2tn Heb “he”; the referent (the king) has been specified in the translation for clarity.

3tn Heb “sent a man from before him, before the messenger came to him.”

4tn Heb “he”; the referent (Elisha) has been specified in the translation for clarity.

5tn Heb “elders.”

6tn Heb “Do you see that this son of an assassin has sent to remove my head?”

7tn Heb “Is not the sound of his master’s footsteps behind him?”

8tn The Hebrew text also has “look” here.

9tn Heb “came down to him.”

10tn Heb “Look, this is a disaster from the Lord.”

11sn A seah was a dry measure equivalent to about 7 quarts.

12tn Heb “the officer on whose hand the king leans.”

13tn Heb “man of God.”

14tn Heb “the Lord was making holes in the sky, could this thing be?” Opening holes in the sky would allow the waters stored up there to pour to the earth and assure a good crop. But, the officer argues, even if this were to happen, it would take a long time to grow and harvest the crop.

15tn Heb “he”; the referent (Elisha) has been specified in the translation for clarity.

16tn Heb “you will not eat from there.”

17sn See the note at 2 Kgs 5:1.

18tn Heb “until we die.”

19tn Heb “If we say, ‘We will enter the city,’ the famine is in the city and we will die there.”

20tn Heb “fall.”

21tn Heb “keep us alive.”

22tn Heb “we will die.” The paraphrastic translation attempts to bring out the logical force of their reasoning.

23tn Heb “they arose to go to.”

24tn Heb “they ate and drank.”

25tn Heb “and they hid [it].”

26tn Heb “and they took from there.”

27tn Heb “this day is a day of good news and we are keeping silent.”

28tn Heb “the light of the morning.”

29tn Heb “punishment will find us.”

30tn The MT has a singular form (“gatekeeper”), but the context suggests a plural. The pronoun that follows (“them”) is plural and a plural noun appears in v. 11. The Syriac Peshitta and the Targum have the plural here.

31tn Heb “and, look, there was no man or voice of a man there.”

32tn Heb “but the horses are tied up and the donkeys are tied up and the tents are as they were.”

33tn Heb “and the gatekeepers called out and they told [it] to the house of the king.”

34tn Heb “servants” (also in v. 13).

35tn Heb “Let them take five of the remaining horses that remain in it. Look, they are like all the people of Israel that remain in it. Look, they are like all the people of Israel that have come to an end.” The MT is dittographic here; the words “that remain in it. Look they are like all the people of Israel” have been accidentally repeated. The original text read, “Let them take five of the remaining horses that remain in it. Look, they are like all the people of Israel that have come to an end.”

36tn Heb “and let us send so we might see.”

37tn Heb “and the king sent [them] after the Syrian camp.”

38tn Heb “Go and see.”

39tn Heb “went after.”

40tn Heb “and look, all the road was full of clothes and equipment that Syria had thrown away in their haste.”

41tn Or “messengers.”

42sn A seah was a dry measure equivalent to about 7 quarts.

43tn Heb “according to the word of the Lord.”

44tn Heb “the officer on whose hand he leans.”

45tn Heb “and the people trampled him in the gate and he died.”

46tn Heb “just as the man of God had spoken, [the word] which he spoke when the king came down to him.”

47tn Heb “the Lord was making holes in the sky, could this thing be?” See the note at 7:2.

48tn Heb “he”; the referent (Elisha) has been specified in the translation for clarity.

49tn Heb “you will not eat from there.”

tn In the Hebrew text vv. 18-19a are one lengthy sentence, “When the man of God spoke to the king…, the officer replied to the man of God, ‘Look…so soon?’” The translation divides this sentence up for stylistic reasons.