2 Kings 7:10

7:10 So they went and called out to the gatekeepers ¹  of the city. They told them, “We entered the Syrian camp and there was no one there. We didn’t even hear a man’s voice. ²  But the horses and donkeys are still tied up, and the tents remain up.” ³ 

2 Kings 11:19

11:19 He took the officers of the units of hundreds, the Carians, the royal bodyguard, and all the people of land, and together they led the king down from the Lord’s temple. They entered the royal palace through the Gate of the Royal Bodyguard, ⁴  and the king ⁵  sat down on the royal throne.

2 Kings 14:13

14:13 King Jehoash of Israel captured King Amaziah of Judah, son of Jehoash son of Ahaziah, in Beth Shemesh. He ⁶  attacked ⁷  Jerusalem and broke down the wall of Jerusalem from the Gate of Ephraim to the Corner Gate – a distance of about six hundred feet. ⁸ 

2 Kings 25:4

25:4 The enemy broke through the city walls, ⁹  and all the soldiers tried to escape. They left the city during the night. ¹⁰  They went through the gate between the two walls that is near the king’s garden. ¹¹  (The Babylonians were all around the city.) Then they headed for the Jordan Valley. ¹² 

¹ tn The MT has a singular form (“gatekeeper”), but the context suggests a plural. The pronoun that follows (“them”) is plural and a plural noun appears in v. 11. The Syriac Peshitta and the Targum have the plural here.

² tn Heb “and, look, there was no man or voice of a man there.”

³ tn Heb “but the horses are tied up and the donkeys are tied up and the tents are as they were.”

⁴ tn Heb “the Gate of the Runners of the House of the King.”

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

⁷ tc The MT has the plural form of the verb, but the final vav (ו) is virtually dittographic. The word that immediately follows in the Hebrew text begins with a yod (י). The form should be emended to the singular, which is consistent in number with the verb (“he broke down”) that follows.

⁸ tn Heb “came to.”

⁹ tn Heb “four hundred cubits.” The standard cubit in the OT is assumed by most authorities to be about eighteen inches (45 cm) long.

¹⁰ tn Heb “the city was breached.”

¹¹ tn The Hebrew text is abrupt here: “And all the men of war by the night.” The translation attempts to capture the sense.

¹² 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.

¹³ 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.