2 Kings 2:16
2:16 They said to him, “Look, there are fifty capable men with your servants. Let them go and look for your master, for the wind sent from the Lord 1 may have carried him away and dropped him on one of the hills or in one of the valleys.” But Elisha 2 replied, “Don’t send them out.”
2 Kings 7:13
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!) 3 Let’s send them out so we can know for sure what’s going on.” 4
2 Kings 18:27
18:27 But the chief adviser said to them, “My master did not send me to speak these words only to your master and to you. 5 His message is also for the men who sit on the wall, for they will eat their own excrement and drink their own urine along with you.” 6
2 Kings 18:31
18:31 Don’t listen to Hezekiah!’ For this is what the king of Assyria says, ‘Send me a token of your submission and surrender to me. 7 Then each of you may eat from his own vine and fig tree and drink water from his own cistern,
1 tn Or “the spirit of the Lord.”
2 tn Heb “he”; the referent (Elisha) has been specified in the translation for clarity.
3 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.”
4 tn Heb “and let us send so we might see.”
5 tn Heb “To your master and to you did my master send me to speak these words?” The rhetorical question expects a negative answer.
6 tn Heb “[Is it] not [also] to the men…?” The rhetorical question expects the answer, “Yes, it is.”
sn The chief adviser alludes to the horrible reality of siege warfare, when the starving people in the besieged city would resort to eating and drinking anything to stay alive.
7 tn Heb “make with me a blessing and come out to me.”