2 Kings 1:9

1:9 The king ¹  sent a captain and his fifty soldiers ²  to retrieve Elijah. ³  The captain ⁴  went up to him, while he was sitting on the top of a hill. ⁵  He told him, “Prophet, ⁶  the king says, ‘Come down!’”

2 Kings 2:16

2:16 They said to him, “Look, there are fifty capable men with your servants. Let them go and look for your master, for the wind sent from the Lord ⁷  may have carried him away and dropped him on one of the hills or in one of the valleys.” But Elisha ⁸  replied, “Don’t send them out.”

2 Kings 4:25

4:25 So she went to visit ⁹  the prophet at Mount Carmel. When he ¹⁰  saw her at a distance, he said to his servant Gehazi, “Look, it’s the Shunammite woman.

2 Kings 4:27

4:27 But when she reached the prophet on the mountain, she grabbed hold of his feet. Gehazi came near to push her away, but the prophet said, “Leave her alone, for she is very upset. ¹¹  The Lord has kept the matter hidden from me; he didn’t tell me about it.”

2 Kings 5:22

5:22 He answered, “Everything is fine. ¹²  My master sent me with this message, ‘Look, two servants of the prophets just arrived from the Ephraimite hill country. ¹³  Please give them a talent ¹⁴  of silver and two suits of clothes.’”

2 Kings 6:17

6:17 Then Elisha prayed, “O Lord, open his eyes so he can see.” The Lord opened the servant’s eyes and he saw that ¹⁵  the hill was full of horses and chariots of fire all around Elisha.

2 Kings 19:23

19:23 Through your messengers you taunted the sovereign master, ¹⁶ 

‘With my many chariots ¹⁷ 

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, ¹⁸ 

its thickest woods.

2 Kings 23:13

23:13 The king ruined the high places east of Jerusalem, south of the Mount of Destruction, ¹⁹  that King Solomon of Israel had built for the detestable Sidonian goddess Astarte, the detestable Moabite god Chemosh, and the horrible Ammonite god Milcom.

2 Kings 23:16

23:16 When Josiah turned around, he saw the tombs there on the hill. So he ordered the bones from the tombs to be brought; ²⁰  he burned them on the altar and defiled it. This fulfilled the Lord’s announcement made by the prophet while Jeroboam stood by the altar during a festival. King Josiah ²¹  turned and saw the grave of the prophet who had foretold this. ²² 

¹ tn Heb “he”; the referent (the king) has been specified in the translation for clarity.

² tn Heb “officer of fifty and his fifty.”

³ tn Heb “to him.”

⁴ tn Heb “he”; the referent (the captain) has been specified in the translation for clarity.

⁵ sn The prophet Elijah’s position on the top of the hill symbolizes his superiority to the king and his messengers.

⁶ tn Heb “man of God” (also in vv. 10, 11, 12, 13).

⁷ tn Or “the spirit of the Lord.”

⁸ tn Heb “he”; the referent (Elisha) has been specified in the translation for clarity.

¹³ tn Heb “went and came.”

¹⁴ tn Heb “the man of God.” The phrase has been replaced by the relative pronoun “he” in the translation for stylistic reasons.

¹⁹ tn Heb “her soul [i.e., ‘disposition’] is bitter.”

²⁵ tn Heb “peace.”

²⁶ tn Heb “Look now, here, two servants came to me from the Ephraimite hill country, from the sons of the prophets.”

²⁷ tn The Hebrew term כִּכָּר (kikkar, “circle”) refers generally to something that is round. When used of metals it can refer to a disk-shaped weight made of the metal or to a standard unit of weight, generally regarded as a talent. Since the accepted weight for a talent of metal is about 75 pounds, this would have amounted to about 75 pounds of silver (cf. NCV, NLT, CEV).

³¹ tn Heb “and he saw, and look.”

³⁷ tn The word is אֲדֹנָי (’adonai), “lord,” but some Hebrew mss have יְהוָה (yehvah), “Lord.”

³⁸ 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 mss and ancient versions, as well as the parallel passage in Isa 37:24.

³⁹ tn Heb “the lodging place of its extremity.”

⁴³ sn This is a derogatory name for the Mount of Olives, involving a wordplay between מָשְׁחָה (mashÿkhah), “anointing,” and מַשְׁחִית (mashÿkhit), “destruction.” See HALOT 644 s.v. מַשְׁחִית and M. Cogan and H. Tadmor, II Kings (AB), 289.

⁴⁹ tn Heb “and he sent and took the bones from the tombs.”

⁵⁰ tn Heb “the king”; this has been specified as “King Josiah” in the translation for clarity (cf. TEV, CEV, NLT).

⁵¹ tc The MT is much shorter than this. It reads, “according to the word of the Lord which the man of God proclaimed, who proclaimed these words.” The LXX has a much longer text at this point. It reads: “[which was proclaimed by the man of God] while Jeroboam stood by the altar at a celebration. Then he turned and saw the grave of the man of God [who proclaimed these words].” The extra material attested in the LXX was probably accidentally omitted in the Hebrew tradition when a scribe’s eye jumped from the first occurrence of the phrase “man of God” (which appears right before the extra material) and the second occurrence of the phrase (which appears at the end of the extra material).