2 Kings 6:30

6:30 When the king heard what the woman said, he tore his clothes. As he was passing by on the wall, the people could see he was wearing sackcloth under his clothes. ¹ 

2 Kings 7:17

7:17 Now the king had placed the officer who was his right-hand man ²  at the city gate. When the people rushed out, they trampled him to death in the gate. ³  This fulfilled the prophet’s word which he had spoken when the king tried to arrest him. ⁴ 

2 Kings 8:21

8:21 Joram ⁵  crossed over to Zair with all his chariots. The Edomites, who had surrounded him, attacked at night and defeated him and his chariot officers. ⁶  The Israelite army retreated to their homeland. ⁷ 

2 Kings 10:9

10:9 In the morning he went out and stood there. Then he said to all the people, “You are innocent. I conspired against my master and killed him. But who struck down all of these men?

2 Kings 18:26

18:26 Eliakim son of Hilkiah, Shebna, and Joah said to the chief adviser, “Speak to your servants in Aramaic, ⁸  for we understand it. Don’t speak with us in the Judahite dialect ⁹  in the hearing of the people who are on the wall.”

2 Kings 23:2

23:2 The king went up to the Lord’s temple, accompanied by all the people of Judah, all the residents of Jerusalem, the priests, and the prophets. All the people were there, from the youngest to the oldest. He read aloud ¹⁰  all the words of the scroll of the covenant that had been discovered in the Lord’s temple.

2 Kings 23:6

23:6 He removed the Asherah pole from the Lord’s temple and took it outside Jerusalem to the Kidron Valley, where he burned it. ¹¹  He smashed it to dust and then threw the dust in the public graveyard. ¹² 

2 Kings 25:11

25:11 Nebuzaradan, the captain of the royal guard, deported the rest of the people who were left in the city, those who had deserted to the king of Babylon, and the rest of the craftsmen. ¹³ 

¹ tn Heb “the people saw, and look, [there was] sackcloth against his skin underneath.”

² tn Heb “the officer on whose hand he leans.”

³ tn Heb “and the people trampled him in the gate and he died.”

⁴ tn Heb “just as the man of God had spoken, [the word] which he spoke when the king came down to him.”

³ sn Joram is a short form of the name Jehoram.

⁴ tn Heb “and he arose at night and defeated Edom, who had surrounded him, and the chariot officers.” The Hebrew text as it stands gives the impression that Joram was surrounded and launched a victorious night counterattack. It would then be quite natural to understand the last statement in the verse to refer to an Edomite retreat. Yet v. 22 goes on to state that the Edomite revolt was successful. Therefore, if the MT is retained, it may be better to understand the final statement in v. 21 as a reference to an Israelite retreat (made in spite of the success described in the preceding sentence). The translation above assumes an emendation of the Hebrew text. Adding a third masculine singular pronominal suffix to the accusative sign before Edom (reading אֶתוֹ [’eto], “him,” instead of just אֶת [’et]) and taking Edom as the subject of verbs allows one to translate the verse in a way that is more consistent with the context, which depicts an Israelite defeat, not victory. There is, however, no evidence for this emendation.

⁵ tn Heb “and the people fled to their tents.”

⁴ sn Aramaic was the diplomatic language of the empire.

⁵ tn Or “Hebrew.”

⁵ tn Heb “read in their ears.”

⁶ tn Heb “and he burned it in the Kidron Valley.”

⁷ tc Heb “on the grave of the sons of the people.” Some Hebrew, Greek, Syriac, Aramaic, and Latin witnesses read the plural “graves.”

⁷ tc The MT has “the multitude.” But הֶהָמוֹן (hehamon) should probably be emended to הֶאָמוֹן (he’amon).