2 Kings 19:7

19:7 Look, I will take control of his mind; ¹  he will receive ²  a report and return to his own land. I will cut him down ³  with a sword in his own land.”’”

2 Kings 21:6

21:6 He passed his son ⁴  through the fire ⁵  and practiced divination and omen reading. He set up a ritual pit to conjure up underworld spirits, and appointed magicians to supervise it. ⁶  He did a great amount of evil in the sight of the Lord, provoking him to anger. ⁷ 

¹ tn Heb “I will put in him a spirit.” The precise sense of רוּחַ (ruakh), “spirit,” is uncertain in this context. It may refer to a spiritual being who will take control of his mind (see 1 Kgs 22:19), or it could refer to a disposition of concern and fear. In either case the Lord’s sovereignty over the king is apparent.

² tn Heb “hear.”

³ tn Heb “cause him to fall,” that is, “kill him.”

⁴ tc The LXX has the plural “his sons” here.

⁵ sn See the note at 2 Kgs 16:3.

⁶ tn Heb “and he set up a ritual pit, along with conjurers.” The Hebrew אוֹב (’ov), “ritual pit,” refers to a pit used by a magician to conjure up underworld spirits. In 1 Sam 28:7 the witch of Endor is called a בַעֲלַת אוֹב (ba’alat ’ov), “owner of a ritual pit.” See H. Hoffner, “Second millennium Antecedents to the Hebrew ’OñBù,” JBL 86 (1967), 385-401.

⁷ tc Heb “and he multiplied doing what is evil in the eyes of the Lord, angering.” The third masculine singular pronominal suffix (“him”) has been accidentally omitted in the MT by haplography (note the vav that immediately follows).