2 Kings 7:2

7:2 An officer who was the king’s right-hand man ¹  responded to the prophet, ²  “Look, even if the Lord made it rain by opening holes in the sky, could this happen so soon?” ³  Elisha ⁴  said, “Look, you will see it happen with your own eyes, but you will not eat any of the food!” ⁵ 

2 Kings 7:19-20

7:19 But the officer replied to the prophet, “Look, even if the Lord made it rain by opening holes in the sky, could this happen so soon?” ⁶  Elisha ⁷  said, “Look, you will see it happen with your own eyes, but you will not eat any of the food!” ⁸  7:20 This is exactly what happened to him. The people trampled him to death in the city gate.

Job 20:17

20:17 He will not look on the streams, ⁹ 

the rivers, which are the torrents ¹⁰ 

of honey and butter. ¹¹ 

¹ tn Heb “the officer on whose hand the king leans.”

² tn Heb “man of God.”

³ tn Heb “the Lord was making holes in the sky, could this thing be?” Opening holes in the sky would allow the waters stored up there to pour to the earth and assure a good crop. But, the officer argues, even if this were to happen, it would take a long time to grow and harvest the crop.

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

⁵ tn Heb “you will not eat from there.”

⁶ tn Heb “the Lord was making holes in the sky, could this thing be?” See the note at 7:2.

⁷ tn Heb “he”; the referent (Elisha) has been specified in the translation for clarity.

⁸ tn Heb “you will not eat from there.”

⁹ tn The word פְּלַגּוֹת (pÿlaggot) simply means “streams” or “channels.” Because the word is used elsewhere for “streams of oil” (cf. 29:6), and that makes a good parallelism here, some supply “oil” (cf. NAB, NLT). But the second colon of the verse is probably in apposition to the first. The verb “see” followed by the preposition bet, “to look on; to look over,” means “to enjoy as a possession,” an activity of the victor.

¹⁰ tn The construct nouns here have caused a certain amount of revision. It says “rivers of, torrents of.” The first has been emended by Klostermann to יִצְהָר (yitshar, “oil”) and connected to the first colon. Older editors argued for a נָהָר (nahar) that meant “oil” but that was not convincing. On the other hand, there is support for having more than one construct together serving as apposition (see GKC 422 §130.e). If the word “streams” in the last colon is a construct, that would mean three of them; but that one need not be construct. The reading would be “He will not see the streams, [that is] the rivers [which are] the torrents of honey and butter.” It is unusual, but workable.

¹¹ sn This word is often translated “curds.” It is curdled milk, possibly a type of butter.