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2 Kings 3
New English Translation

Moab Fights with Israel

3 In the eighteenth year of King Jehoshaphat’s reign over Judah, Ahab’s son Jehoram became king over Israel in Samaria; he ruled for twelve years. 2 He did evil in the sight of[a] the Lord, but not to the same degree as his father and mother. He did remove the sacred pillar of Baal that his father had made. 3 Yet he persisted in[b] the sins of Jeroboam son of Nebat, who encouraged Israel to sin; he did not turn from them.[c]

4 Now King Mesha of Moab was a sheep breeder.[d] He would send as tribute[e] to the king of Israel 100,000 male lambs and the wool of 100,000 rams. 5 When Ahab died, the king of Moab rebelled against the king of Israel. 6 At that time King Jehoram left Samaria and assembled all Israel for war. 7 He sent[f] this message to King Jehoshaphat of Judah: “The king of Moab has rebelled against me. Will you fight with me against Moab?” Jehoshaphat[g] replied, “I will join you in the campaign; my army and horses are at your disposal.”[h] 8 He then asked, “Which invasion route are we going to take?”[i] Jehoram[j] answered, “By the road through the wilderness of Edom.” 9 So the kings of Israel, Judah, and Edom[k] set out together. They wandered around on the road for seven days and finally ran out of water for the men and animals they had with them. 10 The king of Israel said, “Oh no![l] Certainly the Lord has summoned these three kings so that he can hand them over to the king of Moab!” 11 Jehoshaphat asked, “Is there no prophet of the Lord here that we might seek the Lord’s direction?”[m] One of the servants of the king of Israel answered, “Elisha son of Shapat is here; he used to be Elijah’s servant.”[n] 12 Jehoshaphat said, “Yes, he receives the Lord’s messages.”[o] So the king of Israel and Jehoshaphat and the king of Edom went down to visit him.

13 Elisha said to the king of Israel, “Why are you here?[p] Go to your father’s prophets or your mother’s prophets!” The king of Israel replied to him, “No, for the Lord is the one who summoned these three kings so that he can hand them over to Moab.” 14 Elisha said, “As certainly as the Lord of Heaven’s Armies[q] lives (whom I serve),[r] if I did not respect King Jehoshaphat of Judah,[s] I would not pay attention to you or acknowledge you.[t] 15 But now, get me a musician.”[u] When the musician played, the Lord energized him,[v] 16 and he said, “This is what the Lord has said, ‘Make many cisterns in this valley,’[w] 17 for this is what the Lord has said, ‘You will not feel[x] any wind or see any rain, but this valley will be full of water, and you and your cattle and animals will drink.’ 18 This is an easy task for the Lord;[y] he will also hand Moab over to you. 19 You will defeat every fortified city and every important[z] city. You must chop down[aa] every productive[ab] tree, stop up all the springs, and cover all the cultivated land with stones.”[ac]

20 Sure enough, the next morning, at the time of the morning sacrifice, water came flowing down from Edom and filled the land.[ad] 21 Now all Moab had heard that the kings were attacking,[ae] so everyone old enough to fight was mustered and placed at the border.[af] 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[ag] said, “It’s blood! The kings must have fought one another![ah] The soldiers have struck one another down![ai] 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[aj] thoroughly defeated[ak] Moab. 25 They tore down the cities, and each man threw a stone into every cultivated field until they were covered.[al] They stopped up every spring and chopped down every productive tree.

Only Kir Hareseth was left intact,[am] but the soldiers armed with slings surrounded it and attacked it. 26 When the king of Moab realized he was losing the battle,[an] he and 700 swordsmen tried to break through and attack[ao] 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,[ap] so they broke off the attack[aq] and returned to their homeland.

