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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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2 Reyes 3
Reina Valera Contemporánea

Reinado de Jorán de Israel

3 Jorán hijo de Ajab comenzó a reinar sobre Israel cuando Josafat tenía dieciocho años de reinar sobre Judá, y reinó doce años en Samaria. 2 Pero hizo lo malo a los ojos del Señor, aunque no al grado de su padre y su madre, pues quitó las estatuas de Baal que su padre había hecho. 3 Sin embargo, se entregó a los mismos pecados con que Jeroboán hijo de Nabat hizo pecar a Israel, y no se apartó de ellos.

Eliseo predice la victoria sobre Moab

4 El rey Mesa de Moab poseía muchos rebaños, y entregaba al rey de Israel cien mil corderos y cien mil carneros. 5 Pero a la muerte de Ajab el rey de Moab se rebeló contra el rey de Israel. 6 Entonces el rey Jorán salió de Samaria y pasó revista a todo Israel. 7 Luego mandó a decir al rey Josafat de Judá:

«El rey de Moab se ha rebelado contra mí. ¿Me acompañarás a luchar contra Moab?»

Y Josafat respondió:

«Por supuesto que iré. Tú eres como si fuera yo mismo; tu pueblo es como mi pueblo, y tus caballos son como los míos. 8 ¿Qué camino tomaremos?»

Y Jorán respondió:

«Tomaremos el camino del desierto de Edom.»

9 Fue así como el rey de Israel y el rey de Judá, junto con el rey de Edom, tomaron el camino del desierto, pero después de siete días les faltó agua para el ejército y para las bestias. 10 Entonces el rey de Israel dijo:

«¡Vaya! El Señor ha convocado a estos tres reyes para entregarlos en manos de los moabitas.»

11 Pero Josafat dijo:

«¿No hay por aquí algún profeta del Señor? ¡Podríamos consultarlo por medio de él!»

Uno de los oficiales del rey de Israel respondió:

«Por aquí está Eliseo hijo de Safat, que era ayudante de Elías.»

12 Y Josafat dijo:

«En él habrá palabra del Señor.»

Y los tres reyes fueron a verlo. 13 Pero Eliseo le dijo al rey de Israel:

«¿Qué tengo yo que ver contigo? ¡Anda a ver a los profetas de tu padre y de tu madre!»

Pero el rey de Israel le respondió:

«No, no voy a ir con ellos. El Señor nos ha reunido a nosotros tres, para entregarnos en manos de los moabitas.»

14 Eliseo dijo entonces:

«Juro por el Señor de los ejércitos, en cuya presencia me encuentro, que de no ser por el respeto que le debo al rey Josafat rey de Judá, a ti ni siquiera te dirigiría la mirada. 15 Pero, bueno, ¡tráiganme un tañedor!»

Y mientras el tañedor tocaba, la mano del Señor vino sobre Eliseo, 16 quien dijo:

«Así ha dicho el Señor: “Caven en este valle muchos estanques.” 17 Y el Señor también ha dicho: “Aunque ustedes no vean ningún viento, ni ninguna lluvia, este valle se llenará de agua, y beberán ustedes, y sus bestias y sus ganados.” 18 Esto, a los ojos del Señor, no es nada difícil; también va a poner a los moabitas en las manos de ustedes. 19 Y ustedes destruirán todas sus bellas ciudades fortificadas, y talarán todo árbol frondoso, cegarán todos los pozos, y sembrarán de piedras todos los campos arables.»

20 Al día siguiente por la mañana, a la hora del sacrificio, un repentino aluvión llegó desde Edom y toda esa región se inundó. 21 Y al saber los de Moab que los reyes se disponían a atacarlos, todos ellos se juntaron, desde los que apenas podían ponerse la armadura hasta los más experimentados, y tomaron sus puestos en la frontera. 22 Y al día siguiente, cuando los moabitas se levantaron, vieron a la distancia que el reflejo del sol sobre las aguas las hacía verse rojas como sangre. 23 Entonces gritaron:

«¡Esto es la sangre de una batalla! Seguramente los reyes han luchado entre sí, y han matado a sus propios compañeros. ¡Vamos, moabitas, al botín!»

24 Pero cuando los moabitas llegaron al campamento de Israel, éstos se levantaron los israelitas y los atacaron, y aunque los moabitas trataron de huir, los israelitas los persiguieron y los mataron; 25 y asolaron las ciudades, y en todos los campos fértiles esparcieron piedras, y cegaron también todos los pozos, y derribaron todos los árboles frondosos; sólo quedaron piedras en Quir Jaréset porque los honderos rodearon esa ciudad y la destruyeron.

