Discovery Box2 Kings 3:11 
Context3:11 Jehoshaphat asked, “Is there no prophet of the Lord here that we might seek the Lord’s direction?” 1 One of the servants of the king of Israel answered, “Elisha son of Shapat is here; he used to be Elijah’s servant.” 2
2 Kings 3:27
Context3:27 So he took his firstborn son, who was to succeed him as king, and offered him up as a burnt sacrifice on the wall. There was an outburst of divine anger against Israel, 3 so they broke off the attack 4 and returned to their homeland.
2 Kings 8:1
Context8:1 Now Elisha advised the woman whose son he had brought back to life, “You and your family should go and live somewhere else for a while, 5 for the Lord has decreed that a famine will overtake the land for seven years.”
2 Kings 8:9
Context8:9 So Hazael went to visit Elisha. 6 He took along a gift, 7 as well as 8 forty camel loads of all the fine things of Damascus. When he arrived, he stood before him and said, “Your son, 9 King Ben Hadad of Syria, has sent me to you with this question, 10 ‘Will I recover from this sickness?’”
2 Kings 10:15
Context10:15 When he left there, he met 11 Jehonadab, son of Rekab, who had been looking for him. 12 Jehu greeted him and asked, 13 “Are you as committed to me as I am to you?” 14 Jehonadab answered, “I am!” Jehu replied, “If so, give me your hand.” 15 So he offered his hand and Jehu 16 pulled him up into the chariot.
2 Kings 11:2
Context11:2 So Jehosheba, the daughter of King Joram and sister of Ahaziah, took Ahaziah’s son Joash and sneaked 17 him away from the rest of the royal descendants who were to be executed. She hid him and his nurse in the room where the bed covers were stored. 18 So he was hidden from Athaliah and escaped execution. 19
2 Kings 11:4
Context11:4 In the seventh year Jehoiada summoned 20 the officers of the units of hundreds of the Carians 21 and the royal bodyguard. 22 He met with them 23 in the Lord’s temple. He made an agreement 24 with them and made them swear an oath of allegiance in the Lord’s temple. Then he showed them the king’s son.
2 Kings 14:9
Context14:9 King Jehoash of Israel sent this message back to King Amaziah of Judah, “A thornbush in Lebanon sent this message to a cedar in Lebanon, ‘Give your daughter to my son as a wife.’ Then a wild animal 25 of Lebanon came by and trampled down the thorn. 26
2 Kings 14:25
Context14:25 He restored the border of Israel from Lebo Hamath in the north to the sea of the Arabah in the south, 27 in accordance with the word of the Lord God of Israel announced through 28 his servant Jonah son of Amittai, the prophet from Gath Hepher.
2 Kings 15:5
Context15:5 The Lord afflicted the king with an illness; he suffered from a skin disease 29 until the day he died. He lived in separate quarters, 30 while his son Jotham was in charge of the palace and ruled over the people of the land.
2 Kings 18:26
Context18:26 Eliakim son of Hilkiah, Shebna, and Joah said to the chief adviser, “Speak to your servants in Aramaic, 31 for we understand it. Don’t speak with us in the Judahite dialect 32 in the hearing of the people who are on the wall.”
2 Kings 20:1
Context20:1 In those days Hezekiah was stricken with a terminal illness. 33 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.’” 34
2 Kings 21:6-7
Context21:6 He passed his son 35 through the fire 36 and practiced divination and omen reading. He set up a ritual pit to conjure up underworld spirits, and appointed magicians to supervise it. 37 He did a great amount of evil in the sight of the Lord, provoking him to anger. 38 21:7 He put an idol of Asherah he had made in the temple, about which the Lord had said to David and to his son Solomon, “This temple in Jerusalem, which I have chosen out of all the tribes of Israel, will be my permanent home. 39
2 Kings 23:15
Context23:15 He also tore down the altar in Bethel 40 at the high place made by Jeroboam son of Nebat, who encouraged Israel to sin. 41 He burned all the combustible items at that high place and crushed them to dust; including the Asherah pole. 42
2 Kings 23:30
Context23:30 His servants transported his dead body 43 from Megiddo in a chariot and brought it to Jerusalem, where they buried him in his tomb. The people of the land took Josiah’s son Jehoahaz, poured olive oil on his head, 44 and made him king in his father’s place.
1 tn Heb “that we might inquire of the
2 tn Heb “who poured water on the hands of Elijah.” This refers to one of the typical tasks of a servant.
3 tn Heb “there was great anger against Israel.”
sn The meaning of this statement is uncertain, for the subject of the anger is not indicated. Except for two relatively late texts, the noun קֶצֶף (qetsef) refers to an outburst of divine anger. But it seems unlikely the Lord would be angry with Israel, for he placed his stamp of approval on the campaign (vv. 16-19). D. N. Freedman suggests the narrator, who obviously has a bias against the Omride dynasty, included this observation to show that the Lord would not allow the Israelite king to “have an undiluted victory” (as quoted in M. Cogan and H. Tadmor, II Kings [AB], 52, n. 8). Some suggest that the original source identified Chemosh the Moabite god as the subject and that his name was later suppressed by a conscientious scribe, but this proposal raises more questions than it answers. For a discussion of various views, see M. Cogan and H. Tadmor, II Kings (AB), 47-48, 51-52.
4 tn Heb “they departed from him.”
5 tn Heb “Get up and go, you and your house, and live temporarily where you can live temporarily.”
6 tn Heb “him”; the referent (Elisha) has been specified in the translation for clarity.
7 tn The Hebrew text also has “in his hand.”
