Discovery Box2 Kings 1:16 
Context1:16 Elijah 1 said to the king, 2 “This is what the Lord says, ‘You sent messengers to seek an oracle from Baal Zebub, the god of Ekron. You must think there is no God in Israel from whom you can seek an oracle! 3 Therefore you will not leave the bed you lie on, for you will certainly die.’” 4
2 Kings 4:39
Context4:39 Someone went out to the field to gather some herbs and found a wild vine. 5 He picked some of its fruit, 6 enough to fill up the fold of his robe. He came back, cut it up, and threw the slices 7 into the stew pot, not knowing they were harmful. 8
2 Kings 5:26
Context5:26 Elisha 9 replied, “I was there in spirit when a man turned and got down from his chariot to meet you. 10 This is not the proper time to accept silver or to accept clothes, olive groves, vineyards, sheep, cattle, and male and female servants. 11
2 Kings 7:2
Context7:2 An officer who was the king’s right-hand man 12 responded to the prophet, 13 “Look, even if the Lord made it rain by opening holes in the sky, could this happen so soon?” 14 Elisha 15 said, “Look, you will see it happen with your own eyes, but you will not eat any of the food!” 16
2 Kings 7:9
Context7:9 Then they said to one another, “It’s not right what we’re doing! This is a day to celebrate, but we haven’t told anyone. 17 If we wait until dawn, 18 we’ll be punished. 19 So come on, let’s go and inform the royal palace.”
2 Kings 7:19
Context7:19 But the officer replied to the prophet, “Look, even if the Lord made it rain by opening holes in the sky, could this happen so soon?” 20 Elisha 21 said, “Look, you will see it happen with your own eyes, but you will not eat any of the food!” 22
2 Kings 9:11
Context9:11 When Jehu rejoined 23 his master’s servants, they 24 asked him, “Is everything all right? 25 Why did this madman visit you?” He replied, “Ah, it’s not important. You know what kind of man he is and the kinds of things he says.” 26
2 Kings 11:15
Context11:15 Jehoiada the priest ordered the officers of the units of hundreds, who were in charge of the army, 27 “Bring her outside the temple to the guards. 28 Put the sword to anyone who follows her.” The priest gave this order because he had decided she should not be executed in the Lord’s temple. 29
2 Kings 12:7
Context12:7 So King Jehoash summoned Jehoiada the priest along with the other priests, and said to them, “Why have you not repaired the damage to the temple? Now, take no more silver from your treasurers unless you intend to use it to repair the damage.” 30
2 Kings 15:20
Context15:20 Menahem got this silver by taxing all the wealthy men in Israel; he took fifty shekels of silver from each one of them and paid it to the king of Assyria. 31 Then the king of Assyria left; he did not stay there in the land.
2 Kings 17:4
Context17:4 The king of Assyria discovered that Hoshea was planning a revolt. 32 Hoshea had sent messengers to King So 33 of Egypt and had not sent his annual tribute to the king of Assyria. So the king of Assyria arrested him and imprisoned him. 34
2 Kings 18:27
Context18:27 But the chief adviser said to them, “My master did not send me to speak these words only to your master and to you. 35 His message is also for the men who sit on the wall, for they will eat their own excrement and drink their own urine along with you.” 36
2 Kings 18:32
Context18:32 until I come and take you to a land just like your own – a land of grain and new wine, a land of bread and vineyards, a land of olive trees and honey. Then you will live and not die. Don’t listen to Hezekiah, for he is misleading you when he says, “The Lord will rescue us.”
2 Kings 20:1
Context20:1 In those days Hezekiah was stricken with a terminal illness. 37 The prophet Isaiah son of Amoz visited him and told him, “This is what the Lord says, ‘Give your household instructions, for you are about to die; you will not get well.’” 38
2 Kings 22:13
Context22:13 “Go, seek an oracle from 39 the Lord for me and the people – for all Judah. Find out about 40 the words of this scroll that has been discovered. For the Lord’s fury has been ignited against us, 41 because our ancestors have not obeyed the words of this scroll by doing all that it instructs us to do.” 42
1 tn Heb “he”; the referent (Elijah) has been specified in the translation for clarity.
