2 Kings 3:13

3:13 Elisha said to the king of Israel, “Why are you here?¹ Go to your father’s prophets or your mother’s prophets!” The king of Israel replied to him, “No, for the Lord is the one who summoned these three kings so that he can hand them over to Moab.”

2 Kings 7:2

7:2 An officer who was the king’s right-hand man² responded to the prophet,³ “Look, even if the Lord made it rain by opening holes in the sky, could this happen so soon?”⁴ Elisha⁵ said, “Look, you will see it happen with your own eyes, but you will not eat any of the food!”⁶

2 Kings 7:6

7:6 The Lord had caused the Syrian camp to hear the sound of chariots and horses and a large army. Then they said to one another, “Look, the king of Israel has paid the kings of the Hittites and Egypt to attack us!”

2 Kings 10:13

10:13 Jehu encountered⁷ the relatives⁸ of King Ahaziah of Judah. He asked, “Who are you?” They replied, “We are Ahaziah’s relatives. We have come down to see how⁹ the king’s sons and the queen mother’s sons are doing.”

2 Kings 11:4

11:4 In the seventh year Jehoiada summoned¹⁰ the officers of the units of hundreds of the Carians¹¹ and the royal bodyguard.¹² He met with them¹³ in the Lord’s temple. He made an agreement¹⁴ with them and made them swear an oath of allegiance in the Lord’s temple. Then he showed them the king’s son.

2 Kings 12:18

12:18 King Jehoash of Judah collected all the sacred items that his ancestors Jehoshaphat, Jehoram, and Ahaziah, kings of Judah, had consecrated, as well as his own sacred items and all the gold that could be found in the treasuries of the Lord’s temple and the royal palace. He sent it all¹⁵ to King Hazael of Syria, who then withdrew¹⁶ from Jerusalem.

2 Kings 20:20

20:20 The rest of the events of Hezekiah’s reign and all his accomplishments, including how he built a pool and conduit to bring¹⁷ water into the city, are recorded in the scroll called the Annals of the Kings of Judah.¹⁸

2 Kings 23:5

23:5 He eliminated¹⁹ the pagan priests whom the kings of Judah had appointed to offer sacrifices²⁰ on the high places in the cities of Judah and in the area right around Jerusalem. (They offered sacrifices²¹ to Baal, the sun god, the moon god, the constellations, and all the stars in the sky.)

2 Kings 23:11-12

23:11 He removed from the entrance to the Lord’s temple the statues of horses²² that the kings of Judah had placed there in honor of the sun god. (They were kept near the room of Nathan Melech the eunuch, which was situated among the courtyards.)²³ He burned up the chariots devoted to the sun god.²⁴ 23:12 The king tore down the altars the kings of Judah had set up on the roof of Ahaz’s upper room, as well as the altars Manasseh had set up in the two courtyards of the Lord’s temple. He crushed them up²⁵ and threw the dust in the Kidron Valley.

2 Kings 25:4

25:4 The enemy broke through the city walls,²⁶ and all the soldiers tried to escape. They left the city during the night.²⁷ They went through the gate between the two walls that is near the king’s garden.²⁸ (The Babylonians were all around the city.) Then they headed for the Jordan Valley.²⁹

2 Kings 25:19

25:19 From the city he took a eunuch who was in charge of the soldiers, five³⁰ of the king’s advisers³¹ who were discovered in the city, an official army secretary who drafted citizens³² for military service, and sixty citizens from the people of the land who were discovered in the city.

¹tn Or “What do we have in common?” The text reads literally, “What to me and to you?”

²tn Heb “the officer on whose hand the king leans.”

³tn Heb “man of God.”

⁴tn Heb “the Lord was making holes in the sky, could this thing be?” Opening holes in the sky would allow the waters stored up there to pour to the earth and assure a good crop. But, the officer argues, even if this were to happen, it would take a long time to grow and harvest the crop.

⁵tn Heb “he”; the referent (Elisha) has been specified in the translation for clarity.

⁶tn Heb “you will not eat from there.”

⁷tn Heb “found.”

⁸tn Or “brothers.”

⁹tn Heb “for the peace of.”

¹⁰tn Heb “Jehoiada sent and took.”

¹¹sn The Carians were apparently a bodyguard, probably comprised of foreigners. See HALOT 497 s.v. כָּרִי and M. Cogan and H. Tadmor, II Kings (AB), 126.

¹²tn Heb “the runners.”

¹³tn Heb “he brought them to himself.”

¹⁴tn Or “covenant.”

¹⁵tn The object (“it all”) is supplied in the translation for clarification.

¹⁶tn Heb “went up.”

¹⁷tn Heb “and he brought.”

¹⁸tn Heb “As for the rest of the events of Hezekiah, and all his strength, and how he made a pool and a conduit and brought water to the city, are they not written on the scroll of the events of the days of the kings of Judah?”

¹⁹tn Perhaps, “destroyed.”

²⁰tn Or “burn incense.”

²¹tn Or “burned incense.”

²²tn The MT simply reads “the horses.” The words “statues of” have been supplied in the translation for clarity.

²³tn Heb “who/which was in the […?].” The meaning of the Hebrew term פַּרְוָרִים (parvarim), translated here “courtyards,” is uncertain. The relative clause may indicate where the room was located or explain who Nathan Melech was, “the eunuch who was in the courtyards.” See M. Cogan and H. Tadmor, II Kings (AB), 288-89, who translate “the officer of the precincts.”

²⁴tn Heb “and the chariots of the sun he burned with fire.”

²⁵tc The MT reads, “he ran from there,” which makes little if any sense in this context. Some prefer to emend the verbal form (Qal of רוּץ [ruts], “run”) to a Hiphil of רוּץ with third plural suffix and translate, “he quickly removed them” (see BDB 930 s.v. רוּץ, and M. Cogan and H. Tadmor, II Kings [AB], 289). The suffix could have been lost in MT by haplography (note the mem [מ] that immediately follows the verb on the form מִשֳׁם, misham, “from there”). Another option, the one reflected in the translation, is to emend the verb to a Piel of רָצַץ (ratsats), “crush,” with third plural suffix.

²⁶tn Heb “the city was breached.”

²⁷tn The Hebrew text is abrupt here: “And all the men of war by the night.” The translation attempts to capture the sense.

²⁸sn The king’s garden is mentioned again in Neh 3:15 in conjunction with the pool of Siloam and the stairs that go down from the city of David. This would have been in the southern part of the city near the Tyropean Valley which agrees with the reference to the “two walls” which were probably the walls on the eastern and western hills.

²⁹sn Heb “toward the Arabah.” The Arabah was the rift valley north and south of the Dead Sea. Here the intention was undoubtedly to escape across the Jordan to Moab or Ammon. It appears from Jer 40:14; 41:15 that the Ammonites were known to harbor fugitives from the Babylonians.

³⁰tn The parallel passage in Jer 52:25 has “seven.”

³¹tn Heb “five seers of the king’s face.”

³²tn Heb “the people of the land.”