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2 Kings 3:21-27
New English Translation

21 Now all Moab had heard that the kings were attacking,[a] so everyone old enough to fight was mustered and placed at the border.[b] 22 When they got up early the next morning, the sun was shining on the water. To the Moabites, who were some distance away, the water looked red like blood. 23 The Moabites[c] said, “It’s blood! The kings must have fought one another![d] The soldiers have struck one another down![e] Now, Moab, seize the plunder!” 24 When they approached the Israelite camp, the Israelites rose up and struck down the Moabites, who then ran from them. The Israelites[f] thoroughly defeated[g] Moab. 25 They tore down the cities, and each man threw a stone into every cultivated field until they were covered.[h] They stopped up every spring and chopped down every productive tree.

Only Kir Hareseth was left intact,[i] but the soldiers armed with slings surrounded it and attacked it. 26 When the king of Moab realized he was losing the battle,[j] he and 700 swordsmen tried to break through and attack[k] the king of Edom, but they failed. 27 So he took his firstborn son, who was to succeed him as king, and offered him up as a burnt sacrifice on the wall. There was an outburst of divine anger against Israel,[l] so they broke off the attack[m] and returned to their homeland.

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Footnotes

  1. 2 Kings 3:21 tn Heb “had come up to fight them.”
  2. 2 Kings 3:21 tn Heb “and they mustered all who tied on a belt and upwards, and they stood at the border.”
  3. 2 Kings 3:23 tn Heb “they”; the referent (the Moabites) has been specified in the translation for clarity.
  4. 2 Kings 3:23 tn The translation assumes the verb is II חָרַב (kharav) meaning “to fight one another” in the Nifal (HALOT 349 s.v. II חרב and BDB 352 s.v. חָרְבָה), a denominative verb based on the noun חֶרֶב (kherev, “sword”). The infinitive absolute precedes the finite verb form to emphasize the modality (here indicative mode) of the main verb. (For another example of the Hophal infinitive with a Niphal finite verb, see Lev 19:20. Cf. also IBHS 582 §35.2.1c.) It might also be I חָרַב (kharav) meaning “to be desolate.” But because that describes a result, it makes less sense to precede the verb “then they struck one another down.
  5. 2 Kings 3:23 tn Heb “Each struck down his counterpart.” The presumption is that the armies are wiped out, not just that the kings killed each other.
  6. 2 Kings 3:24 tn Heb “they.”
  7. 2 Kings 3:24 tc 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.
  8. 2 Kings 3:25 tn 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.
  9. 2 Kings 3:25 tn Heb “until he had allowed its stones to remain in Kir Hareseth.”
  10. 2 Kings 3:26 tn Heb “and the king of Moab saw that the battle was too strong for him.”
  11. 2 Kings 3:26 tn Heb “he took with him seven hundred men, who drew the sword, to break through against.”
  12. 2 Kings 3:27 tn 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 קֶצֶף (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.
  13. 2 Kings 3:27 tn Heb “they departed from him.”
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