2 Kings 18:9-12

18:9 In the fourth year of King Hezekiah’s reign (it was the seventh year of the reign of Israel’s King Hoshea, son of Elah), King Shalmaneser of Assyria marched ¹  up against Samaria ²  and besieged it. 18:10 After three years he captured it (in the sixth year of Hezekiah’s reign); in the ninth year of King Hoshea’s reign over Israel Samaria was captured. 18:11 The king of Assyria deported the people of Israel ³  to Assyria. He settled them in Halah, along the Habor (the river of Gozan), and in the cities of the Medes. 18:12 This happened because they did not obey ⁴  the Lord their God and broke his agreement with them. ⁵  They did not pay attention to and obey all that Moses, the Lord’s servant, had commanded. ⁶ 

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. ⁷  His mother ⁸  was Abi, ⁹  the daughter of Zechariah.

2 Kings 1:14-17

1:14 Indeed, ¹⁰  fire came down from the sky and consumed the two captains who came before me, along with their men. ¹¹  So now, please have respect for my life.” 1:15 The Lord’s angelic messenger said to Elijah, “Go down with him. Don’t be afraid of him.” So he got up and went down ¹²  with him to the king.

1:16 Elijah ¹³  said to the king, ¹⁴  “This is what the Lord says, ‘You sent messengers to seek an oracle from Baal Zebub, the god of Ekron. You must think there is no God in Israel from whom you can seek an oracle! ¹⁵  Therefore you will not leave the bed you lie on, for you will certainly die.’” ¹⁶ 

1:17 He died just as the Lord had prophesied through Elijah. ¹⁷  In the second year of the reign of King Jehoram son of Jehoshaphat over Judah, Ahaziah’s brother Jehoram replaced him as king of Israel, because he had no son. ¹⁸ 

Jeremiah 27:8

27:8 But suppose a nation or a kingdom will not be subject to King Nebuchadnezzar of Babylon. Suppose it will not submit to the yoke of servitude to ¹⁹  him. I, the Lord, affirm that ²⁰  I will punish that nation. I will use the king of Babylon to punish it ²¹  with war, ²²  starvation, and disease until I have destroyed it. ²³ 

¹ tn Heb “went” (also in v. 13).

² map For location see Map2-B1; Map4-D3; Map5-E2; Map6-A4; Map7-C1.

³ tn The Hebrew text has simply “Israel” as the object of the verb.

⁴ tn Heb “listen to the voice of.”

⁵ tn Heb “his covenant.”

⁶ tn Heb “all that Moses, the Lord’s servant, had commanded, and they did not listen and they did not act.”

⁷ map For location see Map5-B1; Map6-F3; Map7-E2; Map8-F2; Map10-B3; JP1-F4; JP2-F4; JP3-F4; JP4-F4.

⁸ tn Heb “the name of his mother.”

⁹ tn The parallel passage in 2 Chr 29:1 has “Abijah.”

¹⁰ tn Heb “look.”

¹¹ tn Heb “their fifty.”

¹² sn In this third panel the verb “come down” (יָרַד, yarad) occurs again, this time describing Elijah’s descent from the hill at the Lord’s command. The moral of the story seems clear: Those who act as if they have authority over God and his servants just may pay for their arrogance with their lives; those who, like the third commander, humble themselves and show the proper respect for God’s authority and for his servants will be spared and find God quite cooperative.

¹³ tn Heb “he”; the referent (Elijah) has been specified in the translation for clarity.

¹⁴ tn Heb “him”; the referent (the king) has been specified in the translation for clarity.

¹⁵ tn Heb “Because you sent messengers to inquire of Baal Zebub, the god of Ekron, is there no God in Israel to inquire of his word?”

¹⁶ sn For the third time in this chapter we read the Lord’s sarcastic question to king and the accompanying announcement of judgment. The repetition emphasizes one of the chapter’s main themes. Israel’s leaders should seek guidance from their own God, not a pagan deity, for Israel’s sovereign God is the one who controls life and death.

¹⁷ tn Heb “according to the word of the Lord which he spoke through Elijah.”

¹⁸ tn Heb “Jehoram replaced him as king…because he had no son.” Some ancient textual witnesses add “his brother,” which was likely added on the basis of the statement later in the verse that Ahaziah had no son.

¹⁹ tn Heb “put their necks in the yoke of.” See the study note on v. 2 for the figure.

²⁰ tn Heb “oracle of the Lord.”

²¹ tn Heb “The nation and/or the kingdom which will not serve him, Nebuchadnezzar the king of Babylon, and which will not put its neck in the yoke of the king of Babylon, by sword, starvation, and disease I will punish [or more literally, “visit upon”] that nation, oracle of the Lord.” The long complex Hebrew sentence has been broken up in conformity with contemporary English style and the figures interpreted for the sake of clarity. The particle אֵת, the sign of the accusative, before “which will not put…” is a little unusual here. For its use to introduce a new topic (here a second relative clause) see BDB 85 s.v. אֵת 3.α.

²² tn Heb “with/by the sword.”

²³ tc The verb translated “destroy” (תָּמַם, tamam) is usually intransitive in the stem of the verb used here. It is found in a transitive sense elsewhere only in Ps 64:7. BDB 1070 s.v. תָּמַם 7 emends both texts. In this case they recommend תִּתִּי (titi): “until I give them into his hand.” That reading is suggested by the texts of the Syriac and Targumic translations (see BHS fn c). The Greek translation supports reading the verb “destroy” but treats it as though it were intransitive “until they are destroyed by his hand” (reading תֻּמָּם [tummam]). The MT here is accepted as the more difficult reading and support is seen in the transitive use of the verb in Ps 64:7.