26 Cuando el rey de Moab vio que había perdido la batalla, tomó consigo a setecientos hombres hábiles con la espada y quiso atacar al rey de Edom, pero no lo consiguió. 27 Entonces tomó a su primogénito, el que habría de reinar en su lugar, y lo ofreció en holocausto sobre la muralla. Y fue tan grande el enojo contra Israel, que éstos decidieron retirarse y volver a su tierra.

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2 Kings 3
King James Version

3 Now Jehoram the son of Ahab began to reign over Israel in Samaria the eighteenth year of Jehoshaphat king of Judah, and reigned twelve years.

2 And he wrought evil in the sight of the Lord; but not like his father, and like his mother: for he put away the image of Baal that his father had made.

3 Nevertheless he cleaved unto the sins of Jeroboam the son of Nebat, which made Israel to sin; he departed not therefrom.

4 And Mesha king of Moab was a sheepmaster, and rendered unto the king of Israel an hundred thousand lambs, and an hundred thousand rams, with the wool.

5 But it came to pass, when Ahab was dead, that the king of Moab rebelled against the king of Israel.

6 And king Jehoram went out of Samaria the same time, and numbered all Israel.

7 And he went and sent to Jehoshaphat the king of Judah, saying, The king of Moab hath rebelled against me: wilt thou go with me against Moab to battle? And he said, I will go up: I am as thou art, my people as thy people, and my horses as thy horses.

8 And he said, Which way shall we go up? And he answered, The way through the wilderness of Edom.

9 So the king of Israel went, and the king of Judah, and the king of Edom: and they fetched a compass of seven days' journey: and there was no water for the host, and for the cattle that followed them.

10 And the king of Israel said, Alas! that the Lord hath called these three kings together, to deliver them into the hand of Moab!

11 But Jehoshaphat said, Is there not here a prophet of the Lord, that we may enquire of the Lord by him? And one of the king of Israel's servants answered and said, Here is Elisha the son of Shaphat, which poured water on the hands of Elijah.

12 And Jehoshaphat said, The word of the Lord is with him. So the king of Israel and Jehoshaphat and the king of Edom went down to him.

13 And Elisha said unto the king of Israel, What have I to do with thee? get thee to the prophets of thy father, and to the prophets of thy mother. And the king of Israel said unto him, Nay: for the Lord hath called these three kings together, to deliver them into the hand of Moab.

14 And Elisha said, As the Lord of hosts liveth, before whom I stand, surely, were it not that I regard the presence of Jehoshaphat the king of Judah, I would not look toward thee, nor see thee.

15 But now bring me a minstrel. And it came to pass, when the minstrel played, that the hand of the Lord came upon him.

16 And he said, Thus saith the Lord, Make this valley full of ditches.

17 For thus saith the Lord, Ye shall not see wind, neither shall ye see rain; yet that valley shall be filled with water, that ye may drink, both ye, and your cattle, and your beasts.

18 And this is but a light thing in the sight of the Lord: he will deliver the Moabites also into your hand.

19 And ye shall smite every fenced city, and every choice city, and shall fell every good tree, and stop all wells of water, and mar every good piece of land with stones.

20 And it came to pass in the morning, when the meat offering was offered, that, behold, there came water by the way of Edom, and the country was filled with water.

21 And when all the Moabites heard that the kings were come up to fight against them, they gathered all that were able to put on armour, and upward, and stood in the border.

22 And they rose up early in the morning, and the sun shone upon the water, and the Moabites saw the water on the other side as red as blood:

23 And they said, This is blood: the kings are surely slain, and they have smitten one another: now therefore, Moab, to the spoil.

24 And when they came to the camp of Israel, the Israelites rose up and smote the Moabites, so that they fled before them: but they went forward smiting the Moabites, even in their country.

25 And they beat down the cities, and on every good piece of land cast every man his stone, and filled it; and they stopped all the wells of water, and felled all the good trees: only in Kirharaseth left they the stones thereof; howbeit the slingers went about it, and smote it.

26 And when the king of Moab saw that the battle was too sore for him, he took with him seven hundred men that drew swords, to break through even unto the king of Edom: but they could not.

27 Then he took his eldest son that should have reigned in his stead, and offered him for a burnt offering upon the wall. And there was great indignation against Israel: and they departed from him, and returned to their own land.

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