7:12 The king got up in the night and said to his advisers, 19 “I will tell you what the Syrians have done to us. They know we are starving, so they left the camp and hid in the field, thinking, ‘When they come out of the city, we will capture them alive and enter the city.’” 7:13 One of his advisers replied, “Pick some men and have them take five of the horses that are left in the city. (Even if they are killed, their fate will be no different than that of all the Israelite people – we’re all going to die!) 20 Let’s send them out so we can know for sure what’s going on.” 21
7:17 Now the king had placed the officer who was his right-hand man 22 at the city gate. When the people rushed out, they trampled him to death in the gate. 23 This fulfilled the prophet’s word which he had spoken when the king tried to arrest him. 24
23:4 The king ordered Hilkiah the high priest, the high-ranking priests, 39 and the guards 40 to bring out of the Lord’s temple all the items that were used in the worship of 41 Baal, Asherah, and all the stars of the sky. 42 The king 43 burned them outside of Jerusalem in the terraces 44 of Kidron, and carried their ashes to Bethel. 45
23:24 Josiah also got rid of 46 the ritual pits used to conjure up spirits, 47 the magicians, personal idols, disgusting images, 48 and all the detestable idols that had appeared in the land of Judah and in Jerusalem. In this way he carried out the terms of the law 49 recorded on the scroll that Hilkiah the priest had discovered in the Lord’s temple.
1 tn Or “the spirit of the
2 tn Heb “he”; the referent (Elisha) has been specified in the translation for clarity.
3 tn Heb “he went up and lay down over.”
4 tn Heb “his” (also in the next two clauses).
5 tn Or perhaps, “body”; Heb “flesh.”
6 tn Heb “a vine of the field.”
7 tn Heb “[some] of the gourds of the field.”
8 tn Heb “he came and cut [them up].”
9 tc The Hebrew text reads, “for they did not know” (יָדָעוּ, yada’u) but some emend the final shureq (וּ, indicating a third plural subject) to holem vav (וֹ, a third masculine singular pronominal suffix on a third singular verb) and read “for he did not know it.” Perhaps it is best to omit the final vav as dittographic (note the vav at the beginning of the next verb form) and read simply, “for he did not know.” See M. Cogan and H. Tadmor, II Kings (AB), 59.
10 tn Heb “and there was a great famine in Samaria.”
11 tn Heb “and look, [they] were besieging it until.”
12 tn Heb “eighty, silver.” The unit of measurement is omitted.
13 sn A kab was a unit of dry measure, equivalent to approximately one quart.
14 tn The consonantal text (Kethib) reads, “dove dung” (חֲרֵייוֹנִים, khareyonim), while the marginal reading (Qere) has “discharge” (דִּבְיוֹנִים, divyonim). Based on evidence from Akkadian, M. Cogan and H. Tadmor (II Kings [AB], 79) suggest that “dove’s dung” was a popular name for the inedible husks of seeds.
15 tn Heb “five, silver.” The unit of measurement is omitted.
16 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.
17 tn Heb “and, look, there was no man or voice of a man there.”
18 tn Heb “but the horses are tied up and the donkeys are tied up and the tents are as they were.”
19 tn Heb “servants” (also in v. 13).
20 tn Heb “Let them take five of the remaining horses that remain in it. Look, they are like all the people of Israel that remain in it. Look, they are like all the people of Israel that have come to an end.” The MT is dittographic here; the words “that remain in it. Look they are like all the people of Israel” have been accidentally repeated. The original text read, “Let them take five of the remaining horses that remain in it. Look, they are like all the people of Israel that have come to an end.”
21 tn Heb “and let us send so we might see.”
22 tn Heb “the officer on whose hand he leans.”
23 tn Heb “and the people trampled him in the gate and he died.”
24 tn Heb “just as the man of God had spoken, [the word] which he spoke when the king came down to him.”
25 tn The words “my chariot” are added for clarification.
26 tn Heb “and he hitched up his chariot.”
27 tn Heb “each in his chariot and they went out.”
28 tn Heb “they found him.”
29 tn Heb “In this house and in Jerusalem, which I chose from all the tribes of Israel, I will place my name perpetually (or perhaps “forever”).”
30 tn Or “inquire of.”
31 tn Heb “concerning.”
32 tn Heb “for great is the anger of the
33 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.”
34 tn Heb “cut,” that is, “made, agreed to.”
35 tn Heb “walk after.”
36 tn Or “soul.”
37 tn Heb “words.”
38 tn Heb “stood in the covenant.”
39 tn Heb “the priests of the second [rank],” that is, those ranked just beneath Hilkiah.
40 tn Or “doorkeepers.”
41 tn Heb “for.”
42 tn Heb “all the host of heaven” (also in v. 5).
43 tn Heb “he”; the referent (the king) has been specified in the translation for clarity.
44 tn Or “fields.” For a defense of the translation “terraces,” see M. Cogan and H. Tadmor, II Kings (AB), 285.
45 map For location see Map4-G4; Map5-C1; Map6-E3; Map7-D1; Map8-G3.
46 tn Here בִּעֵר (bi’er) is not the well attested verb “burn,” but the less common homonym meaning “devastate, sweep away, remove.” See HALOT 146 s.v. בער.
47 sn See the note at 2 Kgs 21:6.
48 sn See the note at 1 Kgs 15:12.
49 tn Heb “carrying out the words of the law.”