2 Kings 8:21

8:21 Joram ¹  crossed over to Zair with all his chariots. The Edomites, who had surrounded him, attacked at night and defeated him and his chariot officers. ²  The Israelite army retreated to their homeland. ³ 

2 Kings 13:25

13:25 Jehoahaz’s son Jehoash took back from ⁴  Ben Hadad son of Hazael the cities that he had taken from his father Jehoahaz in war. Joash defeated him three times and recovered the Israelite cities.

2 Kings 14:10

14:10 You thoroughly defeated Edom ⁵  and it has gone to your head! ⁶  Gloat over your success, ⁷  but stay in your palace. Why bring calamity on yourself? Why bring down yourself and Judah along with you?” ⁸ 

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¹ sn Joram is a short form of the name Jehoram.

² tn Heb “and he arose at night and defeated Edom, who had surrounded him, and the chariot officers.” The Hebrew text as it stands gives the impression that Joram was surrounded and launched a victorious night counterattack. It would then be quite natural to understand the last statement in the verse to refer to an Edomite retreat. Yet v. 22 goes on to state that the Edomite revolt was successful. Therefore, if the MT is retained, it may be better to understand the final statement in v. 21 as a reference to an Israelite retreat (made in spite of the success described in the preceding sentence). The translation above assumes an emendation of the Hebrew text. Adding a third masculine singular pronominal suffix to the accusative sign before Edom (reading אֶתוֹ [’eto], “him,” instead of just אֶת [’et]) and taking Edom as the subject of verbs allows one to translate the verse in a way that is more consistent with the context, which depicts an Israelite defeat, not victory. There is, however, no evidence for this emendation.

³ tn Heb “and the people fled to their tents.”

⁴ tn Heb “from the hand of.”

⁵ tn Or “you have indeed defeated Edom.”

⁶ tn Heb “and your heart has lifted you up.”

⁷ tn Heb “be glorified.”

⁸ tn Heb “Why get involved in calamity and fall, you and Judah with you?”