2 Kings 1:3

1:3 But the Lord’s angelic messenger told Elijah the Tishbite, “Get up, go to meet the messengers from the king of Samaria. Say this to them: ‘You must think there is no God in Israel! That explains why you are on your way to seek an oracle from Baal Zebub the god of Ekron. ¹ 

2 Kings 1:16

1:16 Elijah ²  said to the king, ³  “This is what the Lord says, ‘You sent messengers to seek an oracle from Baal Zebub, the god of Ekron. You must think there is no God in Israel from whom you can seek an oracle! ⁴  Therefore you will not leave the bed you lie on, for you will certainly die.’” ⁵ 

2 Kings 3:13

3:13 Elisha said to the king of Israel, “Why are you here? ⁶  Go to your father’s prophets or your mother’s prophets!” The king of Israel replied to him, “No, for the Lord is the one who summoned these three kings so that he can hand them over to Moab.”

2 Kings 4:27

4:27 But when she reached the prophet on the mountain, she grabbed hold of his feet. Gehazi came near to push her away, but the prophet said, “Leave her alone, for she is very upset. ⁷  The Lord has kept the matter hidden from me; he didn’t tell me about it.”

2 Kings 5:7

5:7 When the king of Israel read the letter, he tore his clothes and said, “Am I God? Can I kill or restore life? Why does he ask me to cure a man of his skin disease? ⁸  Certainly you must see that he is looking for an excuse to fight me!” ⁹ 

2 Kings 9:27

9:27 When King Ahaziah of Judah saw what happened, he took off ¹⁰  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. ¹¹  He fled to Megiddo ¹²  and died there.

2 Kings 10:25

10:25 When he finished offering the burnt sacrifice, Jehu ordered the royal guard ¹³  and officers, “Come in and strike them down! Don’t let any escape!” So the royal guard and officers struck them down with the sword and left their bodies lying there. ¹⁴  Then they entered the inner sanctuary of the temple of Baal. ¹⁵ 

2 Kings 11:4

11:4 In the seventh year Jehoiada summoned ¹⁶  the officers of the units of hundreds of the Carians ¹⁷  and the royal bodyguard. ¹⁸  He met with them ¹⁹  in the Lord’s temple. He made an agreement ²⁰  with them and made them swear an oath of allegiance in the Lord’s temple. Then he showed them the king’s son.

2 Kings 18:26

18:26 Eliakim son of Hilkiah, Shebna, and Joah said to the chief adviser, “Speak to your servants in Aramaic, ²¹  for we understand it. Don’t speak with us in the Judahite dialect ²²  in the hearing of the people who are on the wall.”

2 Kings 23:16

23:16 When Josiah turned around, he saw the tombs there on the hill. So he ordered the bones from the tombs to be brought; ²³  he burned them on the altar and defiled it. This fulfilled the Lord’s announcement made by the prophet while Jeroboam stood by the altar during a festival. King Josiah ²⁴  turned and saw the grave of the prophet who had foretold this. ²⁵ 

[1:3]  ¹ tn Heb “Is it because there is no God in Israel [that] you are going to inquire of Baal Zebub, the god of Ekron?” The translation seeks to bring out the sarcastic tone of the rhetorical question.

[1:16]  ² tn Heb “he”; the referent (Elijah) has been specified in the translation for clarity.

[1:16]  ³ tn Heb “him”; the referent (the king) has been specified in the translation for clarity.

[1:16]  ⁴ tn Heb “Because you sent messengers to inquire of Baal Zebub, the god of Ekron, is there no God in Israel to inquire of his word?”

[1:16]  ⁵ sn For the third time in this chapter we read the Lord’s sarcastic question to king and the accompanying announcement of judgment. The repetition emphasizes one of the chapter’s main themes. Israel’s leaders should seek guidance from their own God, not a pagan deity, for Israel’s sovereign God is the one who controls life and death.

[3:13]  ³ tn Or “What do we have in common?” The text reads literally, “What to me and to you?”

[4:27]  ⁴ tn Heb “her soul [i.e., ‘disposition’] is bitter.”

[5:7]  ⁵ tn Heb “Am I God, killing and restoring life, that this one sends to me to cure a man from his skin disease?” In the Hebrew text this is one lengthy rhetorical question, which has been divided up in the translation for stylistic reasons.

[5:7]  ⁶ tn Heb “Indeed, know and see that he is seeking an occasion with respect to me.”

[9:27]  ⁶ tn Heb “and Ahaziah king of Judah saw and fled.”

[9:27]  ⁷ 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.

[9:27]  ⁸ map For location see Map1 D4; Map2 C1; Map4 C2; Map5 F2; Map7 B1.

[10:25]  ⁷ tn Heb “runners.”

[10:25]  ⁸ tn Heb “and they threw.” No object appears. According to M. Cogan and H. Tadmor (II Kings [AB], 116), this is an idiom for leaving a corpse unburied.

[10:25]  ⁹ tn Heb “and they came to the city of the house of Baal.” It seems unlikely that a literal city is meant. Some emend עִיר (’ir), “city,” to דְּבִיר (dÿvir) “holy place,” or suggest that עִיר is due to dittography of the immediately preceding עַד (’ad) “to.” Perhaps עִיר is here a technical term meaning “fortress” or, more likely, “inner room.”

[11:4]  ⁸ tn Heb “Jehoiada sent and took.”

[11:4]  ⁹ sn The Carians were apparently a bodyguard, probably comprised of foreigners. See HALOT 497 s.v. כָּרִי and M. Cogan and H. Tadmor, II Kings (AB), 126.

[11:4]  ¹⁰ tn Heb “the runners.”

[11:4]  ¹¹ tn Heb “he brought them to himself.”

[11:4]  ¹² tn Or “covenant.”

[18:26]  ⁹ sn Aramaic was the diplomatic language of the empire.

[18:26]  ¹⁰ tn Or “Hebrew.”

[23:16]  ¹⁰ tn Heb “and he sent and took the bones from the tombs.”

[23:16]  ¹¹ tn Heb “the king”; this has been specified as “King Josiah” in the translation for clarity (cf. TEV, CEV, NLT).

[23:16]  ¹² tc The MT is much shorter than this. It reads, “according to the word of the Lord which the man of God proclaimed, who proclaimed these words.” The LXX has a much longer text at this point. It reads: “[which was proclaimed by the man of God] while Jeroboam stood by the altar at a celebration. Then he turned and saw the grave of the man of God [who proclaimed these words].” The extra material attested in the LXX was probably accidentally omitted in the Hebrew tradition when a scribe’s eye jumped from the first occurrence of the phrase “man of God” (which appears right before the extra material) and the second occurrence of the phrase (which appears at the end of the extra material).