2 Kings 1:3

1:3 But the Lord’s angelic messenger told Elijah the Tishbite, “Get up, go to meet the messengers from the king of Samaria. Say this to them: ‘You must think there is no God in Israel! That explains why you are on your way to seek an oracle from Baal Zebub the god of Ekron. ¹ 

2 Kings 9:11

9:11 When Jehu rejoined ²  his master’s servants, they ³  asked him, “Is everything all right? ⁴  Why did this madman visit you?” He replied, “Ah, it’s not important. You know what kind of man he is and the kinds of things he says.” ⁵ 

2 Kings 10:9

10:9 In the morning he went out and stood there. Then he said to all the people, “You are innocent. I conspired against my master and killed him. But who struck down all of these men?

2 Kings 10:13

10:13 Jehu encountered ⁶  the relatives ⁷  of King Ahaziah of Judah. He asked, “Who are you?” They replied, “We are Ahaziah’s relatives. We have come down to see how ⁸  the king’s sons and the queen mother’s sons are doing.”

2 Kings 13:23

13:23 But the Lord had mercy on them and felt pity for them. ⁹  He extended his favor to them ¹⁰  because of the promise he had made ¹¹  to Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob. He has been unwilling to destroy them or remove them from his presence to this very day. ¹² 

2 Kings 17:6-7

17:6 In the ninth year of Hoshea’s reign, the king of Assyria captured Samaria and deported the people of Israel ¹³  to Assyria. He settled them in Halah, along the Habor (the river of Gozan), and in the cities of the Medes.

A Summary of Israel’s Sinful History

17:7 This happened because the Israelites sinned against the Lord their God, who brought them up from the land of Egypt and freed them from the power of ¹⁴  Pharaoh king of Egypt. They worshiped ¹⁵  other gods;

2 Kings 17:15

17:15 They rejected his rules, the covenant he had made with their ancestors, and the laws he had commanded them to obey. ¹⁶  They paid allegiance to ¹⁷  worthless idols, and so became worthless to the Lord. ¹⁸  They copied the practices of the surrounding nations in blatant disregard of the Lord’s command. ¹⁹ 

2 Kings 21:3

21:3 He rebuilt the high places that his father Hezekiah had destroyed; he set up altars for Baal and made an Asherah pole just like King Ahab of Israel had done. He bowed down to all the stars in the sky ²⁰  and worshiped ²¹  them.

2 Kings 21:8

21:8 I will not make Israel again leave the land I gave to their ancestors, ²²  provided that they carefully obey all I commanded them, the whole law my servant Moses ordered them to obey.”

¹ tn Heb “Is it because there is no God in Israel [that] you are going to inquire of Baal Zebub, the god of Ekron?” The translation seeks to bring out the sarcastic tone of the rhetorical question.

² tn Heb “went out to.”

³ tc The MT has the singular, “he said,” but many witnesses correctly read the plural.

⁴ tn Heb “Is there peace?”

⁵ tn Heb “He said, ‘You, you know the man and his thoughts.’” Jehu tries to deflect their question by reminding them that the man is an eccentric individual who says strange things. His reply suggests that the man said nothing of importance. The translation seeks to bring out the tone and intent of Jehu’s reply.

³ tn Heb “found.”

⁴ tn Or “brothers.”

⁵ tn Heb “for the peace of.”

⁴ tn Or “showed them compassion.”

⁵ tn Heb “he turned to them.”

⁶ tn Heb “because of his covenant with.”

⁷ tn Heb “until now.”

⁵ tn The Hebrew text has simply “Israel” as the object of the verb.

⁶ tn Heb “and from under the hand of.” The words “freed them” are added in the translation for stylistic reasons.

⁷ tn Heb “feared.”

⁷ tn Or “and his warnings he had given them.”

⁸ 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 Lord was the true God or Baal was. The idiom is often found followed by “to serve and to worship” or “they served and worshiped” such and such a god or entity (Jer 8:2; 11:10; 13:10; 16:11; 25:6; 35:15).

⁹ tn Heb “they followed after the worthless thing/things and became worthless.” The words “to the Lord” are not in the Hebrew text but are implicit from the context. There is an obvious wordplay on the verb “became worthless” and the noun “worthless thing”, which is probably to be understood collectively and to refer to idols as it does in Jer 8:19; 10:8; 14:22; Jonah 2:8.

¹⁰ tn Heb “and [they walked] after the nations which were around them, concerning which the Lord commanded them not to do like them.”

⁸ sn See the note at 2 Kgs 17:16.

⁹ tn Or “served.”

⁹ tn Heb “I will not again make the feet of Israel wander from the land which I gave to their fathers.”