Discovery Box2 Kings 3:25 
Context3:25 They tore down the cities and each man threw a stone into every cultivated field until they were covered. 1 They stopped up every spring and chopped down every productive tree.
Only Kir Hareseth was left intact, 2 but the slingers surrounded it and attacked it.
2 Kings 7:12
Context7:12 The king got up in the night and said to his advisers, 3 “I will tell you what the Syrians have done to us. They know we are starving, so they left the camp and hid in the field, thinking, ‘When they come out of the city, we will capture them alive and enter the city.’”
2 Kings 17:15
Context17:15 They rejected his rules, the covenant he had made with their ancestors, and the laws he had commanded them to obey. 4 They paid allegiance to 5 worthless idols, and so became worthless to the Lord. 6 They copied the practices of the surrounding nations in blatant disregard of the Lord’s command. 7
2 Kings 18:17
Context18:17 The king of Assyria sent his commanding general, the chief eunuch, and the chief adviser 8 from Lachish to King Hezekiah in Jerusalem, 9 along with a large army. They went up and arrived at Jerusalem. They went 10 and stood at the conduit of the upper pool which is located on the road to the field where they wash and dry cloth. 11
2 Kings 19:26
Context19:26 Their residents are powerless, 12
they are terrified and ashamed.
They are as short-lived as plants in the field,
or green vegetation. 13
They are as short-lived as grass on the rooftops 14
when it is scorched by the east wind. 15
2 Kings 25:4
Context25:4 The enemy broke through the city walls, 16 and all the soldiers tried to escape. They left the city during the night. 17 They went through the gate between the two walls that is near the king’s garden. 18 (The Babylonians were all around the city.) Then they headed for the Jordan Valley. 19
1 tn Heb “and [on] every good portion they were throwing each man his stone and they filled it.” The vav + perfect (“and they filled”) here indicates customary action contemporary with the situation described in the preceding main clause (where a customary imperfect is used, “they were throwing”). See the note at 3:4.
2 tn Heb “until he had allowed its stones to remain in Kir Hareseth.”
3 tn Heb “servants” (also in v. 13).
4 tn Or “and his warnings he had given them.”
5 tn Heb “They went [or, ‘followed’] after.” This idiom probably does not mean much if translated literally. It is found most often in Deuteronomy or in literature related to the covenant. It refers in the first instance to loyalty to God and to His covenant or His commandments (1 Kgs 14:8; 2 Chr 34:31) with the metaphor of a path or way underlying it (Deut 11:28; 28:14). To “follow other gods” was to abandon this way and this loyalty (to “abandon” or “forget” God, Judg 2:12; Hos 2:13) and to follow the customs or religious traditions of the pagan nations (2 Kgs 17:15). The classic text on “following” God or another god is 1 Kgs 18:18, 21 where Elijah taunts the people with “halting between two opinions” whether the
6 tn Heb “they followed after the worthless thing/things and became worthless.” The words “to the
7 tn Heb “and [they walked] after the nations which were around them, concerning which the
8 sn For a discussion of these titles see M. Cogan and H. Tadmor, II Kings (AB), 229-30.
9 map For location see Map5 B1; Map6 F3; Map7 E2; Map8 F2; Map10 B3; JP1 F4; JP2 F4; JP3 F4; JP4 F4.
10 tn Heb “and they went up and came.”
11 tn Heb “the field of the washer.”
12 tn Heb “short of hand.”
13 tn Heb “they are plants in the field and green vegetation.” The metaphor emphasizes how short-lived these seemingly powerful cities really were. See Ps 90:5-6; Isa 40:6-8, 24.
14 tn Heb “[they are] grass on the rooftops.” See the preceding note.
15 tc The Hebrew text has “scorched before the standing grain” (perhaps meaning “before it reaches maturity”), but it is preferable to emend קָמָה (qamah), “standing grain,” to קָדִים (qadim), “east wind” (with the support of 1Q Isaa in Isa 37:27).
16 tn Heb “the city was breached.”
17 tn The Hebrew text is abrupt here: “And all the men of war by the night.” The translation attempts to capture the sense.
18 sn The king’s garden is mentioned again in Neh 3:15 in conjunction with the pool of Siloam and the stairs that go down from the city of David. This would have been in the southern part of the city near the Tyropean Valley which agrees with the reference to the “two walls” which were probably the walls on the eastern and western hills.
19 sn Heb “toward the Arabah.” The Arabah was the rift valley north and south of the Dead Sea. Here the intention was undoubtedly to escape across the Jordan to Moab or Ammon. It appears from Jer 40:14; 41:15 that the Ammonites were known to harbor fugitives from the Babylonians.
