6:32 Now Elisha was sitting in his house with the community leaders. 3 The king 4 sent a messenger on ahead, but before he arrived, 5 Elisha 6 said to the leaders, 7 “Do you realize this assassin intends to cut off my head?” 8 Look, when the messenger arrives, shut the door and lean against it. His master will certainly be right behind him.” 9
9:27 When King Ahaziah of Judah saw what happened, he took off 10 up the road to Beth Haggan. Jehu chased him and ordered, “Shoot him too.” They shot him while he was driving his chariot up the ascent of Gur near Ibleam. 11 He fled to Megiddo 12 and died there.
11:9 The officers of the units of hundreds did just as 13 Jehoiada the priest ordered. Each of them took his men, those who were on duty during the Sabbath as well as those who were off duty on the Sabbath, and reported 14 to Jehoiada the priest.
1 tn Heb “there was great anger against Israel.”
sn The meaning of this statement is uncertain, for the subject of the anger is not indicated. Except for two relatively late texts, the noun קֶצֶף (qetsef) refers to an outburst of divine anger. But it seems unlikely the Lord would be angry with Israel, for he placed his stamp of approval on the campaign (vv. 16-19). D. N. Freedman suggests the narrator, who obviously has a bias against the Omride dynasty, included this observation to show that the Lord would not allow the Israelite king to “have an undiluted victory” (as quoted in M. Cogan and H. Tadmor, II Kings [AB], 52, n. 8). Some suggest that the original source identified Chemosh the Moabite god as the subject and that his name was later suppressed by a conscientious scribe, but this proposal raises more questions than it answers. For a discussion of various views, see M. Cogan and H. Tadmor, II Kings (AB), 47-48, 51-52.
2 tn Heb “they departed from him.”
3 tn Heb “and the elders were sitting with him.”
4 tn Heb “he”; the referent (the king) has been specified in the translation for clarity.
5 tn Heb “sent a man from before him, before the messenger came to him.”
6 tn Heb “he”; the referent (Elisha) has been specified in the translation for clarity.
7 tn Heb “elders.”
8 tn Heb “Do you see that this son of an assassin has sent to remove my head?”
9 tn Heb “Is not the sound of his master’s footsteps behind him?”
10 tn Heb “and Ahaziah king of Judah saw and fled.”
11 tn After Jehu’s order (“kill him too”), the MT has simply, “to the chariot in the ascent of Gur which is near Ibleam.” The main verb in the clause, “they shot him” (וַיִּכְהוּ, vayyikhhu), has been accidentally omitted by virtual haplography/homoioteleuton. Note that the immediately preceding form הַכֻּהוּ (hakkuhu), “shoot him,” ends with the same suffix.
12 map For location see Map1-D4; Map2-C1; Map4-C2; Map5-F2; Map7-B1.
13 tn Heb “according to all that.”
14 tn Heb “came.”