On the Greek text. The Greek follows the standard critical text of the Septuagint (Rahlfs-Hanhart in its main wording, itself an ancient, public-domain text); the distinctively copyrighted critical apparatus is not reproduced. Versification follows the LXX.

The Fourth Book of Kingdoms (2 Kings) (LXX) — Interlinear: Themes, Outlines & Translation Notes

A consolidated companion to the 4 Kingdoms data set: every chapter of LXX 4 Kingdoms (1–25) rendered as a six-tier Greek reverse-interlinear (Greek · gloss · parsing/case · syntax · semantic force · lexical note), with per-verse discourse analysis and a chapter argument-outline.

This document gathers the theme, the argument outline (the outline movements authored into each data file), and the translation / textual / exegetical notes (the text_note of each file, reproduced verbatim) — followed by a summary of the major translation and interpretive cruxes that were deliberately annotated rather than silently resolved. 4 Kingdoms (ΒΑΣΙΛΕΙΩΝ Δ′ — the LXX name for 2 Kings) carries the divided monarchy from Elijah's departure and Elisha's ministry through the fall of Samaria and the last kings of Judah to Jerusalem's destruction and Jehoiachin's release in Babylon; its kaige sections preserve an intensely literal Greek, with transliterated cultic and administrative terms, and it gives the New Testament the Naaman paradigm (Luke 4:27), Elijah's fiery ascent, and the historical-theological background of exile, remnant, and Davidic hope. The Greek follows the standard critical text of the Septuagint (Rahlfs–Hanhart in its main wording, itself an ancient public-domain text); the distinctively copyrighted apparatus is not reproduced, and versification follows the LXX.

Scope

Each annotated word carries Greek, a working gloss, color-coded grammatical case, parsing (Tense·Voice·Mood·Person·Number + lemma), a Wallace-style syntactic-function label, an aspectual semantic-force label (verbal forms), and a condensed lexical note. As translation Greek, the annotation additionally flags Hebraisms and the underlying Hebrew idiom where it illuminates the rendering.

The argument of the book

The macro-structure of the whole book — its major movements — under which the chapter-by-chapter detail below unfolds. 4 Kingdoms (= 2 Kings) spans the transition from prophetic wonder-working to imperial catastrophe: Elisha and the Aramean crisis, the Jehu revolution, the collapse of Israel, the Assyrian deliverance under Hezekiah, Josiah's covenant reform, and the Babylonian exile. The annotation flags the Kingdoms-specific LXX/MT offsets, kaige literalism, transliterated technical terms, and the recurring Deuteronomistic verdicts on kings and cult. (Section divisions are interpretive; the more common analysis is generally followed.)

• I · 1–8 — Elijah, Elisha, and the Aramean wars. Ahaziah's fall and Elijah's fiery ascent; Elisha receives the mantle and performs signs of judgment and mercy — water healed, oil multiplied, the Shunammite's son raised, Naaman cleansed, iron made to float, armies blinded, and Samaria besieged and relieved.
• II · 9–13 — Jehu and the shaken houses of Israel and Judah. Elisha's word launches Jehu's coup against Joram, Jezebel, and Ahab's house; Baal's temple is destroyed but Jeroboam's sins remain; Athaliah usurps Judah until Joash is hidden, crowned, and later repairs the temple before his own compromised end.
• III · 14–17 — From Jeroboam II to the fall of Samaria. The northern kingdom's final instability unfolds through assassinations and Assyrian pressure, while Judah's kings are measured by the same cultic standard; Samaria falls, Israel is deported, and the narrator gives the theological indictment of covenant-breaking and mixed worship.
• IV · 18–20 — Hezekiah and Assyria. Hezekiah reforms worship and trusts the LORD; Sennacherib's envoy mocks Jerusalem, Isaiah answers with the word of deliverance, the Assyrian army is struck, and Hezekiah is healed — yet Babylonian envoys foreshadow the exile.
• V · 21–23 — Manasseh to Josiah. Manasseh's idolatry and innocent blood seal Judah's doom; Amon repeats his evil; Josiah repairs the temple, hears the recovered book of the law, renews the covenant, purges Judah and Bethel, and keeps the Passover, yet the wrath kindled by Manasseh is not turned back.
• VI · 24–25 — The end of Judah and the Davidic ember in exile. Jehoiakim, Jehoiachin, and Zedekiah fall under Babylon; Jerusalem is besieged, burned, and emptied; Gedaliah's governorship collapses into flight to Egypt; and the book closes with Jehoiachin lifted from prison, fed at the royal table, and left as a small sign of Davidic hope.

