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2 Kings 3:4-27
New English Translation

4 Now King Mesha of Moab was a sheep breeder.[a] He would send as tribute[b] 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[c] this message to King Jehoshaphat of Judah: “The king of Moab has rebelled against me. Will you fight with me against Moab?” Jehoshaphat[d] replied, “I will join you in the campaign; my army and horses are at your disposal.”[e] 8 He then asked, “Which invasion route are we going to take?”[f] Jehoram[g] answered, “By the road through the wilderness of Edom.” 9 So the kings of Israel, Judah, and Edom[h] 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![i] 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?”[j] One of the servants of the king of Israel answered, “Elisha son of Shapat is here; he used to be Elijah’s servant.”[k] 12 Jehoshaphat said, “Yes, he receives the Lord’s messages.”[l] 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?[m] 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[n] lives (whom I serve),[o] if I did not respect King Jehoshaphat of Judah,[p] I would not pay attention to you or acknowledge you.[q] 15 But now, get me a musician.”[r] When the musician played, the Lord energized him,[s] 16 and he said, “This is what the Lord has said, ‘Make many cisterns in this valley,’[t] 17 for this is what the Lord has said, ‘You will not feel[u] 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;[v] he will also hand Moab over to you. 19 You will defeat every fortified city and every important[w] city. You must chop down[x] every productive[y] tree, stop up all the springs, and cover all the cultivated land with stones.”[z]

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

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

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Footnotes

  1. 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.
  2. 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.
  3. 2 Kings 3:7 tn Heb “went and sent.”
  4. 2 Kings 3:7 tn Heb “he”; the referent (Jehoshaphat) has been specified in the translation for clarity.
  5. 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.”
  6. 2 Kings 3:8 tn Heb “Where is the road we will go up?”
  7. 2 Kings 3:8 tn Heb “he”; the referent (Jehoram) has been specified in the translation for clarity.
  8. 2 Kings 3:9 tn Heb “the king of Israel and the king of Judah and the king of Edom.”
  9. 2 Kings 3:10 tn Or “ah.”
  10. 2 Kings 3:11 tn Heb “that we might inquire of the Lord through him?”
  11. 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.
  12. 2 Kings 3:12 tn Heb “the Lord’s message is with him.”
  13. 2 Kings 3:13 tn Or “What do we have in common?” The text reads literally, “What to me and to you?”
  14. 2 Kings 3:14 tn Traditionally “the Lord of hosts.”
  15. 2 Kings 3:14 tn Heb “before whom I stand.”
  16. 2 Kings 3:14 tn Heb “if I did not lift up the face of Jehoshaphat the king of Judah.”
  17. 2 Kings 3:14 tn Heb “I would not look at you or see you.”
  18. 2 Kings 3:15 tn The term used refers to one who plays a stringed instrument, perhaps a harp.
  19. 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.”
  20. 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.”
  21. 2 Kings 3:17 tn Heb “see.”
  22. 2 Kings 3:18 tn Heb “and this is easy in the eyes of the Lord.”
  23. 2 Kings 3:19 tn Heb “choice” or “select.”
  24. 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.
  25. 2 Kings 3:19 tn Heb “good.”
  26. 2 Kings 3:19 tn Heb “and ruin every good portion with stones.”
  27. 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.”
  28. 2 Kings 3:21 tn Heb “had come up to fight them.”
  29. 2 Kings 3:21 tn Heb “and they mustered all who tied on a belt and upwards, and they stood at the border.”
  30. 2 Kings 3:23 tn Heb “they”; the referent (the Moabites) has been specified in the translation for clarity.
  31. 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.
  32. 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.
  33. 2 Kings 3:24 tn Heb “they.”
  34. 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.
  35. 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.
  36. 2 Kings 3:25 tn Heb “until he had allowed its stones to remain in Kir Hareseth.”
  37. 2 Kings 3:26 tn Heb “and the king of Moab saw that the battle was too strong for him.”
  38. 2 Kings 3:26 tn Heb “he took with him seven hundred men, who drew the sword, to break through against.”
  39. 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.
  40. 2 Kings 3:27 tn Heb “they departed from him.”
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2 Kings 3:4-27
Common English Bible