Footnotes

  1. 2 Kings 3:2 tn Heb “in the eyes of.”
  2. 2 Kings 3:3 tn Heb “held tight,” or “clung to.”
  3. 2 Kings 3:3 tc The Hebrew text has the singular, “it.” Some ancient witnesses read the plural, which seems preferable since the antecedent (“sins”) is plural. Another option is to emend the plural “sins” to a singular. One ancient Greek witness has the singular “sin.”
  4. 2 Kings 3:4 tn For a discussion of the meaning of term נֹקֵד (noqed) as “sheep breeder,” see M. Cogan and H. Tadmor, II Kings (AB), 43.
  5. 2 Kings 3:4 tn The vav + perfect here indicates customary action contemporary with the situation described in the preceding main clause. See IBHS 533-34 §32.2.3e.
  6. 2 Kings 3:7 tn Heb “went and sent.”
  7. 2 Kings 3:7 tn Heb “he”; the referent (Jehoshaphat) has been specified in the translation for clarity.
  8. 2 Kings 3:7 tn Heb “I will go up—like me, like you; like my people, like your people; like my horses; like your horses.”
  9. 2 Kings 3:8 tn Heb “Where is the road we will go up?”
  10. 2 Kings 3:8 tn Heb “he”; the referent (Jehoram) has been specified in the translation for clarity.
  11. 2 Kings 3:9 tn Heb “the king of Israel and the king of Judah and the king of Edom.”
  12. 2 Kings 3:10 tn Or “ah.”
  13. 2 Kings 3:11 tn Heb “that we might inquire of the Lord through him?”
  14. 2 Kings 3:11 tn Heb “who poured water on the hands of Elijah.” This refers to one of the typical tasks of a servant.
  15. 2 Kings 3:12 tn Heb “the Lord’s message is with him.”
  16. 2 Kings 3:13 tn Or “What do we have in common?” The text reads literally, “What to me and to you?”
  17. 2 Kings 3:14 tn Traditionally “the Lord of hosts.”
  18. 2 Kings 3:14 tn Heb “before whom I stand.”
  19. 2 Kings 3:14 tn Heb “if I did not lift up the face of Jehoshaphat the king of Judah.”
  20. 2 Kings 3:14 tn Heb “I would not look at you or see you.”
  21. 2 Kings 3:15 tn The term used refers to one who plays a stringed instrument, perhaps a harp.
  22. 2 Kings 3:15 tn Heb “the hand of the Lord came on him.” This may refer to what typically happened, “[for] when a musician played, the hand of the Lord would come upon him.”
  23. 2 Kings 3:16 tn Heb “making this valley cisterns, cisterns.” The Hebrew noun גֵּב (gev) means “cistern” in Jer 14:3 (cf. Jer 39:10). The repetition of the noun is for emphasis. See GKC 396 §123.e. The verb (“making”) is an infinitive absolute, which has to be interpreted in light of the context. The translation above takes it in an imperatival sense. The command need not be understood as literal, but as hyperbolic. Telling them to build cisterns is a dramatic way of leading into the announcement that he would miraculously provide water in the desert. Some prefer to translate the infinitive as an imperfect with the Lord as the understood subject, “I will turn this valley [into] many pools.”
  24. 2 Kings 3:17 tn Heb “see.”
  25. 2 Kings 3:18 tn Heb “and this is easy in the eyes of the Lord.”
  26. 2 Kings 3:19 tn Heb “choice” or “select.”
  27. 2 Kings 3:19 tn Elisha places the object first and uses an imperfect verb form. The stylistic shift may signal that he is now instructing them what to do, rather than merely predicting what would happen.
  28. 2 Kings 3:19 tn Heb “good.”
  29. 2 Kings 3:19 tn Heb “and ruin every good portion with stones.”
  30. 2 Kings 3:20 tn Heb “and in the morning, when the offering is offered up, look, water was coming from the way of Edom, and the land was filled with water.”
  31. 2 Kings 3:21 tn Heb “had come up to fight them.”
  32. 2 Kings 3:21 tn Heb “and they mustered all who tied on a belt and upwards, and they stood at the border.”
  33. 2 Kings 3:23 tn Heb “they”; the referent (the Moabites) has been specified in the translation for clarity.
  34. 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.
  35. 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.
  36. 2 Kings 3:24 tn Heb “they.”
  37. 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.
  38. 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.
  39. 2 Kings 3:25 tn Heb “until he had allowed its stones to remain in Kir Hareseth.”
  40. 2 Kings 3:26 tn Heb “and the king of Moab saw that the battle was too strong for him.”
  41. 2 Kings 3:26 tn Heb “he took with him seven hundred men, who drew the sword, to break through against.”
  42. 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.
  43. 2 Kings 3:27 tn Heb “they departed from him.”
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列王纪下 3
Chinese New Version (Simplified)

