Discovery Box2 Kings 4:39 
Context4:39 Someone went out to the field to gather some herbs and found a wild vine. 1 He picked some of its fruit, 2 enough to fill up the fold of his robe. He came back, cut it up, and threw the slices 3 into the stew pot, not knowing they were harmful. 4
2 Kings 6:32
Context6:32 Now Elisha was sitting in his house with the community leaders. 5 The king 6 sent a messenger on ahead, but before he arrived, 7 Elisha 8 said to the leaders, 9 “Do you realize this assassin intends to cut off my head?” 10 Look, when the messenger arrives, shut the door and lean against it. His master will certainly be right behind him.” 11
2 Kings 18:4
Context18:4 He eliminated the high places, smashed the sacred pillars to bits, and cut down the Asherah pole. 12 He also demolished the bronze serpent that Moses had made, for up to that time 13 the Israelites had been offering incense to it; it was called Nehushtan. 14
2 Kings 19:23
Context19:23 Through your messengers you taunted the sovereign master, 15
‘With my many chariots 16
I climbed up the high mountains,
the slopes of Lebanon.
I cut down its tall cedars,
and its best evergreens.
I invaded its most remote regions, 17
its thickest woods.
1 tn Heb “a vine of the field.”
2 tn Heb “[some] of the gourds of the field.”
3 tn Heb “he came and cut [them up].”
4 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.
5 tn Heb “and the elders were sitting with him.”
6 tn Heb “he”; the referent (the king) has been specified in the translation for clarity.
7 tn Heb “sent a man from before him, before the messenger came to him.”
8 tn Heb “he”; the referent (Elisha) has been specified in the translation for clarity.
9 tn Heb “elders.”
10 tn Heb “Do you see that this son of an assassin has sent to remove my head?”
11 tn Heb “Is not the sound of his master’s footsteps behind him?”
12 tn The term is singular in the MT but plural in the LXX and other ancient versions. It is also possible to regard the singular as a collective singular, especially in the context of other plural items.
sn Asherah was a leading deity of the Canaanite pantheon, wife/sister of El and goddess of fertility. She was commonly worshiped at shrines in or near groves of evergreen trees, or, failing that, at places marked by wooden poles. These were to be burned or cut down (Deut 12:3; 16:21; Judg 6:25, 28, 30; 2 Kgs 18:4).
13 tn Heb “until those days.”
14 tn In Hebrew the name sounds like the phrase נְחַשׁ הַנְּחֹשֶׁת (nÿkhash hannÿkhoshet), “bronze serpent.”
15 tn The word is אֲדֹנָי (’adonai), “lord,” but some Hebrew
16 tc The consonantal text (Kethib) has בְּרֶכֶב (bÿrekhev), but this must be dittographic (note the following רִכְבִּי [rikhbi], “my chariots”). The marginal reading (Qere) בְּרֹב (bÿrov), “with many,” is supported by many Hebrew
17 tn Heb “the lodging place of its extremity.”
