2 Kings 17:30

17:30 The people from Babylon made Succoth Benoth, ¹  the people from Cuth made Nergal, ²  the people from Hamath made Ashima, ³ 

2 Kings 18:34

18:34 Where are the gods of Hamath and Arpad? Where are the gods of Sepharvaim, Hena, and Ivvah? ⁴  Indeed, did any gods rescue Samaria ⁵  from my power? ⁶ 

2 Kings 23:33

23:33 Pharaoh Necho imprisoned him in Riblah in the land of Hamath and prevented him from ruling in Jerusalem. ⁷  He imposed on the land a special tax ⁸  of one hundred talents ⁹  of silver and a talent of gold.

[17:30]  ¹ sn No deity is known by the name Succoth Benoth in extant Mesopotamian literature. For speculation as to the identity of this deity, see M. Cogan and H. Tadmor, II Kings (AB), 211.

[17:30]  ² sn Nergal was a Mesopotamian god of the underworld.

[17:30]  ³ sn This deity is unknown in extra-biblical literature. See M. Cogan and H. Tadmor, II Kings (AB), 211-12.

[18:34]  ⁴ tn The parallel passage in Isa 36:19 omits “Hena and Ivvah.” The rhetorical questions in v. 34a suggest the answer, “Nowhere, they seem to have disappeared in the face of Assyria’s might.”

[18:34]  ⁵ map For location see Map2 B1; Map4 D3; Map5 E2; Map6 A4; Map7 C1.

[18:34]  ⁶ tn Heb “that they rescued Samaria from my hand?” But this gives the impression that the gods of Sepharvaim were responsible for protecting Samaria, which is obviously not the case. The implied subject of the plural verb “rescued” must be the generic “gods of the nations/lands” (vv. 33, 35).

[23:33]  ⁷ tc The consonantal text (Kethib) has “when [he was] ruling in Jerusalem,” but the marginal reading (Qere), which has support from Hebrew, Greek, Aramaic, and Latin witnesses, has “[preventing him] from ruling in Jerusalem.”

[23:33]  ⁸ tn Or “fine.”

[23:33]  ⁹ tn The Hebrew term כִּכָּר (kikkar, “circle”) refers generally to something that is round. When used of metals it can refer to a disk-shaped weight made of the metal or to a standard unit of weight, generally regarded as a talent. Since the accepted weight for a talent of metal is about 75 pounds, this would have amounted to about 7,500 pounds of silver and 75 pounds of gold (cf. NCV, NLT); CEV “almost four tons of silver and about seventy-five pounds of gold.”