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2 Kings 20-21
New English Translation

Hezekiah is Healed

20 In those days Hezekiah was stricken with a terminal illness.[a] The prophet Isaiah son of Amoz visited him and told him, “This is what the Lord has said, ‘Give your household instructions, for you are about to die; you will not get well.’”[b] 2 He turned his face to the wall and prayed to the Lord, 3 “Please, Lord. Remember how I have served you[c] faithfully and with wholehearted devotion,[d] and how I have carried out your will.”[e] Then Hezekiah wept bitterly.[f]

4 Isaiah had not yet left the middle courtyard[g] when the Lord’s message came to him, 5 “Go back and tell Hezekiah, the leader of my people: ‘This is what the Lord God of your ancestor David has said: “I have heard your prayer; I have seen your tears. Look, I will heal you. The day after tomorrow[h] you will go up to the Lord’s temple. 6 I will add fifteen years to your life and rescue you and this city from the king of Assyria. I will shield this city for the sake of my reputation and because of my promise to David my servant.”’”[i] 7 Isaiah ordered, “Get a fig cake.” So they did as he ordered[j] and placed it on the ulcerated sore, and he recovered.[k]

8 Hezekiah had said to Isaiah, “What is the confirming sign that the Lord will heal me and that I will go up to the Lord’s temple the day after tomorrow?” 9 Isaiah replied, “This is your sign from the Lord confirming that the Lord will do what he has said. Do you want the shadow to move ahead ten steps or to go back ten steps?”[l] 10 Hezekiah answered, “It is easy for the shadow to lengthen ten steps, but not for it[m] to go back ten steps.” 11 Isaiah the prophet called out to the Lord, and the Lord[n] made the shadow go back ten steps on the stairs of Ahaz.[o]

Messengers from Babylon Visit Hezekiah

12 At that time Merodach Baladan[p] son of Baladan, king of Babylon, sent messengers with letters and a gift to Hezekiah, for he had heard that Hezekiah was ill. 13 Hezekiah welcomed[q] them and showed them his whole storehouse, with its silver, gold, spices, and high quality olive oil, as well as his armory and everything in his treasuries. Hezekiah showed them everything in his palace and in his whole kingdom.[r] 14 Isaiah the prophet visited King Hezekiah and asked him, “What did these men say? Where do they come from?” Hezekiah replied, “They come from the distant land of Babylon.” 15 Isaiah[s] asked, “What have they seen in your palace?” Hezekiah replied, “They have seen everything in my palace. I showed them everything[t] in my treasuries.” 16 Isaiah said to Hezekiah, “Listen to the Lord’s message, 17 ‘Look, a time is[u] coming when everything in your palace and the things your ancestors have accumulated to this day will be carried away to Babylon; nothing will be left,’ says the Lord. 18 ‘Some of your very own descendants whom you father[v] will be taken away and will be made eunuchs in the palace of the king of Babylon.’” 19 Hezekiah said to Isaiah, “The Lord’s message which you have announced is appropriate.”[w] Then he added,[x] “At least there will be peace and stability during my lifetime.”[y]

20 The rest of the events of Hezekiah’s reign and all his accomplishments, including how he built a pool and conduit to bring[z] water into the city, are recorded in the scroll called the Annals of the Kings of Judah.[aa] 21 Hezekiah passed away[ab] and his son Manasseh replaced him as king.

