2 Kings 2:2

2:2 Elijah told Elisha, “Stay here, for the Lord has sent me to Bethel.” ¹  But Elisha said, “As certainly as the Lord lives and as you live, I will not leave you.” So they went down to Bethel.

2 Kings 2:4

2:4 Elijah said to him, “Elisha, stay here, for the Lord has sent me to Jericho.” ²  But he replied, “As certainly as the Lord lives and as you live, I will not leave you.” So they went to Jericho.

2 Kings 2:6

2:6 Elijah said to him, “Stay here, for the Lord has sent me to the Jordan.” But he replied, “As certainly as the Lord lives and as you live, I will not leave you.” So they traveled on together.

2 Kings 4:30

4:30 The mother of the child said, “As certainly as the Lord lives and as you live, I will not leave you.” So Elisha ³  got up and followed her back.

2 Kings 19:3

19:3 “This is what Hezekiah says: ⁴  ‘This is a day of distress, insults, ⁵  and humiliation, ⁶  as when a baby is ready to leave the birth canal, but the mother lacks the strength to push it through. ⁷ 

2 Kings 21:8

21:8 I will not make Israel again leave the land I gave to their ancestors, ⁸  provided that they carefully obey all I commanded them, the whole law my servant Moses ordered them to obey.”

2 Kings 23:18

23:18 The king ⁹  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. ¹⁰ 

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¹ map For location see Map4-G4; Map5-C1; Map6-E3; Map7-D1; Map8-G3.

² map For location see Map5-B2; Map6-E1; Map7-E1; Map8-E3; Map10-A2; Map11-A1.

³ tn Heb “he”; the referent (Elisha) has been specified in the translation for clarity. The referent must be Elisha here, since the following verse makes it clear that Gehazi had gone on ahead of them.

⁴ tn In the Hebrew text this verse begins with “they said to him.”

⁵ tn Or “rebuke,” “correction.”

⁶ tn Or “contempt.”

⁷ tn Heb “when sons come to the cervical opening and there is no strength to give birth.”

⁸ tn Heb “I will not again make the feet of Israel wander from the land which I gave to their fathers.”

⁹ tn Heb “he”; the referent (the king) has been specified in the translation for clarity.

¹⁰ tn 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.