2 Kings 19:13

19:13 Where are the king of Hamath, the king of Arpad, and the king of Lair, ¹  Sepharvaim, Hena, and Ivvah?’”

2 Kings 25:21

25:21 The king of Babylon ordered them to be executed ²  at Riblah in the territory ³  of Hamath. So Judah was deported from its land.

2 Kings 17:30

17:30 The people from Babylon made Succoth Benoth, ⁴  the people from Cuth made Nergal, ⁵  the people from Hamath made Ashima, ⁶ 

2 Kings 18:34

18:34 Where are the gods of Hamath and Arpad? Where are the gods of Sepharvaim, Hena, and Ivvah? ⁷  Indeed, did any gods rescue Samaria ⁸  from my power? ⁹ 

2 Kings 23:33

23:33 Pharaoh Necho imprisoned him in Riblah in the land of Hamath and prevented him from ruling in Jerusalem. ¹⁰  He imposed on the land a special tax ¹¹  of one hundred talents ¹²  of silver and a talent of gold.

2 Kings 14:25

14:25 He restored the border of Israel from Lebo Hamath in the north to the sea of the Arabah in the south, ¹³  in accordance with the word of the Lord God of Israel announced through ¹⁴  his servant Jonah son of Amittai, the prophet from Gath Hepher.

2 Kings 14:28

14:28 The rest of the events of Jeroboam’s reign, including all his accomplishments, his military success in restoring Israelite control over Damascus and Hamath, are recorded in the scroll called the Annals of the Kings of Israel. ¹⁵ 

2 Kings 17:24

The King of Assyria Populates Israel with Foreigners

17:24 The king of Assyria brought foreigners ¹⁶  from Babylon, Cuthah, Avva, Hamath, and Sepharvaim and settled them in the cities of Samaria ¹⁷  in place of the Israelites. They took possession of Samaria and lived in its cities.

[19:13]  ¹ sn Lair is a city located in northeastern Babylon. See M. Cogan and H. Tadmor, II Kings (AB), 235.

[25:21]  ² tn Heb “struck them down and killed them.”

[25:21]  ³ tn Heb “land.”

[17:30]  ³ 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]  ⁴ sn Nergal was a Mesopotamian god of the underworld.

[17:30]  ⁵ 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]  ⁵ 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]  ⁶ tn Or “fine.”

[23:33]  ⁷ 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.”

[14:25]  ⁶ tn The phrases “in the north” and “in the south” are added in the translation for clarification.

[14:25]  ⁷ tn Heb “which he spoke by the hand of.”

[14:28]  ⁷ tn Heb “As for the rest of the events of Jeroboam, and all which he did and his strength, [and] how he fought and how he restored Damascus and Hamath to Judah in Israel, are they not written on the scroll of the events of the days of the kings of Israel?” The phrase “to Judah” is probably not original; it may be a scribal addition by a Judahite scribe who was trying to link Jeroboam’s conquests with the earlier achievements of David and Solomon, who ruled in Judah. The Syriac Peshitta has simply “to Israel.” M. Cogan and H. Tadmor (II Kings [AB], 162) offer this proposal, but acknowledge that it is “highly speculative.”

[17:24]  ⁸ tn The object is supplied in the translation.

[17:24]  ⁹ sn In vv. 24-29 Samaria stands for the entire northern kingdom of Israel.