2 Kings 14:26

14:26 The Lord saw Israel’s intense suffering; ¹  everyone was weak and incapacitated and Israel had no deliverer. ² 

2 Kings 15:19-20

15:19 Pul ³  king of Assyria invaded the land, and Menahem paid ⁴  him ⁵  a thousand talents ⁶  of silver to gain his support ⁷  and to solidify his control of the kingdom. ⁸  15:20 Menahem got this silver by taxing all the wealthy men in Israel; he took fifty shekels of silver from each one of them and paid it to the king of Assyria. ⁹  Then the king of Assyria left; he did not stay there in the land.

2 Kings 17:3

17:3 King Shalmaneser of Assyria threatened ¹⁰  him; Hoshea became his subject and paid him tribute.

2 Kings 17:1

Hoshea’s Reign over Israel

17:1 In the twelfth year of King Ahaz’s reign over Judah, Hoshea son of Elah became king over Israel. He reigned in Samaria ¹¹  for nine years.

2 Kings 5:26

5:26 Elisha ¹²  replied, “I was there in spirit when a man turned and got down from his chariot to meet you. ¹³  This is not the proper time to accept silver or to accept clothes, olive groves, vineyards, sheep, cattle, and male and female servants. ¹⁴ 

¹ tc Heb “for the Lord saw the very bitter affliction of Israel.” This translation assumes an emendation of מֹרֶה (moreh), which is meaningless here, to ַהמַּר (hammar), the adjective “bitter” functioning attributively with the article prefixed. This emendation is supported by the LXX, Syriac Peshitta, and Vulgate. Another option would be מַר הוּא (mar hu’), “it was bitter.”

² tn Heb “[there was] none but the restrained, and [there was] none but the abandoned, and there was no deliverer for Israel.” On the meaning of the terms עָצוּר (’atsur) and עָזוּב (’azur), see the note at 1 Kgs 14:10.

³ sn Pul was a nickname of Tiglath-pileser III (cf. 15:29). See M. Cogan and H. Tadmor, II Kings (AB), 171-72.

⁴ tn Heb “gave.”

⁵ tn Heb “Pul.” The proper name has been replaced by the pronoun (“him”) in the translation for stylistic reasons.

⁶ 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 75,000 pounds of silver (cf. NCV “about seventy-four thousand pounds”); NLT “thirty-seven tons”; CEV “over thirty tons”; TEV “34,000 kilogrammes.”

⁷ tn Heb “so his hands would be with him.”

⁸ tn Heb “to keep hold of the kingdom in his hand.”

⁹ tn Heb “and Menahem brought out the silver over Israel, over the prominent men of means, to give to the king of Assyria, fifty shekels of silver for each man.”

¹⁰ tn Heb “went up against.”

¹¹ map For location see Map2-B1; Map4-D3; Map5-E2; Map6-A4; Map7-C1.

¹² tn Heb “he”; the referent (Elisha) has been specified in the translation for clarity.

¹³ tn Heb “Did not my heart go as a man turned from his chariot to meet you?” The rhetorical question emphasizes that he was indeed present in “heart” (or “spirit”) and was very much aware of what Gehazi had done. In the MT the interrogative particle has been accidentally omitted before the negative particle.

¹⁴ tn In the MT the statement is phrased as a rhetorical question, “Is this the time…?” It expects an emphatic negative response.