2 Kings 4:39

4:39 Someone went out to the field to gather some herbs and found a wild vine. ¹  He picked some of its fruit, ²  enough to fill up the fold of his robe. He came back, cut it up, and threw the slices ³  into the stew pot, not knowing they were harmful. ⁴ 

2 Kings 7:10

7:10 So they went and called out to the gatekeepers ⁵  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. ⁶  But the horses and donkeys are still tied up, and the tents remain up.” ⁷ 

2 Kings 9:27

9:27 When King Ahaziah of Judah saw what happened, he took off ⁸  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. ⁹  He fled to Megiddo ¹⁰  and died there.

2 Kings 21:6

21:6 He passed his son ¹¹  through the fire ¹²  and practiced divination and omen reading. He set up a ritual pit to conjure up underworld spirits, and appointed magicians to supervise it. ¹³  He did a great amount of evil in the sight of the Lord, provoking him to anger. ¹⁴ 

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¹ tn Heb “a vine of the field.”

² tn Heb “[some] of the gourds of the field.”

³ tn Heb “he came and cut [them up].”

⁴ tc The Hebrew text reads, “for they did not know” (יָדָעוּ, yada’u) but some emend the final shureq (וּ, indicating a third plural subject) to holem vav (וֹ, a third masculine singular pronominal suffix on a third singular verb) and read “for he did not know it.” Perhaps it is best to omit the final vav as dittographic (note the vav at the beginning of the next verb form) and read simply, “for he did not know.” See M. Cogan and H. Tadmor, II Kings (AB), 59.

⁵ tn 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.

⁶ tn Heb “and, look, there was no man or voice of a man there.”

⁷ tn Heb “but the horses are tied up and the donkeys are tied up and the tents are as they were.”

⁸ tn Heb “and Ahaziah king of Judah saw and fled.”

⁹ 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.

¹⁰ map For location see Map1-D4; Map2-C1; Map4-C2; Map5-F2; Map7-B1.

¹¹ tc The LXX has the plural “his sons” here.

¹² sn See the note at 2 Kgs 16:3.

¹³ tn Heb “and he set up a ritual pit, along with conjurers.” The Hebrew אוֹב (’ov), “ritual pit,” refers to a pit used by a magician to conjure up underworld spirits. In 1 Sam 28:7 the witch of Endor is called a בַעֲלַת אוֹב (ba’alat ’ov), “owner of a ritual pit.” See H. Hoffner, “Second millennium Antecedents to the Hebrew ’OñBù,” JBL 86 (1967), 385-401.

¹⁴ tc Heb “and he multiplied doing what is evil in the eyes of the Lord, angering.” The third masculine singular pronominal suffix (“him”) has been accidentally omitted in the MT by haplography (note the vav that immediately follows).