Chapter-by-chapter

4 Kingdoms 1 — ΒΑΣΙΛΕΙΩΝ Δ′ Α′

Theme. Ahaziah seeks Baal-zebub, but Elijah's word and heavenly fire expose the fate of Ahab's house.

Outline.

• A · 1:1–8 — Ahaziah's fall and his inquiry of Baal-zebub; Elijah's interception. After Ahab's death Moab rebels (v. 1). Ahaziah falls through the lattice of his upper room in Samaria, sickens, and sends messengers to inquire of Baal-zebub god of Ekron whether he will recover (v. 2). The angel of the LORD sends Elijah to intercept them with the indictment "is it because there is no God in Israel?" (v. 3) and the death-oracle (v. 4). The messengers return prematurely (v. 5); when questioned they report the intercepting man's words (v. 6), and from his description — a hairy man girded with a leather belt — the king recognizes Elijah the Tishbite (vv. 7–8).
• B · 1:9–14 — Fire from heaven on the two companies of fifty; the third captain spared. The king sends a captain of fifty with his fifty to summon Elijah down from the hilltop; Elijah answers that if he is a man of God, fire will come down from heaven, and it consumes them (vv. 9–10). A second captain and his fifty meet the same fate (vv. 11–12). The third captain comes up but kneels before Elijah and entreats him to let his life and the lives of his fifty servants be precious in Elijah's sight, invoking the fate of the first two companies (vv. 13–14). This fire-from-heaven motif is recalled by the disciples at Luke 9:54.
• C · 1:15–16 — Elijah descends and delivers the word of doom to the king. The angel of the LORD tells Elijah to go down with the third captain without fear (v. 15). Elijah descends to the king and delivers the messenger-formula oracle face to face: because he sent to inquire of Baal-zebub as though there were no God in Israel, he will not rise from the bed he lies on but will surely die (v. 16).
• D · 1:17–18 — Ahaziah's death and the accession of Joram. Ahaziah dies according to the word of the LORD that Elijah spoke (v. 17). The regnal-formula appendix (v. 18) refers the rest of his acts to the chronicle of the kings of Israel and records the accession of Joram son of Ahab over Israel in Samaria — twelve years, in the eighteenth year of Jehoshaphat king of Judah — his evil yet partial reform (he removed the pillars of Baal his father had made), his clinging to the sins of Jeroboam, and the kindling of the LORD's wrath against the house of Ahab.

