2 Kings 7:4

7:4 If we go into the city, we’ll die of starvation, ¹  and if we stay here we’ll die! So come on, let’s defect ²  to the Syrian camp! If they spare us, ³  we’ll live; if they kill us – well, we were going to die anyway.” ⁴ 

2 Kings 7:13

7:13 One of his advisers replied, “Pick some men and have them take five of the horses that are left in the city. (Even if they are killed, their fate will be no different than that of all the Israelite people – we’re all going to die!) ⁵  Let’s send them out so we can know for sure what’s going on.” ⁶ 

¹ tn Heb “If we say, ‘We will enter the city,’ the famine is in the city and we will die there.”

² tn Heb “fall.”

³ tn Heb “keep us alive.”

⁴ tn Heb “we will die.” The paraphrastic translation attempts to bring out the logical force of their reasoning.

⁵ tn Heb “Let them take five of the remaining horses that remain in it. Look, they are like all the people of Israel that remain in it. Look, they are like all the people of Israel that have come to an end.” The MT is dittographic here; the words “that remain in it. Look they are like all the people of Israel” have been accidentally repeated. The original text read, “Let them take five of the remaining horses that remain in it. Look, they are like all the people of Israel that have come to an end.”

⁶ tn Heb “and let us send so we might see.”