2 Kings 18:26

18:26 Eliakim son of Hilkiah, Shebna, and Joah said to the chief adviser, “Speak to your servants in Aramaic, ¹  for we understand it. Don’t speak with us in the Judahite dialect ²  in the hearing of the people who are on the wall.”

2 Kings 19:4

19:4 Perhaps the Lord your God will hear all these things the chief adviser has spoken on behalf of his master, the king of Assyria, who sent him to taunt the living God. ³  When the Lord your God hears, perhaps he will punish him for the things he has said. ⁴  So pray for this remnant that remains.’” ⁵ 

2 Kings 19:23

19:23 Through your messengers you taunted the sovereign master, ⁶ 

‘With my many chariots ⁷ 

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, ⁸ 

its thickest woods.

2 Kings 25:4

25:4 The enemy broke through the city walls, ⁹  and all the soldiers tried to escape. They left the city during the night. ¹⁰  They went through the gate between the two walls that is near the king’s garden. ¹¹  (The Babylonians were all around the city.) Then they headed for the Jordan Valley. ¹² 

¹ sn Aramaic was the diplomatic language of the empire.

² tn Or “Hebrew.”

³ tn Heb “all the words of the chief adviser whom his master, the king of Assyria, sent to taunt the living God.”

⁴ tn Heb “and rebuke the words which the Lord your God hears.”

⁵ tn Heb “and lift up a prayer on behalf of the remnant that is found.”

⁵ tn The word is אֲדֹנָי (’adonai), “lord,” but some Hebrew mss have יְהוָה (yehvah), “Lord.”

⁶ 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.

⁷ tn Heb “the lodging place of its extremity.”

⁷ tn Heb “the city was breached.”

⁸ tn The Hebrew text is abrupt here: “And all the men of war by the night.” The translation attempts to capture the sense.

⁹ sn The king’s garden is mentioned again in Neh 3:15 in conjunction with the pool of Siloam and the stairs that go down from the city of David. This would have been in the southern part of the city near the Tyropean Valley which agrees with the reference to the “two walls” which were probably the walls on the eastern and western hills.

¹⁰ sn Heb “toward the Arabah.” The Arabah was the rift valley north and south of the Dead Sea. Here the intention was undoubtedly to escape across the Jordan to Moab or Ammon. It appears from Jer 40:14; 41:15 that the Ammonites were known to harbor fugitives from the Babylonians.