Translation & textual notes. The Greek text of 4 Kingdoms 1 (= 2 Kings 1 in the Hebrew–English versification) follows the standard critical text of the Septuagint as established in the Rahlfs–Hanhart edition (Septuaginta, rev. ed. 2006), an ancient and public-domain text; the critical apparatus is not reproduced. ΒΑΣΙΛΕΙΩΝ Δ′ ("Fourth Kingdoms") is the LXX designation for the book the Hebrew Bible calls 2 Kings. The chapter is bracketed by two notices of Ahab's house: it opens with Moab's rebellion "after the death of Ahab" (μετὰ τὸ ἀποθανεῖν Αχααβ, v. 1) and closes with the LORD's wrath "against the house of Ahab" (εἰς τὸν οἶκον Αχααβ, v. 18). The king's name Οχοζιας (Ahaziah, "YHWH has grasped") is declinable (nom. Οχοζιας, gen. Οχοζιου), as are Σαμάρεια and the gentilic Θεσβίτης; the prophet's name Ηλιου (Elijah) is treated as indeclinable throughout, identical in form as subject (vv. 4, 15) and object (vv. 3, 13, 15), as are Μωαβ, Ισραηλ, Αχααβ, Βααλ, Ακκαρων, Ιωραμ, Ιωσαφατ, Ιουδα, and Ιεροβοαμ. The most distinctive LXX rendering is Βααλ μυῖαν θεὸν Ακκαρων (vv. 2, 3, 6, 16), which glosses the Hebrew בַּעַל זְבוּב (Baal-zebub) by treating the second element as μυῖα, "fly" — "Baal the fly, god of Ekron"; Βααλ takes the feminine article (τῇ Βααλ) where the deity is consulted, a euphemistic convention of the Greek tradition. The recurring rhetorical indictment εἰ παρὰ τὸ μὴ εἶναι θεὸν ἐν Ισραηλ ("is it because there is no God in Israel?") uses παρά + the articular infinitive causally (vv. 3, 6). The death-oracle is built on the cognate-dative Hebraism θανάτῳ ἀποθανῇ ("you shall surely die," rendering the infinitive absolute מוֹת תָּמוּת; cf. Gen 2:17 LXX), fronted by a casus-pendens topic (ἡ κλίνη … ἐκεῖ, "the bed … there"). The central fire-panel turns on the wordplay between the captains' command κατάβηθι ("come down," vv. 9, 11) and the answering κατέβη πῦρ ("fire came down," vv. 10, 12), and on Elijah's conditional εἰ ἄνθρωπος τοῦ θεοῦ ἐγώ ("if I am a man of God"); the exact phrase πῦρ ἐκ τοῦ οὐρανοῦ ("fire from heaven") is echoed at Luke 9:54. The second captain's τάδε λέγει ὁ βασιλεύς ("thus says the king," v. 11) is a deliberate counterfeit of the prophetic τάδε λέγει κύριος. The closing appendix (v. 18) is the standard Deuteronomistic citation-formula (τὰ λοιπὰ τῶν λόγων … οὐκ ἰδοὺ ταῦτα γεγραμμένα ἐπὶ βιβλίου λόγων τῶν ἡμερῶν) plus a regnal summary for Joram, including the fixed Jeroboam indictment ὃς ἐξήμαρτεν τὸν Ισραηλ; in the manuscript tradition this long material is subdivided by editorial sub-verse markers, which have been omitted from the running Greek text.

4 Kingdoms 2 — ΒΑΣΙΛΕΙΩΝ Δ′ Β′

Theme. Elijah is taken up, Elisha receives his spirit, and the succession is confirmed by signs of judgment and healing.

Outline.

• A · 2:1–6 — The last journey: Gilgal–Bethel–Jericho–Jordan and Elisha's threefold refusal to part. The narrator announces in advance that the LORD is about to take Elijah up in a whirlwind (v. 1). Three times Elijah bids Elisha stay behind (κάθου δὴ ἐνταῦθα / ὧδε, vv. 2, 4, 6), and three times Elisha binds himself by oath — ζῇ κύριος καὶ ζῇ ἡ ψυχή σου — never to leave his master. At Bethel and Jericho the sons of the prophets confront Elisha with the imminent loss, and he twice silences them (σιωπᾶτε, vv. 3, 5). The pair go on together (ἐπορεύθησαν ἀμφότεροι, v. 6).
• B · 2:7–10 — Crossing the Jordan and the request for a double portion. Fifty sons of the prophets watch from a distance (v. 7). Elijah rolls up his mantle, strikes the water, and it parts so both cross on dry ground (v. 8). Elisha asks for διπλᾶ ἐν πνεύματί σου, 'a double portion of your spirit' (v. 9); Elijah calls it a hard thing (ἐσκλήρυνας), grantable only if Elisha sees him taken up (v. 10).
• C · 2:11–12 — The ascent in the whirlwind: chariot and horses of fire. As they walk on talking, a chariot of fire and horses of fire separate the two, and Elijah is taken up in the whirlwind (v. 11). Elisha sees it and cries 'My father, my father, the chariot of Israel and its horseman!' — sees him no more, and tears his garments in two pieces (v. 12). The condition of v. 10 is thereby met.
• D · 2:13–18 — Elisha takes up the mantle; the second parting and the futile search. Elisha picks up the fallen mantle, returns to the Jordan, strikes the water asking ποῦ ὁ θεὸς Ηλιου αφφω, and crosses (vv. 13–14). The watching prophets recognize that Elijah's spirit rests on Elisha and bow before him (v. 15). Against his word they send fifty men to search; after three fruitless days they return, and Elisha reproves them (vv. 16–18).
• E · 2:19–22 — The healing of the spring at Jericho. The men of the city report that the water is bad and the land barren (v. 19). Elisha calls for a new jar with salt (v. 20), casts it into the spring, and pronounces ἴαμαι τὰ ὕδατα ταῦτα — 'I have healed these waters' (v. 21). The waters are healed permanently, to this day (v. 22).
• F · 2:23–25 — The youths of Bethel, the she-bears, and the withdrawal to Carmel and Samaria. Going up to Bethel, Elisha is mocked by small boys jeering ἀνάβαινε φαλακρέ ('Go up, baldhead!') — throwing back the 'going up' of the ascension (v. 23). He curses them in the name of the LORD, and two she-bears maul forty-two of the children (v. 24). Elisha then goes on to Mount Carmel and returns to Samaria (v. 25).

