2 Kings 25:3

25:3 By the ninth day of the fourth month ¹  the famine in the city was so severe the residents ²  had no food.

2 Kings 4:41-43

4:41 He said, “Get some flour.” Then he threw it into the pot and said, “Now pour some out for the men so they may eat.” ³  There was no longer anything harmful in the pot.

Elisha Miraculously Feeds a Hundred People

4:42 Now a man from Baal Shalisha brought some food for the prophet ⁴  – twenty loaves of bread made from the firstfruits of the barley harvest, as well as fresh ears of grain. ⁵  Elisha ⁶  said, “Set it before the people so they may eat.” 4:43 But his attendant said, “How can I feed a hundred men with this?” ⁷  He replied, “Set it before the people so they may eat, for this is what the Lord says, ‘They will eat and have some left over.’” ⁸ 

2 Kings 11:17

11:17 Jehoiada then drew up a covenant between the Lord and the king and people, stipulating that they should be loyal to the Lord. ⁹ 

¹ tn The MT has simply “of the month,” but the parallel passage in Jer 52:6 has “fourth month,” and this is followed by almost all English translations. The word “fourth,” however, is not actually present in the MT of 2 Kgs 25:3.

² tn Heb “the people of the land.”

³ tn Or “and let them eat.”

⁵ tn Heb “man of God.”

⁶ tn On the meaning of the word צִקְלוֹן (tsiqlon), “ear of grain,” see HALOT 148 s.v. בָּצֵק and M. Cogan and H. Tadmor, II Kings (AB), 59.

⁷ tn Heb “he”; the referent (Elisha) has been specified in the translation for clarity.

⁷ tn Heb “How can I set this before a hundred men?”

⁸ tn The verb forms are infinitives absolute (Heb “eating and leaving over”) and have to be translated in light of the context.

⁹ tn Heb “and Jehoiada made a covenant between the Lord and [between] the king and [between] the people, to become a people for the Lord, and between the king and [between] the people.” The final words of the verse (“and between the king and [between] the people”) are probably accidentally repeated from earlier in the verse. They do not appear in the parallel account in 2 Chr 23:16. If retained, they probably point to an agreement governing how the king and people should relate to one another.