2 Kings 3:7

3:7 He sent¹ this message to King Jehoshaphat of Judah: “The king of Moab has rebelled against me. Will you fight with me against Moab?” Jehoshaphat² replied, “I will join you in the campaign; my army and horses are at your disposal.”³

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 7:10

7:10 So they went and called out to the gatekeepers⁴ of the city. They told them, “We entered the Syrian camp and there was no one there. We didn’t even hear a man’s voice.⁵ But the horses and donkeys are still tied up, and the tents remain up.”⁶

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!)⁷ Let’s send them out so we can know for sure what’s going on.”⁸

2 Kings 23:11

23:11 He removed from the entrance to the Lord’s temple the statues of horses⁹ 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.)¹⁰ He burned up the chariots devoted to the sun god.¹¹

¹tn Heb “went and sent.”

²tn Heb “he”; the referent (Jehoshaphat) has been specified in the translation for clarity.

³tn Heb “I will go up – like me, like you; like my people, like your people; like my horses; like your horses.”

⁴tn The MT has a singular form (“gatekeeper”), but the context suggests a plural. The pronoun that follows (“them”) is plural and a plural noun appears in v. 11. The Syriac Peshitta and the Targum have the plural here.

⁵tn Heb “and, look, there was no man or voice of a man there.”

⁶tn Heb “but the horses are tied up and the donkeys are tied up and the tents are as they were.”

⁷tn 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.”

⁸tn Heb “and let us send so we might see.”

⁹tn The MT simply reads “the horses.” The words “statues of” have been supplied in the translation for clarity.

¹⁰tn 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.”

¹¹tn Heb “and the chariots of the sun he burned with fire.”