2 Kings 3:19

3:19 You will defeat every fortified city and every important ¹  city. You must chop down ²  every productive ³  tree, stop up all the springs, and cover all the cultivated land with stones.” ⁴ 

2 Kings 7:4

7:4 If we go into the city, we’ll die of starvation, ⁵  and if we stay here we’ll die! So come on, let’s defect ⁶  to the Syrian camp! If they spare us, ⁷  we’ll live; if they kill us – well, we were going to die anyway.” ⁸ 

2 Kings 13:25

13:25 Jehoahaz’s son Jehoash took back from ⁹  Ben Hadad son of Hazael the cities that he had taken from his father Jehoahaz in war. Joash defeated him three times and recovered the Israelite cities.

2 Kings 17:9

17:9 The Israelites said things about the Lord their God that were not right. ¹⁰  They built high places in all their cities, from the watchtower to the fortress. ¹¹ 

2 Kings 17:24

The King of Assyria Populates Israel with Foreigners

17:24 The king of Assyria brought foreigners ¹²  from Babylon, Cuthah, Avva, Hamath, and Sepharvaim and settled them in the cities of Samaria ¹³  in place of the Israelites. They took possession of Samaria and lived in its cities.

2 Kings 20:6

20:6 I will add fifteen years to your life and rescue you and this city from the king of Assyria. I will shield this city for the sake of my reputation and because of my promise to David my servant.”’” ¹⁴ 

2 Kings 25:4

25:4 The enemy broke through the city walls, ¹⁵  and all the soldiers tried to escape. They left the city during the night. ¹⁶  They went through the gate between the two walls that is near the king’s garden. ¹⁷  (The Babylonians were all around the city.) Then they headed for the Jordan Valley. ¹⁸ 

¹ tn Heb “choice” or “select.”

² tn Elisha places the object first and uses an imperfect verb form. The stylistic shift may signal that he is now instructing them what to do, rather than merely predicting what would happen.

³ tn Heb “good.”

⁴ tn Heb “and ruin every good portion with stones.”

⁵ tn Heb “If we say, ‘We will enter the city,’ the famine is in the city and we will die there.”

⁶ tn Heb “fall.”

⁷ tn Heb “keep us alive.”

⁸ tn Heb “we will die.” The paraphrastic translation attempts to bring out the logical force of their reasoning.

⁹ tn Heb “from the hand of.”

¹³ tn The meaning of the verb וַיְחַפְּאוּ (vayÿkhappÿ’u), translated here “said,” is uncertain. Some relate it to the verbal root חָפַה (khafah), “to cover,” and translate “they did it in secret” (see BDB 341 s.v. חָפָא). However, the pagan practices specified in the following sentences were hardly done in secret. Others propose a meaning “ascribe, impute,” which makes good contextual sense but has little etymological support (see HALOT 339 s.v. חפא). In this case Israel claimed that the Lord authorized their pagan practices.

¹⁴ sn That is, from the city’s perimeter to the central citadel.

¹⁷ tn The object is supplied in the translation.

¹⁸ sn In vv. 24-29 Samaria stands for the entire northern kingdom of Israel.

²¹ tn Heb “for my sake and for the sake of David my servant.”

²⁵ tn Heb “the city was breached.”

²⁶ tn The Hebrew text is abrupt here: “And all the men of war by the night.” The translation attempts to capture the sense.

²⁷ sn The king’s garden is mentioned again in Neh 3:15 in conjunction with the pool of Siloam and the stairs that go down from the city of David. This would have been in the southern part of the city near the Tyropean Valley which agrees with the reference to the “two walls” which were probably the walls on the eastern and western hills.

²⁸ sn Heb “toward the Arabah.” The Arabah was the rift valley north and south of the Dead Sea. Here the intention was undoubtedly to escape across the Jordan to Moab or Ammon. It appears from Jer 40:14; 41:15 that the Ammonites were known to harbor fugitives from the Babylonians.