Manasseh’s Reign over Judah

21 Manasseh was twelve years old when he became king, and he reigned for fifty-five years in Jerusalem. His mother[ac] was Hephzibah. 2 He did evil in the sight of[ad] the Lord and committed the same horrible sins practiced by the nations[ae] whom the Lord drove out before the Israelites. 3 He rebuilt the high places that his father Hezekiah had destroyed; he set up altars for Baal and made an Asherah pole just as King Ahab of Israel had done. He bowed down to all the stars in the sky[af] and worshiped[ag] them. 4 He built altars in the Lord’s temple, about which the Lord had said, “Jerusalem will be my home.”[ah] 5 In the two courtyards of the Lord’s temple he built altars for all the stars in the sky. 6 He passed his son[ai] through the fire[aj] and practiced divination and omen reading. He set up a ritual pit to conjure up underworld spirits and appointed magicians to supervise it.[ak] He did a great amount of evil in the sight of the Lord, provoking him to anger.[al] 7 He put an idol of Asherah he had made in the temple, about which the Lord had said to David and to his son Solomon, “This temple in Jerusalem, which I have chosen out of all the tribes of Israel, will be my permanent home.[am] 8 I will not make Israel again leave the land I gave to their ancestors,[an] provided that they carefully obey all I commanded them, the whole law my servant Moses ordered them to obey.” 9 But they did not obey,[ao] and Manasseh misled them so that they sinned more than the nations whom the Lord had destroyed from before the Israelites.

10 So the Lord announced through[ap] his servants the prophets: 11 “King Manasseh of Judah has committed horrible sins.[aq] He has sinned more than the Amorites before him and has encouraged Judah to sin by worshiping his disgusting idols.[ar] 12 So this is what the Lord God of Israel has said, ‘I am about to bring disaster on Jerusalem and Judah. The news will reverberate in the ears of those who hear about it.[as] 13 I will destroy Jerusalem the same way I did Samaria and the dynasty of Ahab.[at] I will wipe Jerusalem clean, just as one wipes a plate on both sides.[au] 14 I will abandon this last remaining tribe among my people[av] and hand them over to their enemies; they will be plundered and robbed by all their enemies,[aw] 15 because they have done evil in my sight[ax] and have angered me from the time their ancestors left Egypt right up to this very day!’”

16 Furthermore Manasseh killed so many innocent people, he stained Jerusalem with their blood from end to end,[ay] in addition to encouraging Judah to sin by doing evil in the sight of the Lord.[az]

17 The rest of the events of Manasseh’s reign and all his accomplishments, as well as the sinful acts he committed, are recorded in the scroll called the Annals of the Kings of Judah.[ba] 18 Manasseh passed away[bb] and was buried in his palace garden, the garden of Uzzah, and his son Amon replaced him as king.

Amon’s Reign over Judah

19 Amon was twenty-two years old when he became king, and he reigned for two years in Jerusalem. His mother[bc] was Meshullemeth, the daughter of Haruz, from Jotbah. 20 He did evil in the sight of[bd] the Lord, just as his father Manasseh had done. 21 He followed in the footsteps of his father[be] and worshiped and bowed down to the disgusting idols[bf] that his father had worshiped.[bg] 22 He abandoned the Lord, God of his ancestors, and did not follow the Lord’s instructions.[bh] 23 Amon’s servants conspired against him and killed the king in his palace. 24 The people of the land executed all those who had conspired against King Amon, and they[bi] made his son Josiah king in his place.

25 The rest of Amon’s accomplishments are recorded in the scroll called the Annals of the Kings of Judah.[bj] 26 He was buried[bk] in his tomb in the garden of Uzzah, and his son Josiah replaced him as king.

