25:27 In the thirty-seventh year of the exile of King Jehoiachin of Judah, on the twenty-seventh 12 day of the twelfth month, 13 King Evil-Merodach of Babylon, in the first year of his reign, pardoned 14 King Jehoiachin of Judah and released him 15 from prison. 25:28 He spoke kindly to him and gave him a more prestigious position than 16 the other kings who were with him in Babylon.
1 tn Heb “rose up and conspired [with] a conspiracy.”
2 tn Heb “Beth Millo which goes down [toward] Silla.”
3 tn Heb “struck him down and he died.”
4 tn Heb “they buried him.”
5 tc The MT reads, “and he struck him down before the people and killed him” (cf. KJV, ASV, NASB, NIV, NRSV, NLT). However, the reading קָבָל עָם (qaval ’am), “before the people,” is problematic to some because קָבָל is a relatively late Aramaic term. Nevertheless, the Aramaic term qobel certainly antedates the writing of Kings. The bigger problem seems to be the unnecessary intrusion of an Aramaic word at all here. Most interpreters prefer to follow Lucian’s Greek version and read “in Ibleam” (בְיִבְלְעָם, bÿivle’am). Cf. NAB, TEV.
6 tn Heb “and came to.”
7 tn Heb “went up from Tirzah and arrived in Samaria and attacked Shallum son of Jabesh in Samaria.”
8 tn Heb “and he struck him down in Samaria in the fortress of the house of the king, Argob and Arieh, and with him fifty men from the sons of the Gileadites, and they killed him.”
9 tn Heb “and struck him down and killed him.”
10 tn Heb “in the eyes of.”
11 tn Heb “like the abominable practices of the nations.”
12 sn The parallel account in Jer 52:31 has “twenty-fifth.”
13 sn The twenty-seventh day would be March 22, 561
14 tn Heb “lifted up the head of.”
15 tn The words “released him” are supplied in the translation on the basis of Jer 52:31.
16 tn Heb “made his throne above the throne of.”