4 Now Moab’s King Mesha kept sheep. He would pay Israel’s king one hundred thousand lambs and the wool from one hundred thousand rams. 5 But when Ahab died, Moab’s king rebelled against Israel’s king. 6 So King Joram set out from Samaria at once. He prepared all Israel for war. 7 He sent word to Judah’s King Jehoshaphat, “Moab’s king has rebelled against me. Will you go with me to fight against Moab?”

Jehoshaphat responded, “Yes, I’ll go. We’ll fight as one: you and I, our troops and our horses.”

8 “Which road should we take?” Joram asked.

Jehoshaphat responded, “The road that goes through the Edomite wilderness.”

9 So Israel’s and Judah’s kings set out with the king of Edom. They marched around for seven days until there was no water left for the army or for the animals with them. 10 Israel’s king said, “This is terrible! Has the Lord brought us three kings together only to hand us over to Moab?”

11 Jehoshaphat said, “Isn’t there any prophet of the Lord around, so we could question the Lord through him?”

One of the servants of Israel’s king answered, “Elisha, Shaphat’s son, is here. He used to pour water on Elijah’s hands.”

12 Jehoshaphat said, “He has the Lord’s word!” So Israel’s king and Jehoshaphat and Edom’s king went down to see Elisha.

13 Elisha said to Israel’s king, “What do we have to do with each other? Go to your father’s or mother’s prophets.”

Then Israel’s king said to him, “Don’t say that, because it is the Lord who has brought us three kings together—but only to hand us over to Moab!”

14 Elisha said, “I swear by the life of the Lord of heavenly forces, the one I stand before and serve, if I didn’t care about Judah’s King Jehoshaphat, I wouldn’t notice you or even look at you! 15 Now bring me a musician.” While the musician played, the Lord’s power came over Elisha. 16 He said, “This is what the Lord says: This valley will be filled with pools.[a] 17 This is what the Lord says: You won’t see any wind or rain, but that valley will be full of water. Then you’ll be able to drink—you, your cattle, and your animals. 18 This is easy for the Lord to do. He will also hand Moab over to you. 19 You will then attack every fort and every grand city, cutting down all the good trees, stopping up all the springs, and ruining the good fields with stones.”

20 The next morning, at the time to offer the grain offering, water came flowing from the direction of Edom. The land filled up with water.

21 Now all the Moabites had heard how these kings had come to fight against them. So all who were able to fight were summoned, and they took up positions along the border. 22 They got up early in the morning as the sun’s rays shone on the water. The Moabites saw the water from a distance. It looked as red as blood. 23 They said, “It’s blood! The kings must have fought each other and killed themselves! Now get the plunder, Moab!”

24 But when they entered Israel’s camp, the Israelites rose up and attacked the Moabites. The Moabites fled from them. Israel moved forward, striking the Moabites down as they went.[b] 25 Then the Israelites destroyed the Moabite cities. Each Israelite threw a stone on every piece of good land until it was covered. They stopped up every spring and cut down every good tree. Only Kir-hareseth remained with its stone wall intact,[c] but then stone throwers[d] surrounded it and attacked it.

26 Moab’s king saw that he was losing the battle. So he took seven hundred soldiers with him, each with sword in hand, to break through to Edom’s king. But they failed. 27 Then he took his oldest son, who was to succeed him as king, and he offered him on the wall as an entirely burned offering. As a result, outrage was expressed by Israel. So they pulled back from Moab’s king and returned to their own country.

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Footnotes

  1. 2 Kings 3:16 LXX, Vulg Fill this valley with ditches.
  2. 2 Kings 3:24 Heb uncertain
  3. 2 Kings 3:25 Heb uncertain
  4. 2 Kings 3:25 Heb uncertain
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