Translation & textual notes. The Greek text of 4 Kingdoms 2 (= 2 Kings 2 MT) follows the standard critical text of the Septuagint as established in the Rahlfs–Hanhart edition (Septuaginta, rev. ed. 2006), an ancient and public-domain text; the critical apparatus is not reproduced. The chapter narrates the translation of Elijah and the succession of Elisha. The opening formula καὶ ἐγένετο ἐν τῷ ἀνάγειν κύριον τὸν Ηλιου ἐν συσσεισμῷ ὡς εἰς τὸν οὐρανόν (v. 1) frames the whole episode prospectively: συσσεισμός ('a shaking / tempest / whirlwind') renders Hebrew סְעָרָה, and the cautious ὡς εἰς τὸν οὐρανόν ('as into heaven') is a characteristic LXX hedge. The threefold journey Gilgal → Bethel → Jericho → Jordan is punctuated by Elisha's oath ζῇ κύριος καὶ ζῇ ἡ ψυχή σου εἰ (ἐγ)καταλείψω σε, where εἰ functions as the Hebraizing oath-negation (אִם, 'surely I will not'); the verb alternates between καταλείπω (v. 2) and the compound ἐγκαταλείπω (vv. 4, 6). The mantle (μηλωτή, rendering אַדֶּרֶת) striking and parting the water (ἐπάταξεν τὸ ὕδωρ καὶ διῃρέθη … ἔνθα καὶ ἔνθα, v. 8) frames a new Jordan-crossing miracle echoing Joshua 3. The request for διπλᾶ ἐν πνεύματί σου (v. 9, פִּי־שְׁנַיִם, 'a double portion of your spirit') is the chapter's theological centre. The ascent comes by ἅρμα πυρός and ἵπποι πυρός in a συσσεισμός (v. 11); Elisha's cry πάτερ πάτερ ἅρμα Ισραηλ καὶ ἱππεὺς αὐτοῦ (v. 12) names Elijah himself as Israel's true chariotry. The transliterated αφφω (v. 14, Hebrew אֵפוֹא, 'now / where then') is left untranslated, a window onto the translator's source. The chapter closes with two confirmatory wonders: the healing of the Jericho spring with salt (ἴαμαι τὰ ὕδατα ταῦτα, v. 21) and the mauling of the jeering youths of Bethel by two she-bears (vv. 23–24), before Elisha withdraws to Carmel and Samaria (v. 25).

4 Kingdoms 3 — ΒΑΣΙΛΕΙΩΝ Δ′ Γ′

Theme. Israel, Judah, and Edom march against Moab, and the Lord gives water and victory through Elisha's word.

Outline.

