2:9 When they had crossed over, Elijah said to Elisha, “What can I do for you, 1 before I am taken away from you?” Elisha answered, “May I receive a double portion of the prophetic spirit that energizes you.” 2
5:8 When Elisha the prophet 6 heard that the king had torn his clothes, he sent this message to the king, “Why did you tear your clothes? Send him 7 to me so he may know there is a prophet in Israel.”
6:20 When they had entered Samaria, Elisha said, “O Lord, open their eyes, so they can see.” The Lord opened their eyes and they saw that they were in the middle of Samaria. 10
Now Joram had been in Ramoth Gilead with the whole Israelite army, 21 guarding against an invasion by King Hazael of Syria.
10:1 Ahab had seventy sons living in Samaria. 24 So Jehu wrote letters and sent them to Samaria to the leading officials of Jezreel and to the guardians of Ahab’s dynasty. This is what the letters said, 25
13:14 Now Elisha had a terminal illness. 36 King Joash of Israel went down to visit him. 37 He wept before him and said, “My father, my father! The chariot 38 and horsemen of Israel!” 39
17:29 But each of these nations made 50 its own gods and put them in the shrines on the high places that the people of Samaria 51 had made. Each nation did this in the cities where they lived.
18:37 Eliakim son of Hilkiah, the palace supervisor, accompanied by Shebna the scribe and Joah son of Asaph, the secretary, went to Hezekiah with their clothes torn 56 and reported to him what the chief adviser had said.
20:8 Hezekiah had said to Isaiah, “What is the confirming sign that the Lord will heal me and that I will go up to the Lord’s temple the day after tomorrow?”
1 tn Heb “Ask! What can I do for you….?”
2 tn Heb “May a double portion of your spirit come to me.”
3 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).
4 tn Heb “in the eyes of.”
5 tn Heb “the king of Israel and the king of Judah and the king of Edom.”
6 tn Heb “man of God” (also in vv. 15, 20).
7 tn Heb “Let him come.”
8 tn Heb “according to the word of the man of God.”
9 tn Heb “and his skin was restored, like the skin of a small child.”
10 tn Heb “and they saw, and look, [they were] in the middle of Samaria.”
11 tn Heb “went after.”
12 tn Heb “and look, all the road was full of clothes and equipment that Syria had thrown away in their haste.”
13 tn Or “messengers.”
14 sn A seah was a dry measure equivalent to about 7 quarts.
15 tn Heb “according to the word of the
16 tn Heb “he walked in the way of the kings of Israel, just as the house of Ahab did, for the daughter of Ahab was his wife.”
17 tn Heb “in the eyes of.”
18 sn Joram is a short form of the name Jehoram.
19 tn Heb “and he arose at night and defeated Edom, who had surrounded him, and the chariot officers.” The Hebrew text as it stands gives the impression that Joram was surrounded and launched a victorious night counterattack. It would then be quite natural to understand the last statement in the verse to refer to an Edomite retreat. Yet v. 22 goes on to state that the Edomite revolt was successful. Therefore, if the MT is retained, it may be better to understand the final statement in v. 21 as a reference to an Israelite retreat (made in spite of the success described in the preceding sentence). The translation above assumes an emendation of the Hebrew text. Adding a third masculine singular pronominal suffix to the accusative sign before Edom (reading אֶתוֹ [’eto], “him,” instead of just אֶת [’et]) and taking Edom as the subject of verbs allows one to translate the verse in a way that is more consistent with the context, which depicts an Israelite defeat, not victory. There is, however, no evidence for this emendation.
20 tn Heb “and the people fled to their tents.”
21 tn Heb “he and all Israel.”
22 tn Heb “and he went and ate and drank.”
23 tn Heb “Attend to this accursed woman and bury her for she was the daughter of a king.”
24 map For location see Map2-B1; Map4-D3; Map5-E2; Map6-A4; Map7-C1.
25 tn Heb “to the officers of Jezreel, the elders, and to the guardians of Ahab, saying.” It is not certain why the officials of Jezreel would be in Samaria. They may have fled there after they heard what happened to Joram and before Jehu entered the city. They would have had time to flee while Jehu was pursuing Ahaziah.
26 tn Heb “Know then that there has not fallen from the word of the
27 tn Heb “But Jehu was not careful to walk in the law of the
28 tn Heb “He did not turn aside from the sins of Jeroboam which he caused Israel to commit.”
29 tn Heb “the king’s scribe.”
30 tn Heb “went up and tied [it] and counted the silver that was found in the house of the
31 tn Heb “would give.”
32 tn Heb “doers of the work.”
33 tn Heb “in the eyes of.”
34 tn Heb “walked after.”
35 tn Heb “he did not turn aside from it.”
36 tn Heb “Now Elisha was ill with the illness by which he would die.”
37 tn Heb “went down to him.”
38 tn Though the noun is singular here, it may be collective, in which case it could be translated “chariots.”
39 sn By comparing Elisha to a one-man army, the king emphasizes the power of the prophetic word. See the note at 2:12.
40 tn Heb “man of God.”
41 tn Heb “[It was necessary] to strike five or six times, then you would strike down Syria until destruction.” On the syntax of the infinitive construct, see GKC 349 §114.k.
42 tn Heb “from the hand of.”
43 tn Heb “in the eyes of.”
44 tn Heb “turn away from.”
45 tn Heb “according to all that King Ahaz sent from Damascus.”
46 tn Heb “so Uriah the priest did, until the arrival of King Ahaz from Damascus.”
47 tn Heb “until.”
48 tn Heb “the
49 tn Heb “just as he said.”
50 sn The verb “make” refers to the production of idols. See M. Cogan and H. Tadmor, II Kings (AB), 210-11.
51 tn Heb “Samaritans.” This refers to the Israelites who had been deported from the land.
52 tn Heb “listen to the voice of.”
53 tn Heb “his covenant.”
54 tn Heb “all that Moses, the
55 tn Heb “At that time Hezekiah stripped the doors of the
56 sn As a sign of grief and mourning.
57 sn This is a derogatory name for the Mount of Olives, involving a wordplay between מָשְׁחָה (mashÿkhah), “anointing,” and מַשְׁחִית (mashÿkhit), “destruction.” See HALOT 644 s.v. מַשְׁחִית and M. Cogan and H. Tadmor, II Kings (AB), 289.
58 tn The Hebrew text has simply “because.” The translation attempts to reflect more clearly the logical connection between the king’s order and the narrator’s observation. Another option is to interpret כִּי (ki) as asseverative and translate, “indeed.”
59 tn Heb “because there had not been observed [one] like this Passover from the days of the judges who judged Israel and all the days of the kings of Israel and the kings of Judah.”
60 tn Heb “he sent them against Judah to destroy it, according to the word of the
61 tn Heb “were killed before his eyes.”
62 tn Heb “he”; the referent (the king of Babylon) has been specified in the translation for clarity.
63 tc The MT has “the multitude.” But הֶהָמוֹן (hehamon) should probably be emended to הֶאָמוֹן (he’amon).