2 Kings 4:1

Elisha Helps a Widow and Her Sons

4:1 Now a wife of one of the prophets ¹  appealed ²  to Elisha for help, saying, “Your servant, my husband is dead. You know that your servant was a loyal follower of the Lord. ³  Now the creditor is coming to take away my two boys to be his servants.”

2 Kings 5:5

5:5 The king of Syria said, “Go! I will send a letter to the king of Israel.” So Naaman ⁴  went, taking with him ten talents ⁵  of silver, six thousand shekels of gold, ⁶  and ten suits of clothes.

2 Kings 8:1

Elisha Again Helps the Shunammite Woman

8:1 Now Elisha advised the woman whose son he had brought back to life, “You and your family should go and live somewhere else for a while, ⁷  for the Lord has decreed that a famine will overtake the land for seven years.”

2 Kings 9:11

9:11 When Jehu rejoined ⁸  his master’s servants, they ⁹  asked him, “Is everything all right? ¹⁰  Why did this madman visit you?” He replied, “Ah, it’s not important. You know what kind of man he is and the kinds of things he says.” ¹¹ 

2 Kings 9:18

9:18 So the horseman ¹²  went to meet him and said, “This is what the king says, ‘Is everything all right?’” ¹³  Jehu replied, “None of your business! ¹⁴  Follow me.” The watchman reported, “The messenger reached them, but hasn’t started back.”

2 Kings 10:21

10:21 Jehu sent invitations throughout Israel, and all the servants of Baal came; not one was absent. They arrived at the temple of Baal and filled it up from end to end. ¹⁵ 

2 Kings 23:17

23:17 He asked, “What is this grave marker I see?” The men from the city replied, “It’s the grave of the prophet ¹⁶  who came from Judah and foretold these very things you have done to the altar of Bethel.”

2 Kings 25:1

25:1 So King Nebuchadnezzar of Babylon came against Jerusalem with his whole army and set up camp outside ¹⁷  it. They built siege ramps all around it. He arrived on the tenth day of the tenth month in the ninth year of Zedekiah’s reign. ¹⁸ 

2 Kings 25:8

Nebuchadnezzar Destroys Jerusalem

25:8 On the seventh ¹⁹  day of the fifth month, ²⁰  in the nineteenth year of King Nebuchadnezzar of Babylon, Nebuzaradan, the captain of the royal guard ²¹  who served the king of Babylon, arrived in Jerusalem. ²² 

2 Kings 25:25

25:25 But in the seventh month ²³  Ishmael son of Nethaniah, son of Elishama, who was a member of the royal family, ²⁴  came with ten of his men and murdered Gedaliah, ²⁵  as well as the Judeans and Babylonians who were with him at Mizpah.

[4:1]  ¹ tn Heb “a wife from among the wives of the sons of the prophets.”

[4:1]  ² tn Or “cried out.”

[4:1]  ³ tn Heb “your servant feared the Lord.” “Fear” refers here to obedience and allegiance, the products of healthy respect for the Lord’s authority.

[5:5]  ⁴ tn Heb “he”; the referent (Naaman) has been specified in the translation for clarity.

[5:5]  ⁵ 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 750 pounds of silver (cf. NCV, NLT, CEV).

[5:5]  ⁶ tn Heb “six thousand gold […].” The unit of measure is not given in the Hebrew text. A number of English versions supply “pieces” (e.g., KJV, ASV, NAB, TEV) or “shekels” (e.g., NASB, NIV, NRSV).

[8:1]  ⁷ tn Heb “Get up and go, you and your house, and live temporarily where you can live temporarily.”

[9:11]  ¹⁰ tn Heb “went out to.”

[9:11]  ¹¹ tc The MT has the singular, “he said,” but many witnesses correctly read the plural.

[9:11]  ¹² tn Heb “Is there peace?”

[9:11]  ¹³ tn Heb “He said, ‘You, you know the man and his thoughts.’” Jehu tries to deflect their question by reminding them that the man is an eccentric individual who says strange things. His reply suggests that the man said nothing of importance. The translation seeks to bring out the tone and intent of Jehu’s reply.

[9:18]  ¹³ tn Heb “the rider of the horse.”

[9:18]  ¹⁴ tn Heb “Is there peace?”

[9:18]  ¹⁵ tn Heb “What concerning you and concerning peace?” That is, “What concern is that to you?”

[10:21]  ¹⁶ tn Heb “and the house of Baal was filled mouth to mouth.”

[23:17]  ¹⁹ tn Heb “man of God.”

[25:1]  ²² tn Or “against.”

[25:1]  ²³ sn This would have been Jan 15, 588 b.c. The reckoning is based on the calendar that begins the year in the spring (Nisan = March/April).

[25:8]  ²⁵ tn The parallel account in Jer 52:12 has “tenth.”

[25:8]  ²⁶ sn The seventh day of the month would have been August 14, 586 b.c. in modern reckoning.

[25:8]  ²⁷ tn For the meaning of this phrase see BDB 371 s.v. טַבָּח 2, and compare the usage in Gen 39:1.

[25:8]  ²⁸ map For location see Map5 B1; Map6 F3; Map7 E2; Map8 F2; Map10 B3; JP1 F4; JP2 F4; JP3 F4; JP4 F4.

[25:25]  ²⁸ sn It is not altogether clear whether this is in the same year that Jerusalem fell or not. The wall was breached in the fourth month (= early July; Jer 39:2) and Nebuzaradan came and burned the palace, the temple, and many of the houses and tore down the wall in the fifth month (= early August; Jer 52:12). That would have left time between the fifth month and the seventh month (October) to gather in the harvest of grapes, dates and figs, and olives (Jer 40:12). However, many commentators feel that too much activity takes place in too short a time for this to have been in the same year and posit that it happened the following year or even five years later when a further deportation took place, possibly in retaliation for the murder of Gedaliah and the Babylonian garrison at Mizpah (Jer 52:30). The assassination of Gedaliah had momentous consequences and was commemorated in one of the post exilic fast days lamenting the fall of Jerusalem (Zech 8:19).

[25:25]  ²⁹ tn Heb “[was] from the seed of the kingdom.”

[25:25]  ³⁰ tn Heb “and they struck down Gedaliah and he died.”