9:27 When King Ahaziah of Judah saw what happened, he took off 3 up the road to Beth Haggan. Jehu chased him and ordered, “Shoot him too.” They shot him while he was driving his chariot up the ascent of Gur near Ibleam. 4 He fled to Megiddo 5 and died there.
11:1 When Athaliah the mother of Ahaziah saw that her son was dead, she was determined to destroy the entire royal line. 9 11:2 So Jehosheba, the daughter of King Joram and sister of Ahaziah, took Ahaziah’s son Joash and sneaked 10 him away from the rest of the royal descendants who were to be executed. She hid him and his nurse in the room where the bed covers were stored. 11 So he was hidden from Athaliah and escaped execution. 12
22:3 In the eighteenth year of King Josiah’s reign, the king sent the scribe Shaphan son of Azaliah, son of Meshullam, to the Lord’s temple with these orders: 13 22:4 “Go up to Hilkiah the high priest and have him melt down 14 the silver that has been brought by the people to the Lord’s temple and has been collected by the guards at the door.
1 tn Heb “in the eyes of.”
2 tn Heb “and he walked in the way of the house of Ahab and did evil in the eyes of the
3 tn Heb “and Ahaziah king of Judah saw and fled.”
4 tn After Jehu’s order (“kill him too”), the MT has simply, “to the chariot in the ascent of Gur which is near Ibleam.” The main verb in the clause, “they shot him” (וַיִּכְהוּ, vayyikhhu), has been accidentally omitted by virtual haplography/homoioteleuton. Note that the immediately preceding form הַכֻּהוּ (hakkuhu), “shoot him,” ends with the same suffix.
5 map For location see Map1-D4; Map2-C1; Map4-C2; Map5-F2; Map7-B1.
6 tn Heb “found.”
7 tn Or “brothers.”
8 tn Heb “for the peace of.”
9 tn Heb “she arose and she destroyed all the royal offspring.” The verb קוּם (qum) “arise,” is here used in an auxiliary sense to indicate that she embarked on a campaign to destroy the royal offspring. See M. Cogan and H. Tadmor, II Kings (AB), 125.
10 tn Heb “stole.”
11 tn Heb “him and his nurse in an inner room of beds.” The verb is missing in the Hebrew text. The parallel passage in 2 Chr 22:11 has “and she put” at the beginning of the clause. M. Cogan and H. Tadmor (II Kings [AB], 126) regard the Chronicles passage as an editorial attempt to clarify the difficulty of the original text. They prefer to take “him and his nurse” as objects of the verb “stole” and understand “in the bedroom” as the place where the royal descendants were executed. The phrase בַּחֲדַר הַמִּטּוֹת (bakhadar hammittot), “an inner room of beds,” is sometimes understood as referring to a bedroom (HALOT 293 s.v. חֶדֶר), though some prefer to see here a “room where the covers and cloths were kept for the beds (HALOT 573 s.v. מִטָּת). In either case, it may have been a temporary hideout, for v. 3 indicates that the child hid in the temple for six years.
12 tn Heb “and they hid him from Athaliah and he was not put to death.” The subject of the plural verb (“they hid”) is probably indefinite.
13 tn Heb “with these orders, saying.”
14 tc The MT has וְיַתֵּם (vÿyattem), “and let them add up” (Hiphil of תָּמָם [tammam], “be complete”), but the appearance of הִתִּיכוּ (hitikhu), “they melted down” (Hiphil of נָתַךְ [natakh], “pour out”) in v. 9 suggests that the verb form should be emended to וְיַתֵּךְ (vÿyattekh), “and let him melt down” (a Hiphil of נָתַךְ [natakh]). For a discussion of this and other options see M. Cogan and H. Tadmor, II Kings (AB), 281.