2 Kings 5:7

5:7 When the king of Israel read the letter, he tore his clothes and said, “Am I God? Can I kill or restore life? Why does he ask me to cure a man of his skin disease? ¹  Certainly you must see that he is looking for an excuse to fight me!” ² 

2 Kings 8:12

8:12 Hazael asked, “Why are you crying, my master?” He replied, “Because I know the trouble you will cause the Israelites. You will set fire to their fortresses, kill their young men with the sword, smash their children to bits, and rip open their pregnant women.”

2 Kings 10:30

10:30 The Lord said to Jehu, “You have done well. You have accomplished my will and carried out my wishes with regard to Ahab’s dynasty. Therefore four generations of your descendants will rule over Israel.” ³ 

2 Kings 14:28

14:28 The rest of the events of Jeroboam’s reign, including all his accomplishments, his military success in restoring Israelite control over Damascus and Hamath, are recorded in the scroll called the Annals of the Kings of Israel. ⁴ 

2 Kings 17:26

17:26 The king of Assyria was told, ⁵  “The nations whom you deported and settled in the cities of Samaria do not know the requirements of the God of the land, so he has sent lions among them. They are killing the people ⁶  because they do not know the requirements of the God of the land.”

2 Kings 23:5

23:5 He eliminated ⁷  the pagan priests whom the kings of Judah had appointed to offer sacrifices ⁸  on the high places in the cities of Judah and in the area right around Jerusalem. (They offered sacrifices ⁹  to Baal, the sun god, the moon god, the constellations, and all the stars in the sky.)

2 Kings 25:25

25:25 But in the seventh month ¹⁰  Ishmael son of Nethaniah, son of Elishama, who was a member of the royal family, ¹¹  came with ten of his men and murdered Gedaliah, ¹²  as well as the Judeans and Babylonians who were with him at Mizpah.

¹ tn Heb “Am I God, killing and restoring life, that this one sends to me to cure a man from his skin disease?” In the Hebrew text this is one lengthy rhetorical question, which has been divided up in the translation for stylistic reasons.

² tn Heb “Indeed, know and see that he is seeking an occasion with respect to me.”

³ tn Heb “Because you have done well by doing what is proper in my eyes – according to all which was in my heart you have done to the house of Ahab – sons of four generations will sit for you on the throne of Israel.” In the Hebrew text the Lord’s statement is one long sentence (with a parenthesis). The translation above divides it into shorter sentences for stylistic reasons.

⁵ tn Heb “As for the rest of the events of Jeroboam, and all which he did and his strength, [and] how he fought and how he restored Damascus and Hamath to Judah in Israel, are they not written on the scroll of the events of the days of the kings of Israel?” The phrase “to Judah” is probably not original; it may be a scribal addition by a Judahite scribe who was trying to link Jeroboam’s conquests with the earlier achievements of David and Solomon, who ruled in Judah. The Syriac Peshitta has simply “to Israel.” M. Cogan and H. Tadmor (II Kings [AB], 162) offer this proposal, but acknowledge that it is “highly speculative.”

⁷ tn Heb “and they said to the king of Assyria, saying.” The plural subject of the verb is indefinite.

⁸ tn Heb “Look they are killing them.”

⁹ tn Perhaps, “destroyed.”

¹⁰ tn Or “burn incense.”

¹¹ tn Or “burned incense.”

¹¹ sn It is not altogether clear whether this is in the same year that Jerusalem fell or not. The wall was breached in the fourth month (= early July; Jer 39:2) and Nebuzaradan came and burned the palace, the temple, and many of the houses and tore down the wall in the fifth month (= early August; Jer 52:12). That would have left time between the fifth month and the seventh month (October) to gather in the harvest of grapes, dates and figs, and olives (Jer 40:12). However, many commentators feel that too much activity takes place in too short a time for this to have been in the same year and posit that it happened the following year or even five years later when a further deportation took place, possibly in retaliation for the murder of Gedaliah and the Babylonian garrison at Mizpah (Jer 52:30). The assassination of Gedaliah had momentous consequences and was commemorated in one of the post exilic fast days lamenting the fall of Jerusalem (Zech 8:19).

¹² tn Heb “[was] from the seed of the kingdom.”

¹³ tn Heb “and they struck down Gedaliah and he died.”