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 2:21

2:21 He went out to the spring and threw the salt in. Then he said, “This is what the Lord says, ‘I have purified² this water. It will no longer cause death or fail to produce crops.”³

2 Kings 4:6

4:6 When the containers were full, she said to one of her sons,⁴ “Bring me another container.” But he answered her, “There are no more.” Then the olive oil stopped flowing.

2 Kings 4:31

4:31 Now Gehazi went on ahead of them. He placed the staff on the child’s face, but there was no sound or response. When he came back to Elisha⁵ he told him, “The child did not wake up.”

2 Kings 4:41

4:41 He said, “Get some flour.” Then he threw it into the pot and said, “Now pour some out for the men so they may eat.”⁶ There was no longer anything harmful in the pot.

2 Kings 6:12

6:12 One of his advisers said, “No, my master, O king. The prophet Elisha who lives in Israel keeps telling the king of Israel the things you say in your bedroom.”

2 Kings 6:15

6:15 The prophet’s⁷ attendant got up early in the morning. When he went outside there was an army surrounding the city, along with horses and chariots. He said to Elisha,⁸ “Oh no, my master! What will we do?”

2 Kings 6:23

6:23 So he threw a big banquet⁹ for them and they ate and drank. Then he sent them back¹⁰ to their master. After that no Syrian raiding parties again invaded the land of Israel.

2 Kings 10:14

10:14 He said, “Capture them alive!” So they captured them alive and then executed all forty-two of them in the cistern at Beth Eked. He left no survivors.

2 Kings 10:23

10:23 Then Jehu and Jehonadab son of Rekab went to the temple of Baal. Jehu¹¹ said to the servants of Baal, “Make sure there are no servants of the Lord here with you; there must be only servants of Baal.”¹²

2 Kings 13:7

13:7 Jehoahaz had no army left¹³ except for fifty horsemen, ten chariots, and 10,000 foot soldiers. The king of Syria had destroyed his troops¹⁴ and trampled on them like dust.¹⁵

2 Kings 23:18

23:18 The king¹⁶ said, “Leave it alone! No one must touch his bones.” So they left his bones undisturbed, as well as the bones of the Israelite prophet buried beside him.¹⁷

¹sn 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.

²tn Or “healed.”

³tn Heb “there will no longer be from there death and miscarriage [or, ‘barrenness’].”

⁴tn Heb “to her son.”

⁵tn Heb “to meet him.”

⁶tn Or “and let them eat.”

⁷tn Heb “man of God’s.”

⁸tn Heb “his young servant said to him.”

⁹tn Or “held a great feast.”

¹⁰tn Heb “they went back.”

¹¹tn Heb “he”; the referent (Jehu) has been specified in the translation for clarity.

¹²tn Heb “Search carefully and observe so that there are not here with you any servants of the Lord, only the servants of Baal.”

¹³tn 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.

¹⁴tn Heb “them,” i.e., the remainder of this troops.

¹⁵tn Heb “and made them like dust for trampling.”

¹⁶tn Heb “he”; the referent (the king) has been specified in the translation for clarity.

¹⁷tn Heb “and they left undisturbed his bones, the bones of the prophet who came from Samaria.” If the phrase “the bones of the prophet” were appositional to “his bones,” one would expect the sentence to end “from Judah” (see v. 17). Apparently the “prophet” referred to in the second half of the verse is the old prophet from Bethel who buried the man of God from Judah in his own tomb and instructed his sons to bury his bones there as well (1 Kgs 13:30-31). One expects the text to read “from Bethel,” but “Samaria” (which was not even built at the time of the incident recorded in 1 Kgs 13) is probably an anachronistic reference to the northern kingdom in general. See the note at 1 Kgs 13:32 and the discussion in M. Cogan and H. Tadmor, II Kings (AB), 290.