2 Kings 17:1-6

Hoshea’s Reign over Israel

17:1 In the twelfth year of King Ahaz’s reign over Judah, Hoshea son of Elah became king over Israel. He reigned in Samaria ¹  for nine years. 17:2 He did evil in the sight of ²  the Lord, but not to the same degree as the Israelite kings who preceded him. 17:3 King Shalmaneser of Assyria threatened ³  him; Hoshea became his subject and paid him tribute. 17:4 The king of Assyria discovered that Hoshea was planning a revolt. ⁴  Hoshea had sent messengers to King So ⁵  of Egypt and had not sent his annual tribute to the king of Assyria. So the king of Assyria arrested him and imprisoned him. ⁶  17:5 The king of Assyria marched through ⁷  the whole land. He attacked Samaria and besieged it for three years. 17:6 In the ninth year of Hoshea’s reign, the king of Assyria captured Samaria and deported the people of Israel ⁸  to Assyria. He settled them in Halah, along the Habor (the river of Gozan), and in the cities of the Medes.

2 Kings 18:11

18:11 The king of Assyria deported the people of Israel ⁹  to Assyria. He settled them in Halah, along the Habor (the river of Gozan), and in the cities of the Medes.

Jeremiah 50:17

50:17 “The people of Israel are like scattered sheep

which lions have chased away.

First the king of Assyria devoured them. ¹⁰ 

Now last of all King Nebuchadnezzar of Babylon has gnawed their bones. ¹¹ 

Jeremiah 51:34

51:34 “King Nebuchadnezzar of Babylon

devoured me and drove my people out.

Like a monster from the deep he swallowed me.

He filled his belly with my riches.

He made me an empty dish.

He completely cleaned me out.” ¹² 

Lamentations 2:2

ב (Bet)

2:2 The Lord ¹³  destroyed ¹⁴  mercilessly ¹⁵ 

all the homes of Jacob’s descendants. ¹⁶ 

In his anger he tore down

the fortified cities ¹⁷  of Daughter Judah.

He knocked to the ground and humiliated

the kingdom and its rulers. ¹⁸ 

Lamentations 2:5

ה (He)

2:5 The Lord, ¹⁹  like an enemy,

destroyed ²⁰  Israel.

He destroyed ²¹  all her palaces;

he ruined her ²²  fortified cities.

He made everyone in Daughter Judah

mourn and lament. ²³ 

Lamentations 2:16

פ (Pe)

2:16 All your enemies

gloated over you. ²⁴ 

They sneered and gnashed their teeth;

they said, “We have destroyed ²⁵  her!

Ha! We have waited a long time for this day.

We have lived to see it!” ²⁶ 

Ezekiel 36:3

36:3 So prophesy and say: ‘This is what the sovereign Lord says: Surely because they have made you desolate and crushed you from all directions, so that you have become the property of the rest of the nations, and have become the subject of gossip ²⁷  and slander among the people,

[17:1]  ¹ map For location see Map2 B1; Map4 D3; Map5 E2; Map6 A4; Map7 C1.

[17:2]  ² tn Heb “in the eyes of.”

[17:3]  ³ tn Heb “went up against.”

[17:4]  ⁴ tn Heb “and the king of Assyria found in Hoshea conspiracy.”

[17:4]  ⁵ sn For discussion of this name, see HALOT 744 s.v. סוֹא and M. Cogan and H. Tadmor, II Kings (AB), 196.

[17:4]  ⁶ tn Heb “and bound him in the house of confinement.”

[17:5]  ⁷ tn Heb “went up against.”

[17:6]  ⁸ tn The Hebrew text has simply “Israel” as the object of the verb.

[18:11]  ⁹ tn The Hebrew text has simply “Israel” as the object of the verb.

[50:17]  ¹⁰ sn The king of Assyria devoured them. This refers to the devastation wrought on northern Israel by the kings of Assyria beginning in 738 b.c. when Tiglath Pileser took Galilee and the Transjordanian territories and ending with the destruction and exile of the people of Samaria by Sargon in 722 b.c.

[50:17]  ¹¹ tn The verb used here only occurs this one time in the Hebrew Bible. It is a denominative from the Hebrew word for “bones” (עֶצֶם, ’etsem). BDB 1126 s.v. עֶָצַם, denom Pi, define it as “break his bones.” HALOT 822 s.v. II עָצַם Pi defines it as “gnaw on his bones.”

