2 Kings 3:15-27

3:15 But now, get me a musician.” ¹  When the musician played, the Lord energized him, ²  3:16 and he said, “This is what the Lord says, ‘Make many cisterns in this valley,’ ³  3:17 for this is what the Lord says, ‘You will not feel ⁴  any wind or see any rain, but this valley will be full of water and you and your cattle and animals will drink.’ 3:18 This is an easy task for the Lord; ⁵  he will also hand Moab over to you. 3:19 You will defeat every fortified city and every important ⁶  city. You must chop down ⁷  every productive ⁸  tree, stop up all the springs, and cover all the cultivated land with stones.” ⁹ 

3:20 Sure enough, the next morning, at the time of the morning sacrifice, water came flowing down from Edom and filled the land. ¹⁰  3:21 Now all Moab had heard that the kings were attacking, ¹¹  so everyone old enough to fight was mustered and placed at the border. ¹²  3:22 When they got up early the next morning, the sun was shining on the water. To the Moabites, who were some distance away, the water looked red like blood. 3:23 The Moabites ¹³  said, “It’s blood! The kings are totally destroyed! ¹⁴  They have struck one another down! Now, Moab, seize the plunder!” 3:24 When they approached the Israelite camp, the Israelites rose up and struck down the Moabites, who then ran from them. The Israelites ¹⁵  thoroughly defeated ¹⁶  Moab. 3:25 They tore down the cities and each man threw a stone into every cultivated field until they were covered. ¹⁷  They stopped up every spring and chopped down every productive tree.

Only Kir Hareseth was left intact, ¹⁸  but the slingers surrounded it and attacked it. 3:26 When the king of Moab realized he was losing the battle, ¹⁹  he and 700 swordsmen tried to break through and attack ²⁰  the king of Edom, but they failed. 3:27 So he took his firstborn son, who was to succeed him as king, and offered him up as a burnt sacrifice on the wall. There was an outburst of divine anger against Israel, ²¹  so they broke off the attack ²²  and returned to their homeland.

[3:15]  ¹ tn The term used refers to one who plays a stringed instrument, perhaps a harp.

[3:15]  ² tn Heb “the hand of the Lord came on him.” This may refer to what typically happened, “[for] when a musician played, the hand of the Lord would come upon him.”

[3:16]  ³ tn Heb “making this valley cisterns, cisterns.” The Hebrew noun גֵּב (gev) means “cistern” in Jer 14:3 (cf. Jer 39:10). The repetition of the noun is for emphasis. See GKC 396 §123.e. The verb (“making”) is an infinitive absolute, which has to be interpreted in light of the context. The translation above takes it in an imperatival sense. The command need not be understood as literal, but as hyperbolic. Telling them to build cisterns is a dramatic way of leading into the announcement that he would miraculously provide water in the desert. Some prefer to translate the infinitive as an imperfect with the Lord as the understood subject, “I will turn this valley [into] many pools.”

[3:17]  ⁴ tn Heb “see.”

[3:18]  ⁵ tn Heb “and this is easy in the eyes of the Lord.”

[3:19]  ⁶ tn Heb “choice” or “select.”

[3:19]  ⁷ tn Elisha places the object first and uses an imperfect verb form. The stylistic shift may signal that he is now instructing them what to do, rather than merely predicting what would happen.

[3:19]  ⁸ tn Heb “good.”

[3:19]  ⁹ tn Heb “and ruin every good portion with stones.”

[3:20]  ¹⁰ tn Heb “and in the morning, when the offering is offered up, look, water was coming from the way of Edom, and the land was filled with water.”

[3:21]  ¹¹ tn Heb “had come up to fight them.”

[3:21]  ¹² tn Heb “and they mustered all who tied on a belt and upwards, and they stood at the border.”

[3:23]  ¹³ tn Heb “they”; the referent (the Moabites) has been specified in the translation for clarity.

[3:23]  ¹⁴ tn The translation assumes the verb is חָרַב (kharav, “to be desolate”). The infinitive absolute precedes the finite verb form for emphasis. (For another example of the Hophal infinitive with a Niphal finite verb, see Lev 19:20. Cf. also IBHS 582 §35.2.1c.) Some prefer to derive the verb from a proposed homonym meaning “at HALOT 349 s.v. II חרב and BDB 352 s.v. חָרְבָה).

[3:24]  ¹⁵ tn Heb “they.”

[3:24]  ¹⁶ tc The consonantal text (Kethib) suggests, “and they went, striking down,” but the marginal reading (Qere) is “they struck down, striking down.” For a discussion of the textual problem, see M. Cogan and H. Tadmor, II Kings (AB), 46.

[3:25]  ¹⁷ tn Heb “and [on] every good portion they were throwing each man his stone and they filled it.” The vav + perfect (“and they filled”) here indicates customary action contemporary with the situation described in the preceding main clause (where a customary imperfect is used, “they were throwing”). See the note at 3:4.

[3:25]  ¹⁸ tn Heb “until he had allowed its stones to remain in Kir Hareseth.”

[3:26]  ¹⁹ tn Heb “and the king of Moab saw that the battle was too strong for him.”

[3:26]  ²⁰ tn Heb “he took with him seven hundred men, who drew the sword, to break through against.”

[3:27]  ²¹ tn Heb “there was great anger against Israel.”

[3:27]  ²² tn Heb “they departed from him.”