Footnotes

  1. 2 Kings 20:1 tn Heb “was sick to the point of dying.”
  2. 2 Kings 20:1 tn Heb “will not live.”
  3. 2 Kings 20:3 tn Heb “walked before you.” For a helpful discussion of the background and meaning of this Hebrew idiom, see M. Cogan and H. Tadmor, II Kings (AB), 254.
  4. 2 Kings 20:3 tn Heb “and with a complete heart.”
  5. 2 Kings 20:3 tn Heb “and that which is good in your eyes I have done.”
  6. 2 Kings 20:3 tn Heb “wept with great weeping.”
  7. 2 Kings 20:4 tc “Courtyard” (חָצֵר, khatser) is the reading tradition (Qere) also supported by the LXX, while the written text (Kethib) has הָעִיר (haʿir), “the city.”
  8. 2 Kings 20:5 tn Heb “on the third day.”
  9. 2 Kings 20:6 tn Heb “for my sake and for the sake of David my servant.”
  10. 2 Kings 20:7 tn Heb “and they got [a fig cake].”
  11. 2 Kings 20:7 tn Heb “and he lived.”
  12. 2 Kings 20:9 tn The Hebrew הָלַךְ (halakh, a perfect), “it has moved ahead,” should be emended to הֲיֵלֵךְ (hayelekh, an imperfect with interrogative he [ה] prefixed), “shall it move ahead.”
  13. 2 Kings 20:10 tn Heb “the shadow.” The noun has been replaced by the pronoun (“it”) in the translation for stylistic reasons.
  14. 2 Kings 20:11 tn Heb “he”; the referent (the Lord) has been specified in the translation for clarity.
  15. 2 Kings 20:11 tn Heb “made the shadow return, on the steps which [the sun] had gone down, on the steps of Ahaz, back ten steps.” sn These steps probably functioned as a type of sundial. See HALOT 614 s.v. מַעֲלָה and M. Cogan and H. Tadmor, II Kings (AB), 256.
  16. 2 Kings 20:12 tc The MT has “Berodach-Baladan,” but several Hebrew, Greek, Aramaic, and Latin witnesses agree with the parallel passage in Isa 39:1 and read “Merodach Baladan.”
  17. 2 Kings 20:13 tc Heb “listened to.” Some Hebrew mss, as well as the LXX, Syriac, and Vulgate versions agree with the parallel passage in Isa 39:2 and read, “was happy with.”
  18. 2 Kings 20:13 tn Heb “there was nothing which Hezekiah did not show them in his house and in all his kingdom.”
  19. 2 Kings 20:15 tn Heb “he”; the referent (Isaiah) has been specified in the translation for clarity.
  20. 2 Kings 20:15 tn Heb “there was not a thing that I did not show them.”
  21. 2 Kings 20:17 tn Heb “days are.”
  22. 2 Kings 20:18 tn Heb “Some of your sons, who go out from you, whom you father.”
  23. 2 Kings 20:19 tn Heb “good.”
  24. 2 Kings 20:19 tn Heb “and he said.” Many English versions translate, “for he thought.” The verb אָמַר (ʾamar), “say,” is sometimes used of what one thinks (that is, says to oneself). Cf. NAB, NASB, NIV, NRSV, NLT.
  25. 2 Kings 20:19 tn Heb “Is it not [true] there will be peace and stability in my days?” The rhetorical question expects the answer, “Yes, there will be peace and stability.”
  26. 2 Kings 20:20 tn Heb “and he brought.”
  27. 2 Kings 20:20 tn Heb “As for the rest of the events of Hezekiah, and all his strength, and how he made a pool and a conduit and brought water to the city, are they not written on the scroll of the events of the days of the kings of Judah?”
  28. 2 Kings 20:21 tn Heb “lay down with his fathers.”
  29. 2 Kings 21:1 tn Heb “the name of his mother.”
  30. 2 Kings 21:2 tn Heb “in the eyes of.”
  31. 2 Kings 21:2 tn Heb “like the abominable practices of the nations.”
  32. 2 Kings 21:3 sn See the note at 2 Kgs 17:16.
  33. 2 Kings 21:3 tn Or “served.”
  34. 2 Kings 21:4 tn Heb “In Jerusalem I will place my name.”
  35. 2 Kings 21:6 tc The LXX has the plural “his sons” here.
  36. 2 Kings 21:6 sn See the note at 2 Kgs 16:3.
