4:18 The boy grew and one day he went out to see his father who was with the harvest workers. 1
8:20 During his reign Edom freed themselves from Judah’s control and set up their own king. 2
14:5 When he had secured control of the kingdom, 8 he executed the servants who had assassinated his father. 9
1 tn Heb “to his father, to the harvesters.”
2 tn Heb “in his days Edom rebelled from under the hand of Judah and enthroned a king over them.”
3 tn Heb “and Jehoram turned his hands and fled.” The phrase “turned his hands” refers to how he would have pulled on the reins in order to make his horses turn around.
4 tn Heb “Deceit, Ahaziah.”
5 sn Jezebel associates Jehu with another assassin, Zimri, who approximately 44 years before had murdered King Elah, only to meet a violent death just a few days later (1 Kgs 16:9-20). On the surface Jezebel’s actions seem contradictory. On the one hand, she beautifies herself as if to seduce Jehu, but on the other hand, she insults and indirectly threatens him with this comparison to Zimri. Upon further reflection, however, her actions reveal a clear underlying motive. She wants to retain her power, not to mention her life. By beautifying herself, she appeals to Jehu’s sexual impulses; by threatening him, she reminds him that he is in the same precarious position as Zimri. But, if he makes Jezebel his queen, he can consolidate his power. In other words through her actions and words Jezebel is saying to Jehu, “You desire me, don’t you? And you need me!”
6 tn Heb “rose up and conspired [with] a conspiracy.”
7 tn Heb “Beth Millo which goes down [toward] Silla.”
8 tn Heb “when the kingdom was secure in his hand.”
9 tn Heb “he struck down his servants, the ones who had struck down the king, his father.”
10 tn Heb “lay down with his fathers.”
11 tn Heb “lay down with his fathers.”
12 tn The MT has simply “with the kings of Israel,” which appears to stand in apposition to the immediately preceding “with his fathers.” But it is likely that the words “and he was buried in Samaria” have been accidentally omitted from the text. See 13:13 and 14:16.
13 tc The MT reads, “and he struck him down before the people and killed him” (cf. KJV, ASV, NASB, NIV, NRSV, NLT). However, the reading קָבָל עָם (qaval ’am), “before the people,” is problematic to some because קָבָל is a relatively late Aramaic term. Nevertheless, the Aramaic term qobel certainly antedates the writing of Kings. The bigger problem seems to be the unnecessary intrusion of an Aramaic word at all here. Most interpreters prefer to follow Lucian’s Greek version and read “in Ibleam” (בְיִבְלְעָם, bÿivle’am). Cf. NAB, TEV.
14 tn Heb “Have the gods of the nations really rescued, each his land, from the hand of the king of Assyria?” The infinitive absolute lends emphasis to the main verb. The rhetorical question expects the answer, “Of course not!”
15 tn Heb “and Sennacherib king of Assyria departed and went and returned and lived in Nineveh.”
16 tn Heb “and did not walk in the way of the
17 tc The words “until the day he died” do not appear in the MT, but they are included in the parallel passage in Jer 52:34. Probably they have been accidentally omitted by homoioteleuton. A scribe’s eye jumped from the final vav (ו) on בְּיוֹמוֹ (bÿyomo), “in his day,” to the final vav (ו) on מוֹתוֹ (moto), “his death,” leaving out the intervening words.