1:11 The king 1 sent another captain and his fifty soldiers to retrieve Elijah. He went up and told him, 2 “Prophet, this is what the king says, ‘Come down at once!’” 3
18:28 The chief adviser then stood there and called out loudly in the Judahite dialect, 5 “Listen to the message of the great king, the king of Assyria.
1 tn Heb “he”; the referent (the king) has been specified in the translation for clarity.
2 tc The MT reads, “he answered and said to him.” The verb “he answered” (וַיַּעַן, vayya’an) is probably a corruption of “he went up” (וַיַּעַל, vayya’al). See v. 9.
3 sn In this second panel of the three-paneled narrative, the king and his captain are more arrogant than before. The captain uses a more official sounding introduction (“this is what the king says”) and the king adds “at once” to the command.
4 sn In this third panel the verb “come down” (יָרַד, yarad) occurs again, this time describing Elijah’s descent from the hill at the Lord’s command. The moral of the story seems clear: Those who act as if they have authority over God and his servants just may pay for their arrogance with their lives; those who, like the third commander, humble themselves and show the proper respect for God’s authority and for his servants will be spared and find God quite cooperative.
7 tn The Hebrew text also has, “and he spoke and said.”