¹map For location see Map2-B1; Map4-D3; Map5-E2; Map6-A4; Map7-C1.
²tn Heb “in the eyes of.”
³tn Lit. “held tight,” or “clung to.”
⁴tc The Hebrew text has the singular, “it.” Some ancient witnesses read the plural, which seems preferable since the antecedent (“sins”) is plural. Another option is to emend the plural “sins” to a singular. One ancient Greek witness has the singular “sin.”
⁵tn For a discussion of the meaning of term (dq@n{, noqed), see M. Cogan and H. Tadmor, II Kings (AB), 43.
⁶tn The vav + perfect here indicates customary action contemporary with the situation described in the preceding main clause. See IBHS 533-34 §32.2.3e.
⁷tn Heb “went and sent.”
⁸tn Heb “he”; the referent (Jehoshaphat) has been specified in the translation for clarity.
⁹tn Heb “I will go up—like me, like you; like my people, like your people; like my horses; like your horses.”
¹⁰tn Heb “Where is the road we will go up?”
¹¹tn Heb “he”; the referent (Jehoram) has been specified in the translation for clarity.
¹²tn Heb “the king of Israel and the king of Judah and the king of Edom.”
¹³tn Or “ah.”
¹⁴tn Heb “that we might inquire of the Lord through him?”
¹⁵tn Heb “who poured water on the hands of Elijah.” This refers to one of the typical tasks of a servant.
¹⁶tn Heb “the word of the Lord is with him.”
¹⁷tn Or “What do we have in common?” The text reads literally, “What to me and to you?”
¹⁸tn Traditionally “the Lord of hosts.”
¹⁹tn Heb “before whom I stand.”
²⁰tn Heb “if I did not lift up the face of Jehoshaphat the king of Judah.”
²¹tn Heb “I would not look at you or see you.”
²²tn The term used refers to one who plays a stringed instrument, perhaps a harp.
²³tn 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.”
²⁴tn Heb “making this valley cisterns, cisterns.” The Hebrew noun bG} (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.”
²⁵tn Heb “see.”
²⁶tn Heb “and this is easy in the eyes of the Lord.”
²⁷tn Heb “choice” or “select.”
²⁸tn 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.
²⁹tn Heb “good.”
³⁰tn Heb “and ruin every good portion with stones.”
³¹tn 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.”
³²tn Heb “had come up to fight them.”
³³tn Heb “and they mustered all who tied on a belt and upwards, and they stood at the border.”
³⁴tn Heb “they”; the referent (the Moabites) has been specified in the translation for clarity.
³⁵tn The translation assumes the verb is br~j* (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 brj and BDB 352 s.v. hb*r+j*).
³⁶tn Heb “they.”
³⁷tc 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.
³⁸tn 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.
³⁹tn Heb “until he had allowed its stones to remain in Kir Hareseth.”
⁴⁰tn Heb “and the king of Moab saw that the battle was too strong for him.”
⁴¹tn Heb “he took with him seven hundred men, who drew the sword, to break through against.”
⁴²tn Heb “there was great anger against Israel.”
sn The meaning of this statement is uncertain, for the subject of the anger is not indicated. Except for two relatively late texts, the noun [x#q# (qetsef) refers to an outburst of divine anger. But it seems unlikely the Lord would be angry with Israel, for he placed his stamp of approval on the campaign (vv. 16-19). D. N. Freedman suggests the narrator, who obviously has a bias against the Omride dynasty, included this observation to show that the Lord would not allow the Israelite king to “have an undiluted victory” (as quoted in M. Cogan and H. Tadmor, II Kings [AB], 52, n. 8). Some suggest that the original source identified Chemosh the Moabite god as the subject and that his name was later suppressed by a conscientious scribe, but this proposal raises more questions than it answers. For a discussion of various views, see M. Cogan and H. Tadmor, II Kings (AB), 47-48, 51-52.
⁴³tn Heb “they departed from him.”