以色列王约兰

3 犹大王约沙法第十八年，亚哈的儿子约兰在撒玛利亚作王，统治以色列；他作王共有十二年。 2 他行耶和华看为恶的事，只是还不至于像他的父亲和母亲一样，因为他除去了他父亲所做的巴力神柱。 3 只是尼八的儿子耶罗波安使以色列人陷在罪中的那些罪，他却坚持不舍，不肯脱离。

摩押背叛

4 摩押王米沙是个以牧羊为生的人。他每年进贡十万头绵羊羔和十万头公羊羔给以色列王。 5 亚哈死后，摩押王背叛以色列王。 6 那时约兰王从撒玛利亚出来点阅以色列众人。 7 他一面起行，一面派人到犹大王约沙法那里，说：“摩押王背叛了我，你肯不肯和我同去攻打摩押呢？”约沙法说：“我愿意去；我和你不分彼此，我的人民就像是你的人民，我的马就像是你的马。” 8 约沙法问：“我们从哪条路上去呢？”约兰回答：“从以东旷野的路上去。”

三王联军合攻摩押

9 于是以色列王、犹大王和以东王，绕道行了七日的路程。军队和随行的牲畜都没有水喝。 10 以色列王说：“哎哟，耶和华招聚这三位君王，是要把他们交在摩押人的手中。” 11 约沙法说：“这里不是有一位耶和华的先知吗？我们可以托他求问耶和华。”以色列王的一位臣仆说：“这里有沙法的儿子以利沙，他从前是服事以利亚的（“他从前是服事以利亚的”原文作“他从前倒水在以利亚手上”）。” 12 约沙法说：“他必有耶和华的话。”于是以色列王、约沙法和以东王都下到他那里。

以利沙的教训与预言

13 以利沙对以色列王说：“我和你有甚么关系呢？去问你父亲和你母亲的先知吧！”以色列王对他说：“不要这样说，耶和华招聚这三位君王，是要把他们交在摩押人手中。” 14 以利沙说：“我指着我所事奉永活的万军耶和华起誓，若不是看犹大王约沙法的情面，我根本不会理你，看也不看你。 15 现在，给我找一个琴师来。”当琴师弹琴的时候，耶和华的能力就临到他身上。 16 以利沙说：“耶和华这样说：‘要在这山谷到处挖濠沟。’ 17 因为耶和华这样说：‘你们虽然没有看见风，也没有看见雨，但这山谷必充满了水，你们和你们的牲畜都可以有水喝。 18 这事在耶和华眼中算是小事，他还要把摩押交在你们手中。 19 你们要攻破所有坚固的城和一切繁华的都市；砍下各种佳美的树木，堵塞所有水泉，用石头堆满一切肥沃的田地。’” 20 到了早上，约在献祭的时候，忽然有水从以东来，遍地就满了水。

摩押人战败

21 摩押全国听见这几位君王上来要攻打他们，就召集所有能够穿上武装的，不论老幼，到边界上防守。 22 第二天早上，他们起来的时候，太阳照在水上，摩押人从那边看见水红得像血一样。 23 他们说：“这是血啊！一定是那些王互相攻击，自相残杀；现在，摩押人哪，去抢掠吧！” 24 他们来到以色列营，以色列人起来，击杀摩押人，摩押人就在以色列人面前逃跑；以色列人就攻进摩押，击杀他们。 25 他们毁坏城市，各人向一切肥沃的田地拋掷石头，把田地填满了，又堵塞一切水泉，砍下各种佳美的树木，直到吉珥．哈列设只剩下石头，甩石的兵把它包围，攻击它。 26 摩押王见战事激烈，无法抵抗，于是带领七百持刀的兵，想要突围到以东王那里，可是不成功， 27 于是他把那要接续他作王的长子，在城墙上献为燔祭。以色列人就遭遇极大的忿怒，于是离开他，回到自己的地方去了。

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