• A · 3:1–3 — Joram's accession over Israel and his qualified evil. The regnal formula places Joram son of Ahab on Israel's throne in Jehoshaphat's eighteenth year for a twelve-year reign (v. 1). His verdict is deliberately graded: he did τὸ πονηρόν in YHWH's eyes, πλὴν οὐχ ὡς ὁ πατὴρ αὐτοῦ nor his mother (v. 2), even removing the Baal-pillars Ahab had made; but he clung (ἐκολλήθη) to the sin of Jeroboam son of Nabat and did not depart from it (v. 3).
• B · 3:4–8 — Mesha's rebellion and the three-king coalition; the route through Edom. Mesha king of Moab, a νωκηδ ('sheep-lord'), had paid Israel a colossal wool-tribute (v. 4), but on Ahab's death he rebelled (vv. 4–5). Joram musters Israel (v. 6) and summons Jehoshaphat, who answers with the formula of total solidarity — ὡς ὁ λαός μου ὁ λαός σου (v. 7). The chosen route is the ὁδὸν ἔρημον Εδωμ (v. 8), drawing in the king of Edom as a third ally.
• C · 3:9–12 — Waterless march and the search for a prophet: Elisha. After a seven-day circuit the coalition runs dry (v. 9). Joram despairs that YHWH has summoned the three kings only to deliver them into Moab's hand (v. 10). Jehoshaphat asks for a prophet of YHWH; a servant names Elisha son of Shaphat, 'who poured water on the hands of Elijah' (v. 11). Recognizing that the word of YHWH is with him (v. 12), the kings go down to him.
• D · 3:13–19 — Elisha's oracle: trenches, water without wind or rain, Moab delivered up. Elisha rebuffs Joram (τί ἐμοὶ καὶ σοί, v. 13) and swears that only for Jehoshaphat's sake will he regard him (v. 14). Calling for a musician (v. 15), under the χεὶρ κυρίου he issues the oracle: dig the wadi full of trenches (v. 16); without wind or rain it will fill with water (v. 17). This is a light thing for YHWH, who will also give Moab into their hand (v. 18); they are to strike every fortified city, fell every good tree, stop every spring, and ruin every good field with stones (v. 19).
• E · 3:20–25 — The water at dawn, Moab's fatal misreading, and the devastation of Moab. At the morning sacrifice water comes from the way of Edom and floods the land (v. 20). All Moab, mustered at the border (v. 21), rises early and sees the water red like blood in the sunrise (v. 22) and concludes the kings have slaughtered one another — 'now to the spoil, Moab!' (v. 23). They blunder into Israel's camp, are routed, and Israel devastates Moab until only the stones of Kir-hareseth's wall remain and the slingers strike it (vv. 24–25).
• F · 3:26–27 — Mesha's sacrifice of his firstborn and the great wrath upon Israel. Seeing the battle too strong for him, the king of Moab takes seven hundred swordsmen to break through to the king of Edom but fails (v. 26). In extremity he offers his firstborn heir as a whole burnt-offering (ὁλοκαύτωμα) upon the wall (v. 27). A μετάμελος μέγας comes upon Israel; they withdraw from him and return to their own land — an abrupt, theologically charged ending.

Translation & textual notes. The Greek text of 4 Kingdoms 3 (= 2 Kings 3) follows the standard critical text of the Septuagint as established in the Rahlfs–Hanhart edition (Septuaginta, rev. ed. 2006), an ancient and public-domain text; the critical apparatus is not reproduced. The opening regnal formula (vv. 1–3) judges Joram with the qualified verdict πλὴν οὐχ ὡς ὁ πατὴρ αὐτοῦ ('yet not as his father'), distinguishing him from Ahab while still binding him to the sin of Jeroboam. Mesha is described by the transliterated Hebrew technical term νωκηδ (v. 4, Hebrew נֹקֵד, 'sheep-breeder / herd-lord', the same word used of Amos at Amos 1:1), and his tribute is the enormous wool-levy of a hundred thousand lambs and a hundred thousand rams ἐπὶ πόκων ('with their fleeces'). The march through the ὁδὸν ἔρημον Εδωμ (v. 8) leaves the coalition without water (v. 9); Joram's despairing ὦ ('alas', v. 10) and Jehoshaphat's request for a προφήτης τοῦ κυρίου lead to Elisha, identified by the vivid attendant's idiom ὃς ἐπέχεεν ὕδωρ ἐπὶ χεῖρας Ηλιου ('who poured water on the hands of Elijah', v. 11). Elisha's oracle pivots on the messenger-formula τάδε λέγει κύριος (vv. 16–17): the wadi is to be dug full of trenches (βοθύνους βοθύνους, a Hebraizing distributive repetition rendering גֵּבִים גֵּבִים) and will fill with water though οὐκ ὄψεσθε πνεῦμα καὶ οὐκ ὄψεσθε ὑετόν ('you shall see neither wind nor rain'). At sunrise the water gleams πυρρὰ ὡσεὶ αἷμα ('red like blood', v. 22), and Moab fatally misreads it as the mutual slaughter of the kings (v. 23). The devastation (vv. 24–25) enacts the oracle of v. 19 point by point, culminating in the burnt-offering of Mesha's firstborn upon the wall (v. 27) and the enigmatic μετάμελος μέγας — rendering Hebrew קֶצֶף ('wrath / great anger') with a Greek word whose root sense is 'remorse / change of feeling' — that falls upon Israel and ends the campaign.

