2 Kings 11:11

11:11 The royal bodyguard ¹  took their stations, each holding his weapon in his hand. They lined up from the south side of the temple to the north side and stood near the altar and the temple, surrounding the king. ² 

2 Kings 9:32

9:32 He looked up at the window and said, “Who is on my side? Who?” Two or three ³  eunuchs looked down at him.

2 Kings 16:14

16:14 He moved the bronze altar that stood in the Lord’s presence from the front of the temple (between the altar and the Lord’s temple) and put it on the north side of the new ⁴  altar.

2 Kings 12:9

12:9 Jehoiada the priest took a chest and drilled a hole in its lid. He placed it on the right side of the altar near the entrance of ⁵  the Lord’s temple. The priests who guarded the entrance would put into it all the silver brought to the Lord’s temple.

2 Kings 10:6

10:6 He wrote them a second letter, saying, “If you are really on my side and are willing to obey me, ⁶  then take the heads of your master’s sons and come to me in Jezreel at this time tomorrow.” ⁷  Now the king had seventy sons, and the prominent ⁸  men of the city were raising them.

2 Kings 6:16

6:16 He replied, “Don’t be afraid, for our side outnumbers them.” ⁹ 

2 Kings 9:25

9:25 Jehu ordered ¹⁰  his officer Bidkar, “Pick him up and throw him into the part of the field that once belonged to Naboth of Jezreel. Remember, you and I were riding together behind his father Ahab, when the Lord pronounced this judgment on him,

2 Kings 2:8

2:8 Elijah took his cloak, folded it up, and hit the water with it. The water divided, and the two of them crossed over on dry ground.

2 Kings 3:22

3:22 When they got up early the next morning, the sun was shining on the water. To the Moabites, who were some distance away, the water looked red like blood.

2 Kings 4:4

4:4 Go and close the door behind you and your sons. Pour the olive oil into all the containers; ¹¹  set aside each one when you have filled it.”

2 Kings 2:9

2:9 When they had crossed over, Elijah said to Elisha, “What can I do for you, ¹²  before I am taken away from you?” Elisha answered, “May I receive a double portion of the prophetic spirit that energizes you.” ¹³ 

2 Kings 2:14

2:14 He took the cloak that had fallen off Elijah, ¹⁴  hit the water with it, and said, “Where is the Lord, the God of Elijah?” When he hit the water, it divided and Elisha crossed over.

2 Kings 16:17

16:17 King Ahaz took off the frames of the movable stands, and removed the basins from them. He took “The Sea” ¹⁵  down from the bronze bulls that supported it ¹⁶  and put it on the pavement.

2 Kings 24:10

24:10 At that time the generals ¹⁷  of King Nebuchadnezzar of Babylon marched to Jerusalem and besieged the city. ¹⁸ 

2 Kings 6:11

6:11 This made the king of Syria upset. ¹⁹  So he summoned his advisers ²⁰  and said to them, “One of us must be helping the king of Israel.” ²¹ 

2 Kings 23:8

23:8 He brought all the priests from the cities of Judah and ruined ²²  the high places where the priests had offered sacrifices, from Geba to Beer Sheba. ²³  He tore down the high place of the goat idols ²⁴  situated at the entrance of the gate of Joshua, the city official, on the left side of the city gate.

2 Kings 23:13

23:13 The king ruined the high places east of Jerusalem, south of the Mount of Destruction, ²⁵  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; ²⁶  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 ²⁷  turned and saw the grave of the prophet who had foretold this. ²⁸ 

¹ tn Heb “the runners” (also in v. 19).

² tn Heb “and the runners stood, each with his weapons in his hand, from the south shoulder of the house to the north shoulder of the house, at the altar and at the house, near the king all around.”

³ tn Heb “two, three.” The narrator may be intentionally vague or uncertain here, or the two numbers may represent alternate traditions.

⁵ tn The word “new” is added in the translation for clarification.

⁷ tn Heb “on the right side of the altar as a man enters.”

⁹ tn Heb “If you are mine and you are listening to my voice.”

¹⁰ sn Jehu’s command is intentionally vague. Does he mean that they should bring the guardians (those who are “heads” over Ahab’s sons) for a meeting, or does he mean that they should bring the literal heads of Ahab’s sons with them? (So LXX, Syriac Peshitta, and some mss of the Targum) The city leaders interpret his words in the literal sense, but Jehu’s command is so ambiguous he is able to deny complicity in the executions (see v. 9).

¹¹ tn Heb “great,” probably in wealth, position, and prestige.

¹¹ tn Heb “for those who are with us are more than those who are with them.”

¹³ tn Heb “said to.”

¹⁵ tn Heb “all these vessels.”

¹⁷ tn Heb “Ask! What can I do for you….?”

¹⁸ tn Heb “May a double portion of your spirit come to me.”

¹⁹ tn Heb “Elijah’s cloak, which had fallen off him.” The wording is changed slightly in the translation for the sake of variety of expression (see v. 13).

²¹ sn See the note at 1 Kgs 7:23.

²² tn Heb “that [were] under it.”

²³ tn Heb “servants.”

²⁴ tn Heb “went up [to] Jerusalem and the city entered into siege.”

²⁵ tn Heb “and the heart of the king of Syria was stirred up over this thing.”

²⁶ tn Heb “servants.”

²⁷ tn Heb “Will you not tell me who among us [is] for the king of Israel?” The sarcastic rhetorical question expresses the king’s suspicion.

²⁷ tn Heb “defiled; desecrated,” that is, “made ritually unclean and unusable.”

²⁸ sn These towns marked Judah’s northern and southern borders, respectively, at the time of Josiah.

²⁹ tc The Hebrew text reads “the high places of the gates,” which is problematic in that the rest of the verse speaks of a specific gate. The translation assumes an emendation to בָּמוֹת הַשְּׁעָרִים (bamot hashÿ’arim), “the high place of the goats” (that is, goat idols). Worship of such images is referred to in Lev 17:7 and 2 Chr 11:15. For a discussion of the textual issue, see M. Cogan and H. Tadmor, II Kings (AB), 286-87.

²⁹ 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.

³¹ tn Heb “and he sent and took the bones from the tombs.”

³² tn Heb “the king”; this has been specified as “King Josiah” in the translation for clarity (cf. TEV, CEV, NLT).

³³ 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).