[51:34]  ¹² tn This verse is extremely difficult to translate because of the shifting imagery, the confusion over the meaning of one of the verbs, and the apparent inconsistency of the pronominal suffixes here with those in the following verse which everyone agrees is connected with it. The pronominal suffixes are first common plural but the versions all read them as first common singular which the Masoretes also do in the Qere. That reading has been followed here for consistency with the next verse which identifies the speaker as the person living in Zion and the personified city of Jerusalem. The Hebrew text reads: “Nebuchadnezzar king of Babylon devoured me [cf. 50:7, 17] and threw me into confusion. He set me down an empty dish. He swallowed me like a monster from the deep [cf. BDB 1072 s.v. תַּנִּין 3 and compare usage in Isa 27:1; Ezek 29:3; 32:2]. He filled his belly with my dainties. He rinsed me out [cf. BDB s.v. דּוּח Hiph.2 and compare the usage in Isa 4:4].” The verb “throw into confusion” has proved troublesome because its normal meaning does not seem appropriate. Hence various proposals have been made to understand it in a different sense. The present translation has followed W. L. Holladay (Jeremiah [Hermeneia], 2:428) in understanding the verb to mean “disperse” or “route” (see NAB). The last line has seemed out of place and has often been emended to read “he has spewed me out” (so NIV, NRSV, a reading that presupposes הִדִּיחָנִי [hiddikhani] for הֱדִיחָנִי [hedikhani]). The reading of the MT is not inappropriate if it is combined with the imagery of an empty jar and hence is retained here (see F. B. Huey, Jeremiah, Lamentations [NAC], 425, n. 59; H. Freedman, Jeremiah [SoBB], 344; NJPS). The lines have been combined to keep the imagery together.

[2:2]  ¹³ tc The MT reads אֲדֹנָי (’adonay, “the Lord”) here rather than יהוה (YHWH, “the Lord”). See the tc note at 1:14.

[2:2]  ¹⁴ tn Heb “has swallowed up.”

[2:2]  ¹⁵ tc The Kethib is written לֹא חָמַל (lo’ khamal, “without mercy”), while the Qere reads וְלֹא חָמַל (vÿlo’ khamal, “and he has shown no mercy”). The Kethib is followed by the LXX, while the Qere is reflected in many Hebrew mss and the ancient versions (Syriac Peshitta, Aramaic Targum, Latin Vulgate). The English versions are split between the Kethib: “The Lord swallowed all the dwellings of Jacob without mercy” (cf. RSV, NRSV, NIV, TEV, NJPS) and the Qere: “The Lord swallowed all the dwellings of Jacob, and has shown no mercy” (cf. KJV, NASB, CEV). As these words occur between a verb and its object (חָמַל [khamal] is not otherwise followed by אֵת [’et, direct object marker]), an adverbial reading is the most natural, although interrupting the sentence with an insertion is possible. Compare 2:17, 21; 3:43. In contexts of harming, to show mercy often means to spare from harm.

[2:2]  ¹⁶ tn Heb “all the dwellings of Jacob.”

[2:2]  ¹⁷ tn Heb “the strongholds.”

[2:2]  ¹⁸ tn Heb “He brought down to the ground in disgrace the kingdom and its princes.” The verbs חִלֵּל…הִגִּיע (higgi’…khillel, “he has brought down…he has profaned”) function as a verbal hendiadys, as the absence of the conjunction ו (vav) suggests. The first verb retains its full verbal force, while the second functions adverbially: “he has brought down [direct object] in disgrace.”

[2:5]  ¹⁹ tc The MT reads אֲדֹנָי (’adonay, “the Lord”) here rather than יהוה (YHWH, “the Lord”). See the tc note at 1:14.

[2:5]  ²⁰ tn Heb “swallowed up.”

[2:5]  ²¹ tn Heb “swallowed up.”

[2:5]  ²² tn Heb “his.” For consistency this has been translated as “her.”

[2:5]  ²³ tn Heb “He increased in Daughter Judah mourning and lamentation.”

[2:16]  ²⁴ tn Heb “they have opened wide their mouth against you.”

[2:16]  ²⁵ tn Heb “We have swallowed!”

[2:16]  ²⁶ tn Heb “We have attained, we have seen!” The verbs מָצָאנוּ רָאִינוּ (matsa’nu ra’inu) form a verbal hendiadys in which the first retains its full verbal sense and the second functions as an object complement. It forms a Hebrew idiom that means something like, “We have lived to see it!” The three asyndetic 1st person common plural statements in 2:16 (“We waited, we destroyed, we saw!”) are spoken in an impassioned, staccato style reflecting the delight of the conquerors.

[36:3]  ²⁷ tn Heb “lip of the tongue.”