8 tn Heb “and.” It is possible that the conjunction is here explanatory, equivalent to English “that is.” In this case the forty camel loads constitute the “gift” and one should translate, “He took along a gift, consisting of forty camel loads of all the fine things of Damascus.”
9 sn The words “your son” emphasize the king’s respect for the prophet.
10 tn Heb “saying.”
11 tn Heb “found.”
12 tn Heb “and he went from there and found Jehonadab son of Rekab [who was coming] to meet him.”
13 tn Heb “and he blessed him and said to him.”
14 tn Heb “Is there with your heart [what is] right, as my heart [is] with your heart?”
15 tc Heb “Jehonadab said, ‘There is and there is. Give your hand.’” If the text is allowed to stand, there are two possible ways to understand the syntax of וָיֵשׁ (vayesh), “and there is”: (1) The repetition of יֵשׁ (yesh, “there is and there is”) could be taken as emphatic, “indeed I am.” In this case, the entire statement could be taken as Jehonadab’s words or one could understand the words “give your hand” as Jehu’s. In the latter case the change in speakers is unmarked. (2) וָיֵשׁ begins Jehu’s response and has a conditional force, “if you are.” In this case, the transition in speakers is unmarked. However, it is possible that וַיֹּאמֶר (vayyo’mer), “and he said,” or וַיֹּאמֶר יֵהוּא (vayyo’mer yehu), “and Jehu said,” originally appeared between יֵשׁ and וָיֵשׁ and has accidentally dropped from the text by homoioarcton (note that both the proposed וַיֹּאמֶר and וָיֵשׁ begin with vav, ו). The present translation assumes such a textual reconstruction; it is supported by the LXX, Syriac Peshitta, and Vulgate.
16 tn Heb “he”; the referent (Jehu) has been specified in the translation for clarity.
17 tn Heb “stole.”
18 tn Heb “him and his nurse in an inner room of beds.” The verb is missing in the Hebrew text. The parallel passage in 2 Chr 22:11 has “and she put” at the beginning of the clause. M. Cogan and H. Tadmor (II Kings [AB], 126) regard the Chronicles passage as an editorial attempt to clarify the difficulty of the original text. They prefer to take “him and his nurse” as objects of the verb “stole” and understand “in the bedroom” as the place where the royal descendants were executed. The phrase בַּחֲדַר הַמִּטּוֹת (bakhadar hammittot), “an inner room of beds,” is sometimes understood as referring to a bedroom (HALOT 293 s.v. חֶדֶר), though some prefer to see here a “room where the covers and cloths were kept for the beds (HALOT 573 s.v. מִטָּת). In either case, it may have been a temporary hideout, for v. 3 indicates that the child hid in the temple for six years.
19 tn Heb “and they hid him from Athaliah and he was not put to death.” The subject of the plural verb (“they hid”) is probably indefinite.
20 tn Heb “Jehoiada sent and took.”
21 sn The Carians were apparently a bodyguard, probably comprised of foreigners. See HALOT 497 s.v. כָּרִי and M. Cogan and H. Tadmor, II Kings (AB), 126.
22 tn Heb “the runners.”
23 tn Heb “he brought them to himself.”
24 tn Or “covenant.”
25 tn Heb “the animal of the field.”
26 sn Judah is the thorn in the allegory. Amaziah’s success has deceived him into thinking he is on the same level as the major powers in the area (symbolized by the cedar). In reality he is not capable of withstanding an attack by a real military power such as Israel (symbolized by the wild animal).
27 tn The phrases “in the north” and “in the south” are added in the translation for clarification.
28 tn Heb “which he spoke by the hand of.”
29 tn Traditionally, “he was a leper.” But see the note at 5:1.
30 tn The precise meaning of בֵית הַחָפְשִׁית (bet hakhofÿshit), “house of […?],” is uncertain. For a discussion of various proposals, see M. Cogan and H. Tadmor, II Kings (AB), 166-67.
31 sn Aramaic was the diplomatic language of the empire.
32 tn Or “Hebrew.”
33 tn Heb “was sick to the point of dying.”
34 tn Heb “will not live.”
35 tc The LXX has the plural “his sons” here.
36 sn See the note at 2 Kgs 16:3.
37 tn Heb “and he set up a ritual pit, along with conjurers.” The Hebrew אוֹב (’ov), “ritual pit,” refers to a pit used by a magician to conjure up underworld spirits. In 1 Sam 28:7 the witch of Endor is called a בַעֲלַת אוֹב (ba’alat ’ov), “owner of a ritual pit.” See H. Hoffner, “Second millennium Antecedents to the Hebrew ’OñBù,” JBL 86 (1967), 385-401.
38 tc Heb “and he multiplied doing what is evil in the eyes of the
39 tn Heb “In this house and in Jerusalem, which I chose from all the tribes of Israel, I will place my name perpetually (or perhaps “forever”).”
40 map For location see Map4 G4; Map5 C1; Map6 E3; Map7 D1; Map8 G3.
41 tn Heb “And also the altar that is in Bethel, the high place that Jeroboam son of Nebat who encouraged Israel to sin, also that altar and the high place he tore down.” The more repetitive Hebrew text is emphatic.
42 tn Heb “he burned the high place, crushing to dust, and he burned the Asherah pole.” High places per se are never referred to as being burned elsewhere. בָּמָה (bamah) here stands by metonymy for the combustible items located on the high place. See M. Cogan and H. Tadmor, II Kings (AB), 289.
43 tn Heb “him, dead.”
44 tn Or “anointed him.”
