¹tn Heb “Get up and go, you and your house, and live temporarily where you can live temporarily.”
²tn Heb “and the woman got up and did according to the word of the man of God.”
³tn Heb “and went out to cry out to the king for her house and her field.”
⁴tn Heb “man of God’s.”
⁵tn Heb “he”; the referent (Gehazi) has been specified in the translation for clarity.
⁶tn Heb “he”; the referent (Elisha) has been specified in the translation for clarity.
⁷tn Heb “and look, the woman whose son he had brought back to life was crying out to the king for her house and her field.”
sn The legal background of the situation is uncertain. For a discussion of possibilities, see M. Cogan and H. Tadmor, II Kings (AB), 87-88.
⁸tn Heb “and the king asked the woman and she told him.”
⁹tn Heb “and he assigned to her an official, saying.”
¹⁰tn Heb “he”; the referent (the king) has been specified in the translation for clarity.
¹¹tn Heb “man of God” (also a second time in this verse and in v. 11).
¹²tn The Hebrew text also has “in your hand.”
¹³tn Heb “Inquire of the Lord through him, saying.”
¹⁴tn The Hebrew text also has “in his hand.”
¹⁵tn Heb “and.” It is possible that the conjunction is here explanatory, equivalent to English “that is.” In this case the forty camel loads constitute the “gift” and one should translate, “He took along a gift, consisting of forty camel loads of all the fine things of Damascus.”
¹⁶sn The words “your son” emphasize the king’s respect for the prophet.
¹⁷tn Heb “saying.”
¹⁸tc The consonantal text (Kethib) reads, “Go, say, ‘Surely you will not (aO, lo’) recover” In this case the vav beginning the next clause should be translated, “for, because.” The marginal reading (Qere) has, “Go, say to him (ol, lo), ‘You will surely recover.” In this case the vav (w) beginning the next clause should be translated, “although, but.” The Qere has the support of some medieval Hebrew mss and the ancient versions, and is consistent with v. 14, where Hazael tells the king, “You will surely recover.” It is possible that a scribe has changed ol, “to him,” to aO, “not,” because he felt that Elisha would not lie to the king. See M. Cogan and H. Tadmor, II Kings (AB), 90. Another possibility is that a scribe has decided to harmonize Elisha’s message with Hazael’s words in v. 14. But it is possible that Hazael, once he found out he would become the next king, decided to lie to the king to facilitate his assassination plot by making the king feel secure.
¹⁹tn Heb “and he made his face stand [i.e., be motionless] and set [his face?] until embarrassment.”
²⁰tn Heb “Indeed, what is your servant, a dog, that he could do this great thing?” With his reference to a dog, Hazael is not denying that he is a “dog” and protesting that he would never commit such a dastardly “dog-like” deed. Rather, as Elisha’s response indicates, Hazael is suggesting that he, like a dog, is too insignificant to ever be in a position to lead such conquests.
²¹tn Heb “The Lord has shown me you [as] king over Syria.”
²²tn Heb “he”; the referent (Ben Hadad) has been specified in the translation for clarity.
²³tn Heb “he”; the referent (Hazael) has been specified in the translation for clarity.
²⁴tc The Hebrew text reads, “and in the fifth year of Joram son of Ahab king of Israel, and [or, ‘while’?] Jehoshaphat [was?] king of Judah, Jehoram son of Jehoshaphat king of Judah became king.” The first reference to “Jehoshaphat king of Judah” is probably due to a scribe accidentally copying the phrase from the later in the verse. If the Hebrew text is retained, the verse probably refers to the beginning of a coregency between Jehoshaphat and Jehoram.
²⁵map For location see Map5-B1; Map6-F3; Map7-E2; Map8-F2; Map10-B3; JP1-F4; JP2-F4; JP3-F4; JP4-F4.
²⁶tn Heb “he walked in the way of the kings of Israel, just as the house of Ahab did, for the daughter of Ahab was his wife.”
²⁷tn Heb “in the eyes of.”
²⁸tn The Hebrew has only one sentence, “and the Lord was unwilling to destroy Judah for the sake of.” The translation divides it for the sake of clarity.
²⁹tn Heb “just as he had promised to give him and his sons a lamp all the days.” The metaphorical “lamp” symbolizes the Davidic dynasty; this is reflected in the translation.
³⁰tn Heb “in his days Edom rebelled from under the hand of Judah and enthroned a king over them.”
³¹sn Joram is a short form of the name Jehoram.
³²tn Heb “and he arose at night and defeated Edom, who had surrounded him, and the chariot officers.” The Hebrew text as it stands gives the impression that Joram was surrounded and launched a victorious night counterattack. It would then be quite natural to understand the last statement in the verse to refer to an Edomite retreat. Yet v. 22 goes on to state that the Edomite revolt was successful. Therefore, if the MT is retained, it may be better to understand the final statement in v. 21 as a reference to an Israelite retreat (made in spite of the success described in the preceding sentence). The translation above assumes an emendation of the Hebrew text. Adding a third masculine singular pronominal suffix to the accusative sign before Edom (reading ota# [’eto], “him,” instead of just ta# [’et]) and taking Edom as the subject of verbs allows one to translate the verse in a way that is more consistent with the context, which depicts an Israelite defeat, not victory. There is, however, no evidence for this emendation.
³³tn Heb “and the people fled to their tents.”
³⁴tn Heb “and Edom rebelled from under the hand of Judah until this day.”
³⁵tn Heb “As for the rest of the acts of Joram and all which he did, are they not written on the scroll of the events of the days of the kings of Judah?”
³⁶tn Heb “lay down with his fathers.”
³⁷map For location see Map5-B1; Map6-F3; Map7-E2; Map8-F2; Map10-B3; JP1-F4; JP2-F4; JP3-F4; JP4-F4.
³⁸tn Hebrew tB^ (bat), “daughter,” can refer, as here to a granddaughter. See HALOT 166 s.v. tB^.
³⁹tn Heb “and he walked in the way of the house of Ahab and did evil in the eyes of the Lord like the house of Ahab, for he was a relative by marriage of the house of Ahab.” For this use of /t^j& (khatan), normally “son-in-law,” see HALOT 365 s.v. /t*j*. Ahab was Ahaziah’s grandfather on his mother’s side.
⁴⁰tn Heb “which the Syrians inflicted [on] him.”
⁴¹tn Heb “to see.”