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2 Kings 11:1-11
New English Translation

Athaliah is Eliminated

11 When Athaliah, the mother of Ahaziah, saw that her son was dead, she was determined to destroy the entire royal line.[a] 2 So Jehosheba, the daughter of King Jehoram[b] and sister of Ahaziah, took Ahaziah’s son Joash and stole him away from the rest of the royal descendants who were to be executed. She hid him and his nurse in the room where the bed covers were stored.[c] So he was hidden from Athaliah and escaped execution.[d] 3 He hid out with his nurse in the Lord’s temple[e] for six years, while Athaliah was ruling over the land.

4 In the seventh year Jehoiada summoned[f] the officers of the units of hundreds of the Carians[g] and the royal bodyguard.[h] He met with them[i] in the Lord’s temple. He made an agreement[j] with them and made them swear an oath of allegiance in the Lord’s temple. Then he showed them the king’s son. 5 He ordered them, “This is what you must do. One third of the unit that is on duty during the Sabbath will guard the royal palace. 6 Another third of you will be stationed at the Foundation[k] Gate. Still another third of you will be stationed at the gate behind the royal guard.[l] You will take turns guarding the palace.[m] 7 The two units who are off duty on the Sabbath will guard the Lord’s temple and protect the king.[n] 8 You must surround the king. Each of you must hold his weapon in his hand. Whoever approaches your ranks must be killed. You must accompany the king wherever he goes.”[o]

9 The officers of the units of hundreds did just as[p] Jehoiada the priest ordered. Each of them took his men, those who were on duty during the Sabbath as well as those who were off duty on the Sabbath, and reported[q] to Jehoiada the priest. 10 The priest gave to the officers of the units of hundreds King David’s spears and the shields that were kept in the Lord’s temple. 11 The royal bodyguard[r] took their stations, each holding his weapon in his hand. They lined up from the south side of the temple to the north side and stood near the altar and the temple, surrounding the king.[s]

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Footnotes

  1. 2 Kings 11:1 tn Heb “she arose and she destroyed all the royal offspring.” The verb קוּם (qum) “arise,” is here used in an auxiliary sense to indicate that she embarked on a campaign to destroy the royal offspring. See M. Cogan and H. Tadmor, II Kings (AB), 125.
  2. 2 Kings 11:2 tn Heb “Joram,” which is a short form of the name Jehoram.
  3. 2 Kings 11:2 tn Heb “him and his nurse in an inner room of beds.” The verb is missing in the Hebrew text. The parallel passage in 2 Chr 22:11 has “and she put” at the beginning of the clause. M. Cogan and H. Tadmor (II Kings [AB], 126) regard the Chronicles passage as an editorial attempt to clarify the difficulty of the original text. They prefer to take “him and his nurse” as objects of the verb “stole” and understand “in the bedroom” as the place where the royal descendants were executed. The phrase בַּחֲדַר הַמִּטּוֹת (bakhadar hammittot), “an inner room of beds,” is sometimes understood as referring to a bedroom (HALOT 293 s.v. חֶדֶר), though some prefer to see here a “room where the covers and cloths were kept” for the beds (HALOT 573 s.v. מִטָּת). In either case, it may have been a temporary hideout, for v. 3 indicates that the child hid at the temple for six years.
  4. 2 Kings 11:2 tn Heb “and they hid him from Athaliah and he was not put to death.” The subject of the plural verb (“they hid”) is probably indefinite.
  5. 2 Kings 11:3 tn Heb “and he was with her [in] the house of the Lord hiding.”
  6. 2 Kings 11:4 tn Heb “Jehoiada sent and took.”
  7. 2 Kings 11:4 sn The Carians were apparently a bodyguard, probably comprised of foreigners. See HALOT 497 s.v. כָּרִי and M. Cogan and H. Tadmor, II Kings (AB), 126.
  8. 2 Kings 11:4 tn Heb “the runners.”
  9. 2 Kings 11:4 tn Heb “he brought them to himself.”
  10. 2 Kings 11:4 tn Or “covenant.”
  11. 2 Kings 11:6 tn Heb “the gate of Sur” (followed by many English versions) but no such gate is mentioned elsewhere in the OT. The parallel account in 2 Chr 23:5 has “Foundation Gate.” סוּר (sur), “Sur,” may need to be emended to יְסוֹד (yesod) “foundation,” involving in part dalet-resh confusion.
  12. 2 Kings 11:6 tn Heb “the runners.”
  13. 2 Kings 11:6 tn The meaning of מַסָּח (massakh) is not certain. The translation above, rather than understanding it as a genitive modifying “house,” takes it as an adverb describing how the groups will guard the palace. See HALOT 605 s.v. מַסָּח for the proposed meaning “alternating” (i.e., “in turns”).
  14. 2 Kings 11:7 tn Verses 5b-7 read literally, “the third of you, the ones entering [on] the Sabbath and the ones guarding the guard of the house of the king, and the third in the gate of Sur, and the third in the gate behind the runners, and you will guard the guard of the house, alternating. And the two units of you, all the ones going out [on] the Sabbath, and they will guard the guard of the house of the Lord for the king.” The precise meaning of this text is impossible to determine. It would appear that the Carians and royal bodyguard were divided into three units. One unit would serve during the Sabbath; the other two would be off duty on the Sabbath. Jehoiada divided the first unit into three groups and assigned them different locations. The two off duty units were assigned the task of guarding the king.
  15. 2 Kings 11:8 tn Heb “and be with the king in his going out and in his coming in.”
  16. 2 Kings 11:9 tn Heb “according to all that.”
  17. 2 Kings 11:9 tn Heb “came.”
  18. 2 Kings 11:11 tn Heb “the runners” (also in v. 19).
  19. 2 Kings 11:11 tn Heb “and the runners stood, each with his weapons in his hand, from the south shoulder of the house to the north shoulder of the house, at the altar and at the house, near the king all around.”
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2 Kings 10
2 Kings 12
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Nehemiah 13:26
New English Translation

26 Was it not because of things like these that King Solomon of Israel sinned? Among the many nations there was no king like him. He was loved by his God, and God made[a] him king over all Israel. But the foreign wives made even him sin!

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Footnotes

  1. Nehemiah 13:26 tn Heb “gave.”
Nehemiah 13:26 in all English translations
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Nehemiah 12
Esther 1
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New English Translation (NET)

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