8:20 During his reign Edom freed themselves from Judah’s control and set up their own king. 4
12:17 At that time King Hazael of Syria attacked 5 Gath and captured it. Hazael then decided to attack Jerusalem. 6
24:10 At that time the generals 19 of King Nebuchadnezzar of Babylon marched to Jerusalem and besieged the city. 20
1 tn Heb “Should I strike them down? I will strike them down.” In the Hebrew text the first person imperfect form is repeated; the first form has the interrogative he prefixed to it; the second does not. It is likely that the second form should be omitted as dittographic or that the first should be emended to an infinitive absolute.
2 tn Heb “my father.” The king addresses the prophet in this way to indicate his respect. See 2 Kgs 2:12.
3 map For location see Map5-B1; Map6-F3; Map7-E2; Map8-F2; Map10-B3; JP1-F4; JP2-F4; JP3-F4; JP4-F4.
4 tn Heb “in his days Edom rebelled from under the hand of Judah and enthroned a king over them.”
5 tn Heb “went up and fought against.”
6 tn Heb “Hazael set his face to go up against Jerusalem.”
7 tn Heb “lay down with his fathers.”
8 tn Heb “lay down with his fathers.”
9 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.
10 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.
11 tn Heb “the
12 tn Heb “and the king.”
13 tn Heb “the altar.”
14 tn Or “ascended it.”
15 tn Heb “went up against.”
16 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!”
17 tn Heb “and Sennacherib king of Assyria departed and went and returned and lived in Nineveh.”
18 tn Heb “he buried him.” Here “he” probably refers to Amon’s son Josiah.
19 tn Heb “servants.”
20 tn Heb “went up [to] Jerusalem and the city entered into siege.”
21 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.