2 Kings 5:26

5:26 Elisha 1  replied, “I was there in spirit when a man turned and got down from his chariot to meet you. 2  This is not the proper time to accept silver or to accept clothes, olive groves, vineyards, sheep, cattle, and male and female servants. 3 

2 Kings 7:1

7:1 Elisha replied, “Hear the word of the Lord! This is what the Lord says, ‘About this time tomorrow a seah 4  of finely milled flour will sell for a shekel and two seahs of barley for a shekel at the gate of Samaria.’”

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, 5  then take the heads of your master’s sons and come to me in Jezreel at this time tomorrow.” 6  Now the king had seventy sons, and the prominent 7  men of the city were raising them.

2 Kings 18:4

18:4 He eliminated the high places, smashed the sacred pillars to bits, and cut down the Asherah pole. 8  He also demolished the bronze serpent that Moses had made, for up to that time 9  the Israelites had been offering incense to it; it was called Nehushtan. 10 

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

2 tn Heb “Did not my heart go as a man turned from his chariot to meet you?” The rhetorical question emphasizes that he was indeed present in “heart” (or “spirit”) and was very much aware of what Gehazi had done. In the MT the interrogative particle has been accidentally omitted before the negative particle.

3 tn In the MT the statement is phrased as a rhetorical question, “Is this the time…?” It expects an emphatic negative response.

4 sn A seah was a dry measure equivalent to about 7 quarts.

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

6 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).

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

8 tn The term is singular in the MT but plural in the LXX and other ancient versions. It is also possible to regard the singular as a collective singular, especially in the context of other plural items.

sn Asherah was a leading deity of the Canaanite pantheon, wife/sister of El and goddess of fertility. She was commonly worshiped at shrines in or near groves of evergreen trees, or, failing that, at places marked by wooden poles. These were to be burned or cut down (Deut 12:3; 16:21; Judg 6:25, 28, 30; 2 Kgs 18:4).

9 tn Heb “until those days.”

10 tn In Hebrew the name sounds like the phrase נְחַשׁ הַנְּחֹשֶׁת (nÿkhash hannÿkhoshet), “bronze serpent.”