2:11 As they were walking along and talking, suddenly a fiery chariot 1 pulled by fiery horses appeared. 2 They went between Elijah and Elisha, 3 and Elijah went up to heaven in a windstorm.
1 tn Though the noun is singular here, it may be collective, in which case it could be translated “chariots.”
2 tn Heb “look, a chariot of fire and horses of fire.”
3 tn Heb “and they made a division between the two of them.”
4 tn Heb “answered and said to the officer of fifty.”
5 tn Wordplay contributes to the irony here. The king tells Elijah to “come down” (Hebrew יָרַד, yarad), but Elijah calls fire down (יָרַד) on the arrogant king’s officer.
7 tc Two medieval Hebrew
8 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 Heb “look.”
11 tn Heb “their fifty.”
13 tn Heb “and he saw, and look.”