2 Kings 4:27

4:27 But when she reached the prophet on the mountain, she grabbed hold of his feet. Gehazi came near to push her away, but the prophet said, “Leave her alone, for she is very upset. ¹  The Lord has kept the matter hidden from me; he didn’t tell me about it.”

2 Kings 5:13

5:13 His servants approached and said to him, “O master, ²  if the prophet had told you to do some difficult task, ³  you would have been willing to do it. ⁴  It seems you should be happy that he simply said, “Wash and you will be healed.” ⁵ 

2 Kings 8:1

Elisha Again Helps the Shunammite Woman

8:1 Now Elisha advised the woman whose son he had brought back to life, “You and your family should go and live somewhere else for a while, ⁶  for the Lord has decreed that a famine will overtake the land for seven years.”

2 Kings 8:5

8:5 While Gehazi ⁷  was telling the king how Elisha ⁸  had brought the dead back to life, the woman whose son he had brought back to life came to ask the king for her house and field. ⁹  Gehazi said, “My master, O king, this is the very woman and this is her son whom Elisha brought back to life!”

2 Kings 12:4

12:4 Jehoash said to the priests, “I place at your disposal ¹⁰  all the consecrated silver that has been brought to the Lord’s temple, including the silver collected from the census tax, ¹¹  the silver received from those who have made vows, ¹²  and all the silver that people have voluntarily contributed to the Lord’s temple. ¹³ 

2 Kings 17:15

17:15 They rejected his rules, the covenant he had made with their ancestors, and the laws he had commanded them to obey. ¹⁴  They paid allegiance to ¹⁵  worthless idols, and so became worthless to the Lord. ¹⁶  They copied the practices of the surrounding nations in blatant disregard of the Lord’s command. ¹⁷ 

2 Kings 18:22

18:22 Perhaps you will tell me, ‘We are trusting in the Lord our God.’ But Hezekiah is the one who eliminated his high places and altars and then told the people of Judah and Jerusalem, ‘You must worship at this altar in Jerusalem.’

2 Kings 21:8

21:8 I will not make Israel again leave the land I gave to their ancestors, ¹⁸  provided that they carefully obey all I commanded them, the whole law my servant Moses ordered them to obey.”

2 Kings 22:13

22:13 “Go, seek an oracle from ¹⁹  the Lord for me and the people – for all Judah. Find out about ²⁰  the words of this scroll that has been discovered. For the Lord’s fury has been ignited against us, ²¹  because our ancestors have not obeyed the words of this scroll by doing all that it instructs us to do.” ²² 

2 Kings 22:19

22:19 ‘You displayed a sensitive spirit ²³  and humbled yourself before the Lord when you heard how I intended to make this place and its residents into an appalling example of an accursed people. ²⁴  You tore your clothes and wept before me, and I have heard you,’ says the Lord.

2 Kings 23:16

23:16 When Josiah turned around, he saw the tombs there on the hill. So he ordered the bones from the tombs to be brought; ²⁵  he burned them on the altar and defiled it. This fulfilled the Lord’s announcement made by the prophet while Jeroboam stood by the altar during a festival. King Josiah ²⁶  turned and saw the grave of the prophet who had foretold this. ²⁷ 

¹ tn Heb “her soul [i.e., ‘disposition’] is bitter.”

² tn Heb “my father,” reflecting the perspective of each individual servant. To address their master as “father” would emphasize his authority and express their respect. See BDB 3 s.v. אָב and the similar idiomatic use of “father” in 2 Kgs 2:12.

³ tn Heb “a great thing.”

⁴ tn Heb “would you not do [it]?” The rhetorical question expects the answer, “Of course you would.”

⁵ tn Heb “How much more [when] he said, “Wash and be healed.” The second imperative (“be healed”) states the expected result of obeying the first (‘wash”).

³ tn Heb “Get up and go, you and your house, and live temporarily where you can live temporarily.”

⁴ tn Heb “he”; the referent (Gehazi) has been specified in the translation for clarity.