4 Kingdoms 4 — ΒΑΣΙΛΕΙΩΝ Δ′ Δ′

Theme. Elisha multiplies oil, gives and restores a son, heals the poisoned stew, and feeds the hungry in famine.

Outline.

• A · 4:1–7 — The widow's oil: debt redeemed by miraculous abundance. A prophet's widow cries to Elisha that the creditor is coming to seize her two sons as slaves (v. 1). Elisha learns she has nothing but a flask of oil (v. 2) and commands her to borrow many empty vessels and, behind a shut door, to pour (vv. 3–4). The oil flows until every vessel is full and stops only when there are no more (vv. 5–6); the sale of the oil pays the debt and the family lives on the rest (v. 7).
• B · 4:8–17 — The great woman of Shunem and the promise of a son. A wealthy woman of Shunem (γυνὴ μεγάλη) presses Elisha to eat and builds him a roof-chamber with bed, table, stool, and lamp (vv. 8–10). Wishing to repay her, Elisha offers intercession with king or commander, but she is content among her own people (vv. 11–13). Learning from Gehazi that she has no son and an aged husband (v. 14), Elisha announces she will embrace a son εἰς τὸν καιρὸν τοῦτον ('at this season', v. 16); she protests, but conceives and bears a son as foretold (v. 17).
• C · 4:18–31 — The child's death and the failure of the staff. The grown boy cries 'my head, my head' in the harvest field and dies on his mother's knees by noon (vv. 18–20). She lays him on the man of God's bed, rides hard to Carmel, and grasps Elisha's feet, refusing comfort: 'Did I ask a son?' (vv. 21–28). Elisha sends Gehazi ahead with his staff to lay on the child's face, but there is no voice and no hearing — the boy is not roused (vv. 29–31).
• D · 4:32–37 — Elisha raises the Shunammite's son. Elisha enters, shuts the door on the two of them, and prays to the LORD (vv. 32–33). He stretches himself on the child, mouth to mouth, eyes to eyes, hands to hands, and the flesh grows warm (v. 34); after pacing and a second stretching, the boy sneezes seven times and opens his eyes (v. 35). Elisha calls the Shunammite, gives her the living son, and she falls at his feet in worship before taking up her child (vv. 36–37).
• E · 4:38–41 — Death in the pot: the poisoned pottage healed. Returning to Gilgal in a famine, Elisha orders a great pot of stew boiled for the sons of the prophets (v. 38). One gathers wild gourds unknowingly and shreds them into the pot (v. 39); as they eat they cry out, 'Death in the pot, O man of God!' and cannot eat (v. 40). Elisha calls for meal, casts it in, and the harmful thing is gone — they eat safely (v. 41).
• F · 4:42–44 — Feeding a hundred with twenty barley loaves. A man brings the man of God twenty barley loaves of firstfruits and fresh grain (v. 42). The servant protests, 'What, shall I set this before a hundred men?' but Elisha repeats the command and adds the oracle τάδε λέγει κύριος, φάγονται καὶ καταλείψουσιν ('thus says the LORD: they shall eat and shall have some left', v. 43). They eat and leave a surplus, according to the word of the LORD (v. 44) — the Old-Testament type of the Gospel feedings of the multitudes.

