2 Kings 5:13

5:13 His servants approached and said to him, “O master, 1  if the prophet had told you to do some difficult task, 2  you would have been willing to do it. 3  It seems you should be happy that he simply said, “Wash and you will be healed.” 4 

2 Kings 8:5

8:5 While Gehazi 5  was telling the king how Elisha 6  had brought the dead back to life, the woman whose son he had brought back to life came to ask the king for her house and field. 7  Gehazi said, “My master, O king, this is the very woman and this is her son whom Elisha brought back to life!”

1 tn Heb “my father,” reflecting the perspective of each individual servant. To address their master as “father” would emphasize his authority and express their respect. See BDB 3 s.v. אָב and the similar idiomatic use of “father” in 2 Kgs 2:12.

2 tn Heb “a great thing.”

3 tn Heb “would you not do [it]?” The rhetorical question expects the answer, “Of course you would.”

4 tn Heb “How much more [when] he said, “Wash and be healed.” The second imperative (“be healed”) states the expected result of obeying the first (‘wash”).

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

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

7 tn Heb “and look, the woman whose son he had brought back to life was crying out to the king for her house and her field.”

sn The legal background of the situation is uncertain. For a discussion of possibilities, see M. Cogan and H. Tadmor, II Kings (AB), 87-88.