2 tn Heb “him”; the referent (the king) has been specified in the translation for clarity.
3 tn Heb “Because you sent messengers to inquire of Baal Zebub, the god of Ekron, is there no God in Israel to inquire of his word?”
4 sn For the third time in this chapter we read the Lord’s sarcastic question to king and the accompanying announcement of judgment. The repetition emphasizes one of the chapter’s main themes. Israel’s leaders should seek guidance from their own God, not a pagan deity, for Israel’s sovereign God is the one who controls life and death.
5 tn Heb “a vine of the field.”
6 tn Heb “[some] of the gourds of the field.”
7 tn Heb “he came and cut [them up].”
8 tc The Hebrew text reads, “for they did not know” (יָדָעוּ, yada’u) but some emend the final shureq (וּ, indicating a third plural subject) to holem vav (וֹ, a third masculine singular pronominal suffix on a third singular verb) and read “for he did not know it.” Perhaps it is best to omit the final vav as dittographic (note the vav at the beginning of the next verb form) and read simply, “for he did not know.” See M. Cogan and H. Tadmor, II Kings (AB), 59.
9 tn Heb “he”; the referent (Elisha) has been specified in the translation for clarity.
10 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.
11 tn In the MT the statement is phrased as a rhetorical question, “Is this the time…?” It expects an emphatic negative response.
12 tn Heb “the officer on whose hand the king leans.”
13 tn Heb “man of God.”
14 tn Heb “the
15 tn Heb “he”; the referent (Elisha) has been specified in the translation for clarity.
16 tn Heb “you will not eat from there.”
17 tn Heb “this day is a day of good news and we are keeping silent.”
18 tn Heb “the light of the morning.”
19 tn Heb “punishment will find us.”
20 tn Heb “the
21 tn Heb “he”; the referent (Elisha) has been specified in the translation for clarity.
22 tn Heb “you will not eat from there.”
tn In the Hebrew text vv. 18-19a are one lengthy sentence, “When the man of God spoke to the king…, the officer replied to the man of God, ‘Look…so soon?’” The translation divides this sentence up for stylistic reasons.
23 tn Heb “went out to.”
24 tc The MT has the singular, “he said,” but many witnesses correctly read the plural.
25 tn Heb “Is there peace?”
26 tn Heb “He said, ‘You, you know the man and his thoughts.’” Jehu tries to deflect their question by reminding them that the man is an eccentric individual who says strange things. His reply suggests that the man said nothing of importance. The translation seeks to bring out the tone and intent of Jehu’s reply.
27 tn The Hebrew text also has, “and said to them.” This is redundant in English and has not been translated.
28 tn Heb “ranks.”
29 tn Heb “for the priest had said, ‘Let her not be put to death in the house of the
30 tn Heb “Now, do not take silver from your treasurers, because for the damages to the temple you must give it.”
31 tn Heb “and Menahem brought out the silver over Israel, over the prominent men of means, to give to the king of Assyria, fifty shekels of silver for each man.”
32 tn Heb “and the king of Assyria found in Hoshea conspiracy.”
33 sn For discussion of this name, see HALOT 744 s.v. סוֹא and M. Cogan and H. Tadmor, II Kings (AB), 196.
34 tn Heb “and bound him in the house of confinement.”
35 tn Heb “To your master and to you did my master send me to speak these words?” The rhetorical question expects a negative answer.
36 tn Heb “[Is it] not [also] to the men…?” The rhetorical question expects the answer, “Yes, it is.”
sn The chief adviser alludes to the horrible reality of siege warfare, when the starving people in the besieged city would resort to eating and drinking anything to stay alive.
37 tn Heb “was sick to the point of dying.”
38 tn Heb “will not live.”
39 tn Or “inquire of.”
40 tn Heb “concerning.”
41 tn Heb “for great is the anger of the
42 tn Heb “by doing all that is written concerning us.” Perhaps עָלֵינוּ (’alenu), “concerning us,” should be altered to עָלָיו (’alav), “upon it,” in which case one could translate, “by doing all that is written in it.”
