2 Kings 18:4

18:4 He eliminated the high places, smashed the sacred pillars to bits, and cut down the Asherah pole. ¹  He also demolished the bronze serpent that Moses had made, for up to that time ²  the Israelites had been offering incense to it; it was called Nehushtan. ³ 

2 Kings 18:2

18:2 He was twenty-five years old when he began to reign, and he reigned twenty-nine years in Jerusalem. ⁴  His mother ⁵  was Abi, ⁶  the daughter of Zechariah.

2 Kings 1:1

Elijah Confronts the King and His Commanders

1:1 After Ahab died, Moab rebelled against Israel. ⁷ 

2 Kings 1:12

1:12 Elijah replied to them, ⁸  “If I am indeed a prophet, may fire come down from the sky and consume you and your fifty soldiers!” Fire from God ⁹  came down from the sky and consumed him and his fifty soldiers.

Isaiah 36:7

36:7 Perhaps you will tell me, ‘We are trusting in the Lord our God.’ But Hezekiah is the one who eliminated his high places and altars and then told the people of Judah and Jerusalem, ‘You must worship at this altar.’

Isaiah 36:1

Sennacherib Invades Judah

36:1 In the fourteenth year of King Hezekiah’s reign, ¹⁰  King Sennacherib of Assyria marched up against all the fortified cities of Judah and captured them.

Colossians 2:15

2:15 Disarming ¹¹  the rulers and authorities, he has made a public disgrace of them, triumphing over them by the cross. ¹² 

¹ tn The term is singular in the MT but plural in the LXX and other ancient versions. It is also possible to regard the singular as a collective singular, especially in the context of other plural items.

² tn Heb “until those days.”

³ tn In Hebrew the name sounds like the phrase נְחַשׁ הַנְּחֹשֶׁת (nÿkhash hannÿkhoshet), “bronze serpent.”

⁴ map For location see Map5-B1; Map6-F3; Map7-E2; Map8-F2; Map10-B3; JP1-F4; JP2-F4; JP3-F4; JP4-F4.

⁵ tn Heb “the name of his mother.”

⁶ tn The parallel passage in 2 Chr 29:1 has “Abijah.”

⁷ sn This statement may fit better with the final paragraph of 1 Kgs 22.

⁸ tc Two medieval Hebrew mss, the LXX, and the Syriac Peshitta have the singular “to him.”

⁹ tn Or “intense fire.” The divine name may be used idiomatically to emphasize the intensity of the fire. Whether one translates אֱלֹהִים (’elohim) here as a proper name or idiomatically, this addition to the narrative (the name is omitted in the first panel, v. 10b) emphasizes the severity of the judgment and is appropriate given the more intense command delivered by the king to the prophet in this panel.

¹⁰ tn The verb that introduces this verse serves as a discourse particle and is untranslated; see note on “in the future” in 2:2.

¹¹ tn See BDAG 100 s.v. ἀπεκδύομαι 2.

¹² tn The antecedent of the Greek pronoun αὐτῷ (autw) could either be “Christ” or the “cross.” There are several reasons for choosing “the cross” as the antecedent for αὐτῷ in verse 15: (1) The nearest antecedent is τῷ σταυρῷ (tw staurw) in v. 14; (2) the idea of ἐδειγμάτισεν ἐν παρρησία (edeigmatisen en parrhsia, “made a public disgrace”) seems to be more in keeping with the idea of the cross; (3) a reference to Christ seems to miss the irony involved in the idea of triumph – the whole point is that where one would expect defeat, there came the victory; (4) if Christ is the subject of the participles in v. 15 then almost certainly the cross is the referent for αὐτῷ. Thus the best solution is to see αὐτῷ as a reference to the cross and the preposition ἐν (en) indicating “means” (i.e., by means of the cross) or possibly (though less likely) location (on the cross).