2 Kings 5:13

5:13 His servants approached and said to him, “O master, ¹  if the prophet had told you to do some difficult task, ²  you would have been willing to do it. ³  It seems you should be happy that he simply said, “Wash and you will be healed.” ⁴ 

2 Kings 17:13

17:13 The Lord solemnly warned Israel and Judah through all his prophets and all the seers, “Turn back from your evil ways; obey my commandments and rules that are recorded in the law. I ordered your ancestors to keep this law and sent my servants the prophets to remind you of its demands.” ⁵ 

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. ⁶  They paid allegiance to ⁷  worthless idols, and so became worthless to the Lord. ⁸  They copied the practices of the surrounding nations in blatant disregard of the Lord’s command. ⁹ 

2 Kings 22:13

22:13 “Go, seek an oracle from ¹⁰  the Lord for me and the people – for all Judah. Find out about ¹¹  the words of this scroll that has been discovered. For the Lord’s fury has been ignited against us, ¹²  because our ancestors have not obeyed the words of this scroll by doing all that it instructs us to do.” ¹³ 

¹ 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.

² tn Heb “a great thing.”

³ tn Heb “would you not do [it]?” The rhetorical question expects the answer, “Of course you would.”

⁴ 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”).

⁵ tn Heb “obey my commandments and rules according to all the law which I commanded your fathers and which I sent to you by the hand of my servants the prophets.”

⁹ tn Or “and his warnings he had given them.”

¹⁰ 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).

¹¹ 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.

¹² tn Heb “and [they walked] after the nations which were around them, concerning which the Lord commanded them not to do like them.”

¹³ tn Or “inquire of.”

¹⁴ tn Heb “concerning.”

¹⁵ tn Heb “for great is the anger of the Lord which has been ignited against us.”

¹⁶ 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.”