2 Kings 11:6

11:6 Another third of you will be stationed at the Foundation ¹  Gate. Still another third of you will be stationed at the gate behind the royal guard. ²  You will take turns guarding the palace. ³ 

2 Kings 11:19

11:19 He took the officers of the units of hundreds, the Carians, the royal bodyguard, and all the people of land, and together they led the king down from the Lord’s temple. They entered the royal palace through the Gate of the Royal Bodyguard, ⁴  and the king ⁵  sat down on the royal throne.

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¹ tn Heb “the gate of Sur” (followed by many English versions) but no such gate is mentioned elsewhere in the OT. The parallel account in 2 Chr 23:5 has “Foundation Gate.” סוּר (sur), “Sur,” may be a corruption of יְסוֹד (yÿsod) “foundation,” involving in part dalet-resh confusion.

² tn Heb “the runners.”

³ tn The meaning of מַסָּח (massakh) is not certain. The translation above, rather than understanding it as a genitive modifying “house,” takes it as an adverb describing how the groups will guard the palace. See HALOT 605 s.v. מַסָּח for the proposed meaning “alternating” (i.e., “in turns”).

⁴ tn Heb “the Gate of the Runners of the House of the King.”

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