  37. 2 Kings 21:6 tn Heb “and he set up a ritual pit, along with conjurers.” The Hebrew אוֹב (ʾov), “ritual pit,” refers to a pit used by a magician to conjure up underworld spirits. In 1 Sam 28:7 the witch of Endor is called a בַעֲלַת אוֹב (baʿalat ʾov), “owner of a ritual pit.” See H. Hoffner, “Second millennium Antecedents to the Hebrew, ʾÔḆ” JBL 86 (1967), 385-401.
  38. 2 Kings 21:6 tc Heb “and he multiplied doing what is evil in the eyes of the Lord, angering.” The third masculine singular pronominal suffix (“him”) has been accidentally omitted in the MT by haplography (note the vav that immediately follows).
  39. 2 Kings 21:7 tn Heb “In this house and in Jerusalem, which I chose from all the tribes of Israel, I will place my name perpetually (or perhaps “forever”).”
  40. 2 Kings 21:8 tn Heb “I will not again make the feet of Israel wander from the land which I gave to their fathers.”
  41. 2 Kings 21:9 tn Heb “listen.”
  42. 2 Kings 21:10 tn Heb “spoke by the hand of.”
  43. 2 Kings 21:11 tn Heb “these horrible sins.”
  44. 2 Kings 21:11 sn See the note at 1 Kgs 15:12.
  45. 2 Kings 21:12 tn Heb “so that everyone who hears it, his two ears will quiver.”
  46. 2 Kings 21:13 tn Heb “I will stretch out over Jerusalem the measuring line of Samaria, and the plumb line of the house of Ahab.” The measuring line and plumb line are normally used in building a structure, not tearing it down. But here they are used ironically as metaphors of judgment, emphasizing that he will give careful attention to the task of judgment.
  47. 2 Kings 21:13 tn Heb “just as one wipes a plate, wiping and turning [it] on its face.” The word picture emphasizes how thoroughly the Lord will judge the city.
  48. 2 Kings 21:14 tn Heb “the remnant of my inheritance.” In this context the Lord’s remnant is the tribe of Judah, which had been preserved when the Assyrians conquered and deported the northern tribes. See 17:18 and M. Cogan and H. Tadmor, II Kings (AB), 269.
  49. 2 Kings 21:14 tn Heb “they will become plunder and spoils of war for all their enemies.”
  50. 2 Kings 21:15 tn Heb “in my eyes.”
  51. 2 Kings 21:16 tn Heb “and also Manasseh shed very much innocent blood, until he filled Jerusalem from mouth to mouth.”
  52. 2 Kings 21:16 tn Heb “apart from his sin which he caused Judah to commit, by doing what is evil in the eyes of the Lord.”
  53. 2 Kings 21:17 tn Heb “As for the rest of the events of Manasseh, and all that he did, and his sin which he committed, are they not written on the scroll of the events of the days of the kings of Judah?”
  54. 2 Kings 21:18 tn Heb “lay down with his fathers.”
  55. 2 Kings 21:19 tn Heb “the name of his mother.”
  56. 2 Kings 21:20 tn Heb “in the eyes of.”
  57. 2 Kings 21:21 tn Heb “walked in all the way which his father walked.”
  58. 2 Kings 21:21 sn See the note at 1 Kgs 15:12.
  59. 2 Kings 21:21 tn Heb “and he served the disgusting idols which his father served and he bowed down to them.”
  60. 2 Kings 21:22 tn Heb “and did not walk in the way of the Lord.”
  61. 2 Kings 21:24 tn Heb “the people of the land.” The pronoun “they” has been used in the translation for stylistic reasons, to avoid the repetition of the phrase “the people of the land” from the beginning of the verse.
  62. 2 Kings 21:25 tc Heb “As for the rest of the things of Amon which he did, are they not written on the scroll of the events of the days of the kings of Judah?” Many Hebrew mss have וְכָל (vekhol), “and all,” before אֲשֶׁר (ʾasher). In this case we can translate, “As for the rest of the events of Amon’s reign, and all his accomplishments,….”
  63. 2 Kings 21:26 tn Heb “he buried him.” Here “he” probably refers to Amon’s son Josiah.
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