translation for the sake of variety of expression (see v. 13).

³ tn Heb “he cursed them in the name of the Lord.” A curse was a formal appeal to a higher authority (here the Lord) to vindicate one’s cause through judgment. As in chapter one, this account makes it clear that disrespect for the Lord’s designated spokesmen can be deadly, for it is ultimately rejection of the Lord’s authority.

⁴ tn Traditionally “the Lord of hosts.”

⁵ tn Heb “before whom I stand.”

⁶ tn Heb “if I did not lift up the face of Jehoshaphat the king of Judah.”

⁷ tn Heb “I would not look at you or see you.”

⁸ tn Heb “he”; the referent (Naaman) has been specified in the translation for clarity.

⁹ tn The Hebrew term כִּכָּר (kikkar, “circle”) refers generally to something that is round. When used of metals it can refer to a disk-shaped weight made of the metal or to a standard unit of weight, generally regarded as a talent. Since the accepted weight for a talent of metal is about 75 pounds, this would have amounted to about 750 pounds of silver (cf. NCV, NLT, CEV).

¹⁰ tn Heb “six thousand gold […].” The unit of measure is not given in the Hebrew text. A number of English versions supply “pieces” (e.g., KJV, ASV, NAB, TEV) or “shekels” (e.g., NASB, NIV, NRSV).

¹¹ 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.

¹² tn Heb “and, look, there was no man or voice of a man there.”

¹³ tn Heb “but the horses are tied up and the donkeys are tied up and the tents are as they were.”

¹⁴ tn Heb “and he came to them.”

¹⁵ tc The MT has simply “peace,” omitting the prefixed interrogative particle. It is likely that the particle has been accidentally omitted; several ancient witnesses include it or assume its presence.

¹⁶ tn Heb “Indeed he did not leave to Jehoahaz people.” The identity of the subject is uncertain, but the king of Syria, mentioned later in the verse, is a likely candidate.

¹⁷ tn Heb “them,” i.e., the remainder of this troops.

¹⁸ tn Heb “and made them like dust for trampling.”

¹⁹ map For location see Map5-B1; Map6-F3; Map7-E2; Map8-F2; Map10-B3; JP1-F4; JP2-F4; JP3-F4; JP4-F4.

²⁰ tn Heb “and he did not do what was proper in the eyes of the Lord his God, like David his father.”

²¹ sn See the note at 1 Kgs 7:23.

²² tn Heb “that [were] under it.”

²³ tn Heb “and from under the hand of.” The words “freed them” are added in the translation for stylistic reasons.

²⁴ tn Heb “feared.”

²⁵ tn Heb “by which the servants of the king of Assyria have insulted me.”

²⁶ tn Having quoted the Assyrian king’s arrogant words in vv. 23-24, the Lord now speaks to the king.

²⁷ tn Heb “Have you not heard?” The rhetorical question expresses the Lord’s amazement that anyone might be ignorant of what he is about to say.

²⁸ tn Heb “formed.”

²⁹ tn Heb “and it is to cause to crash into heaps of ruins fortified cities.” The subject of the third feminine singular verb תְּהִי (tÿhi) is the implied plan, referred to in the preceding lines with third feminine singular pronominal suffixes.

³⁰ tn Heb “walked before you.” For a helpful discussion of the background and meaning of this Hebrew idiom, see M. Cogan and H. Tadmor, II Kings (AB), 254.

³¹ tn Heb “and with a complete heart.”

³² tn Heb “and that which is good in your eyes I have done.”

³³ tn Heb “wept with great weeping.”

³⁴ tn Heb “and also Manasseh shed very much innocent blood, until he filled Jerusalem from mouth to mouth.”

³⁵ tn Heb “apart from his sin which he caused Judah to commit, by doing what is evil in the eyes of the Lord.”

³⁶ tn Heb “man of God.”

³⁷ tn Heb “And the silver and the gold Jehoiakim gave to Pharaoh, but he taxed the land to give the silver at the command of Pharaoh, [from] each according to his tax he collected the silver and the gold, from the people of the land, to give to Pharaoh Necho.”

³⁸ tn Heb “came out.”

³⁹ sn That is, the eighth year of Nebuchadnezzar’s reign, 597 b.c.

⁴⁰ tn Heb “him”; the referent (Jehoiachin) has been specified in the translation for clarity.