2 Kings 4:1

Elisha Helps a Widow and Her Sons

4:1 Now a wife of one of the prophets ¹  appealed ²  to Elisha for help, saying, “Your servant, my husband is dead. You know that your servant was a loyal follower of the Lord. ³  Now the creditor is coming to take away my two boys to be his servants.”

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!) ⁴  Let’s send them out so we can know for sure what’s going on.” ⁵ 

2 Kings 8:6

8:6 The king asked the woman about it, and she gave him the details. ⁶  The king assigned a eunuch to take care of her request and ordered him, ⁷  “Give her back everything she owns, as well as the amount of crops her field produced from the day she left the land until now.”

2 Kings 10:6

10:6 He wrote them a second letter, saying, “If you are really on my side and are willing to obey me, ⁸  then take the heads of your master’s sons and come to me in Jezreel at this time tomorrow.” ⁹  Now the king had seventy sons, and the prominent ¹⁰  men of the city were raising them.

2 Kings 12:7

12:7 So King Jehoash summoned Jehoiada the priest along with the other priests, and said to them, “Why have you not repaired the damage to the temple? Now, take no more silver from your treasurers unless you intend to use it to repair the damage.” ¹¹ 

2 Kings 18:32

18:32 until I come and take you to a land just like your own – a land of grain and new wine, a land of bread and vineyards, a land of olive trees and honey. Then you will live and not die. Don’t listen to Hezekiah, for he is misleading you when he says, “The Lord will rescue us.”

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¹ tn Heb “a wife from among the wives of the sons of the prophets.”

² tn Or “cried out.”

³ tn Heb “your servant feared the Lord.” “Fear” refers here to obedience and allegiance, the products of healthy respect for the Lord’s authority.

⁴ tn 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.”

⁵ tn Heb “and let us send so we might see.”

⁶ tn Heb “and the king asked the woman and she told him.”

⁷ tn Heb “and he assigned to her an official, saying.”

⁸ tn Heb “If you are mine and you are listening to my voice.”

⁹ sn Jehu’s command is intentionally vague. Does he mean that they should bring the guardians (those who are “heads” over Ahab’s sons) for a meeting, or does he mean that they should bring the literal heads of Ahab’s sons with them? (So LXX, Syriac Peshitta, and some mss of the Targum) The city leaders interpret his words in the literal sense, but Jehu’s command is so ambiguous he is able to deny complicity in the executions (see v. 9).

¹⁰ tn Heb “great,” probably in wealth, position, and prestige.

¹¹ tn Heb “Now, do not take silver from your treasurers, because for the damages to the temple you must give it.”