⁵ tn Heb “he”; the referent (Elisha) has been specified in the translation for clarity.

⁶ tn Heb “and look, the woman whose son he had brought back to life was crying out to the king for her house and her field.”

⁵ tn The words “I place at your disposal” are added in the translation for clarification.

⁶ tn Heb “the silver of passing over a man.” The precise meaning of the phrase is debated, but עָבַר (’avar), “pass over,” probably refers here to counting, suggesting the reference is to a census conducted for taxation purposes. See M. Cogan and H. Tadmor, II Kings (AB), 137.

⁷ tn Heb “the silver of persons, his valuation.” The precise meaning of the phrase is uncertain, but parallels in Lev 27 suggest that personal vows are referred to here. See M. Cogan and H. Tadmor, II Kings (AB), 137.

⁸ tn Heb “all the silver which goes up on the heart of a man to bring to the house of the Lord.”

⁶ tn Or “and his warnings he had given them.”

⁷ tn Heb “They went [or, ‘followed’] after.” This idiom probably does not mean much if translated literally. It is found most often in Deuteronomy or in literature related to the covenant. It refers in the first instance to loyalty to God and to His covenant or His commandments (1 Kgs 14:8; 2 Chr 34:31) with the metaphor of a path or way underlying it (Deut 11:28; 28:14). To “follow other gods” was to abandon this way and this loyalty (to “abandon” or “forget” God, Judg 2:12; Hos 2:13) and to follow the customs or religious traditions of the pagan nations (2 Kgs 17:15). The classic text on “following” God or another god is 1 Kgs 18:18, 21 where Elijah taunts the people with “halting between two opinions” whether the Lord was the true God or Baal was. The idiom is often found followed by “to serve and to worship” or “they served and worshiped” such and such a god or entity (Jer 8:2; 11:10; 13:10; 16:11; 25:6; 35:15).

⁸ tn Heb “they followed after the worthless thing/things and became worthless.” The words “to the Lord” are not in the Hebrew text but are implicit from the context. There is an obvious wordplay on the verb “became worthless” and the noun “worthless thing”, which is probably to be understood collectively and to refer to idols as it does in Jer 8:19; 10:8; 14:22; Jonah 2:8.

⁹ tn Heb “and [they walked] after the nations which were around them, concerning which the Lord commanded them not to do like them.”

⁷ tn Heb “I will not again make the feet of Israel wander from the land which I gave to their fathers.”

⁸ tn Or “inquire of.”

⁹ tn Heb “concerning.”

¹⁰ tn Heb “for great is the anger of the Lord which has been ignited against us.”

¹¹ tn Heb “by doing all that is written concerning us.” Perhaps עָלֵינוּ (’alenu), “concerning us,” should be altered to עָלָיו (’alav), “upon it,” in which case one could translate, “by doing all that is written in it.”

⁹ tn Heb “Because your heart was tender.”

¹⁰ tn Heb “how I said concerning this place and its residents to become [an object of] horror and [an example of] a curse.” The final phrase (“horror and a curse”) refers to Judah becoming a prime example of an accursed people. In curse formulations they would be held up as a prime example of divine judgment. For an example of such a curse, see Jer 29:22.

¹⁰ tn Heb “and he sent and took the bones from the tombs.”

¹¹ tn Heb “the king”; this has been specified as “King Josiah” in the translation for clarity (cf. TEV, CEV, NLT).

¹² tc The MT is much shorter than this. It reads, “according to the word of the Lord which the man of God proclaimed, who proclaimed these words.” The LXX has a much longer text at this point. It reads: “[which was proclaimed by the man of God] while Jeroboam stood by the altar at a celebration. Then he turned and saw the grave of the man of God [who proclaimed these words].” The extra material attested in the LXX was probably accidentally omitted in the Hebrew tradition when a scribe’s eye jumped from the first occurrence of the phrase “man of God” (which appears right before the extra material) and the second occurrence of the phrase (which appears at the end of the extra material).