15:8 When Asa heard these words and the prophecy of Oded the prophet, he was encouraged. 1 He removed the detestable idols from the entire land of Judah and Benjamin and from the cities he had seized in the Ephraimite hill country. He repaired the altar of the Lord in front of the porch of the Lord’s temple. 2
15:9 He assembled all Judah and Benjamin, as well as the settlers 3 from Ephraim, Manasseh, and Simeon who had come to live with them. Many people from Israel had come there to live 4 when they saw that the Lord his God was with him. 15:10 They assembled in Jerusalem in the third month of the fifteenth year of Asa’s reign. 15:11 At that time 5 they sacrificed to the Lord some of the plunder they had brought back, including 700 head of cattle and 7,000 sheep. 6 15:12 They solemnly agreed 7 to seek the Lord God of their ancestors 8 with their whole heart and being. 15:13 Anyone who would not seek the Lord God of Israel would be executed, whether they were young or old, 9 male or female.
29:1 Hezekiah was twenty-five years old when he began to reign, and he reigned twenty-nine years in Jerusalem. 13 His mother was Abijah, 14 the daughter of Zechariah.
7:4 The king and all the people were presenting sacrifices to the Lord.
1 tn Heb “strengthened himself.”
2 tn Heb “the porch of the
3 tn Or “resident aliens.”
4 tn Heb “had fallen upon him.”
5 tn Or “In that day.”
6 tn The Hebrew term צֹאן (tso’n) denotes smaller livestock in general; depending on context it can refer to sheep only or goats only, but their is nothing in the immediate context here to specify one or the other.
7 tn Heb “entered into a covenant.”
8 tn Heb “fathers.”
9 tn Heb “whether small or great.”
10 tn Heb “now it is with my heart.”
11 tn Heb “so that the rage of his anger might turn from us.” The jussive with vav (ו) conjunctive indicates purpose/result after the preceding statement of intention.
12 tn Heb “to stand before him to serve him and to be his servants and sacrificers.”
13 map For location see Map5-B1; Map6-F3; Map7-E2; Map8-F2; Map10-B3; JP1-F4; JP2-F4; JP3-F4; JP4-F4.
14 tn The parallel passage in 2 Kgs 18:2 has “Abi.”
15 tn The word “saying” is supplied in the translation for stylistic reasons.
16 tn Heb “he will turn the heart[s] of [the] fathers to [the] sons, and the heart[s] of [the] sons to their fathers.” This may mean that the messenger will encourage reconciliation of conflicts within Jewish families in the postexilic community (see Mal 2:10; this interpretation is followed by most English versions). Another option is to translate, “he will turn the hearts of the fathers together with those of the children [to me], and the hearts of the children together with those of their fathers [to me].” In this case the prophet encourages both the younger and older generations of sinful society to repent and return to the
17 tn Heb “[the] ban” (חֵרֶם, kherem). God’s prophetic messenger seeks to bring about salvation and restoration, thus avoiding the imposition of the covenant curse, that is, the divine ban that the hopelessly unrepentant must expect (see Deut 7:2; 20:17; Judg 1:21; Zech 14:11). If the wicked repent, the purifying judgment threatened in 4:1-3 will be unnecessary.
18 tn Grk “before him”; the referent (the Lord) has been specified in the translation for clarity.
19 sn These two lines cover all relationships: Turn the hearts of the fathers back to their children points to horizontal relationships, while (turn) the disobedient to the wisdom of the just shows what God gives from above in a vertical manner.