2 Kings 24:19-20

24:19 He did evil in the sight of ¹  the Lord, as Jehoiakim had done. ² 

24:20 What follows is a record of what happened to Jerusalem and Judah because of the Lord’s anger; he finally threw them out of his presence. ³  Zedekiah rebelled against the king of Babylon.

2 Kings 24:2

24:2 The Lord sent against him Babylonian, Syrian, Moabite, and Ammonite raiding bands; he sent them to destroy Judah, as he had warned he would do through his servants the prophets. ⁴ 

2 Kings 1:12-16

1:12 Elijah replied to them, ⁵  “If I am indeed a prophet, may fire come down from the sky and consume you and your fifty soldiers!” Fire from God ⁶  came down from the sky and consumed him and his fifty soldiers.

1:13 The king ⁷  sent a third captain and his fifty soldiers. This third captain went up and fell ⁸  on his knees before Elijah. He begged for mercy, “Prophet, please have respect for my life and for the lives of these fifty servants of yours. 1:14 Indeed, ⁹  fire came down from the sky and consumed the two captains who came before me, along with their men. ¹⁰  So now, please have respect for my life.” 1:15 The Lord’s angelic messenger said to Elijah, “Go down with him. Don’t be afraid of him.” So he got up and went down ¹¹  with him to the king.

1:16 Elijah ¹²  said to the king, ¹³  “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! ¹⁴  Therefore you will not leave the bed you lie on, for you will certainly die.’” ¹⁵ 

Proverbs 29:12

29:12 If a ruler listens to ¹⁶  lies, ¹⁷ 

all his ministers ¹⁸  will be wicked. ¹⁹ 

Ezekiel 21:25

21:25 “‘As for you, profane and wicked prince of Israel, ²⁰ 

whose day has come, the time of final punishment,

Ezekiel 21:1

The Sword of Judgment

21:1 (21:6) ²¹  The word of the Lord came to me:

Ezekiel 4:8

4:8 Look here, I will tie you up with ropes, so you cannot turn from one side to the other until you complete the days of your siege. ²² 

[24:19]  ¹ tn Heb “in the eyes of.”

[24:19]  ² tn Heb “according to all which Jehoiakim had done.”

[24:20]  ³ tn Heb “Surely [or, ‘for’] because of the anger of the Lord this happened in Jerusalem and Judah until he threw them out from upon his face.”

[24:2]  ⁴ tn Heb “he sent them against Judah to destroy it, according to the word of the Lord which he spoke by the hand of his servants the prophets.”

[1:12]  ⁵ tc Two medieval Hebrew mss, the LXX, and the Syriac Peshitta have the singular “to him.”

[1:12]  ⁶ tn Or “intense fire.” The divine name may be used idiomatically to emphasize the intensity of the fire. Whether one translates אֱלֹהִים (’elohim) here as a proper name or idiomatically, this addition to the narrative (the name is omitted in the first panel, v. 10b) emphasizes the severity of the judgment and is appropriate given the more intense command delivered by the king to the prophet in this panel.

[1:13]  ⁷ tn Heb “he”; the referent (the king) has been specified in the translation for clarity.

[1:13]  ⁸ tn Heb “went up and approached and kneeled.”

[1:14]  ⁹ tn Heb “look.”

[1:14]  ¹⁰ tn Heb “their fifty.”

[1:15]  ¹¹ sn In this third panel the verb “come down” (יָרַד, yarad) occurs again, this time describing Elijah’s descent from the hill at the Lord’s command. The moral of the story seems clear: Those who act as if they have authority over God and his servants just may pay for their arrogance with their lives; those who, like the third commander, humble themselves and show the proper respect for God’s authority and for his servants will be spared and find God quite cooperative.

[1:16]  ¹² tn Heb “he”; the referent (Elijah) has been specified in the translation for clarity.

[1:16]  ¹³ tn Heb “him”; the referent (the king) has been specified in the translation for clarity.

[1:16]  ¹⁴ 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]  ¹⁵ 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.

[29:12]  ¹⁶ tn The Hiphil participle מַקְשִׁיב (maqshiv) means “to give attention to; to regard; to heed.” Cf. NASB, NCV, TEV “pays attention to.”

[29:12]  ¹⁷ tn Heb “word of falsehood” or “lying word.” Cf. TEV “false information.”

[29:12]  ¹⁸ tn The verb שָׁרַת (sharat) means “to minister; to serve.” The Piel plural participle here refers to servants of the king who attend to him – courtiers and ministers (cf. NIV, NRSV, TEV, CEV “officials”; NLT “advisers”). This, his entourage, will have to resort to evil practices to gain his favor if he is swayed by such lies.

[29:12]  ¹⁹ sn The servants of the monarch adjust to their ruler; when they see that court flattery and deception are effective, they will begin to practice it and in the end become wicked (e.g., Prov 16:10; 20:8; 25:2).

[21:25]  ²⁰ tn This probably refers to King Zedekiah.

[21:1]  ²¹ sn Ezek 21:1 in the English Bible is 21:6 in the Hebrew text (BHS). See the note at 20:45.

[4:8]  ²² sn The action surely refers to a series of daily acts rather than to a continuous period.