Translation & textual notes. The Greek text of 4 Kingdoms (2 Kings) 4 follows the standard critical text of the Septuagint as established in the Rahlfs–Hanhart edition (Septuaginta, rev. ed. 2006), an ancient and public-domain text; the critical apparatus is not reproduced. The chapter is a tightly woven cycle of Elisha miracle-narratives unified by the prophet as bearer of life against death and scarcity. The vocabulary is rich in Hebraisms: the exceptive ὅτι ἀλλ᾽ ἤ ('except', v. 2); the imperatival futures of the oil-rite (εἰσελεύσῃ … ἀποχεεῖς … ἀρεῖς, v. 4); the figura etymologica ἐξέστησας … ἔκστασιν ('shown all this care', v. 13) and ἕψε ἕψεμα ('boil pottage', v. 38); the annunciation-formula εἰς τὸν καιρὸν τοῦτον ὡς ἡ ὥρα ζῶσα (vv. 16–17), which calques כָּעֵת חַיָּה and verbally echoes the promise to Sarah (Gen 18:10, 14 LXX); the oath ζῇ κύριος καὶ ζῇ ἡ ψυχή σου with elliptical εἰ-clause (v. 30); and the messenger-formula τάδε λέγει κύριος (v. 43) with its word-and-fulfilment closure κατὰ τὸ ῥῆμα κυρίου (v. 44). The raising sequence (vv. 34–35) renders the prophet's total bodily identification with the dead child (mouth/eyes/hands) and the warming of the flesh (διεθερμάνθη ἡ σὰρξ), paralleling Elijah at 3 Kgdms 17:21. The proper names are handled as in Rahlfs: indeclinable Ελισαιε, Γιεζι, Σουμαν, Γαλγαλα, Βαιθσαρισα, and the untranslated αριωθ; the gentilic Σωμανῖτις and the adjective τὸ Καρμήλιον are declined. κύριος renders the Tetragrammaton except where the Shunammite addresses Elisha as κύριέ μου / παρὰ τοῦ κυρίου μου ('my lord', vv. 16, 28). The feeding miracle (vv. 42–44) — barley loaves, a doubting servant's objection, a divine word of sufficiency, eating with a surplus left over — is the direct type behind the Gospel feedings (Mark 6:30–44; 8:1–10; John 6:1–14, where barley loaves and gathered fragments recur).

4 Kingdoms 5 — ΒΑΣΙΛΕΙΩΝ Δ′ Ε′

Theme. Naaman is cleansed by humble obedience, while Gehazi's greed turns grace into leprosy and judgment.

Outline.

• A · 5:1–7 — Naaman the leprous commander, the captive girl's word, and the king's dismay. Naaman, the great Syrian general through whom κύριος gave deliverance to Syria, is yet a leper (v. 1). A captive Israelite girl tells her mistress of the prophet in Samaria (vv. 2–4). The king of Syria sends Naaman with lavish gifts and a letter (vv. 5–6); the king of Israel, reading the demand to cure leprosy, tears his garments, protesting that he is not God 'to kill and make alive' and that Syria seeks a pretext for war (v. 7).
• B · 5:8–14 — Elisha's command: wash seven times in the Jordan; Naaman's anger and cleansing. Elisha intervenes — let the man come, that he may know there is a prophet in Israel (v. 8). Naaman arrives with horses and chariot, but Elisha sends only a messenger commanding sevenfold washing in the Jordan (vv. 9–10). Naaman rages at the slight and at the insult to Damascus' rivers Abana and Pharpar (vv. 11–12); his servants reason with him (v. 13); he dips seven times and his flesh is restored like a child's (v. 14).
• C · 5:15–19 — Naaman's confession, Elisha's refusal of payment, and the matter of Rimmon. Naaman returns to confess that there is no God but in Israel and offers a gift (v. 15); Elisha refuses with an oath (v. 16). Naaman asks for two mules' load of Israelite earth, vowing to sacrifice to no god but the LORD (v. 17), and seeks pardon for bowing in Rimmon's temple while attending his royal master (v. 18). Elisha dismisses him in peace (v. 19).
• D · 5:20–27 — Gehazi's greed, his lie, and the transferred leprosy. Gehazi resolves to extract what his master refused (v. 20), overtakes Naaman with a fabricated request for silver and garments (vv. 21–23), hides the spoil, and dismisses the carriers (v. 24). Confronted, he lies (v. 25); Elisha, whose 'heart went with' him, pronounces that Naaman's leprosy will cleave to Gehazi and his seed forever (vv. 26–27), and he departs leprous, white as snow.

Translation & textual notes. The Greek text of 4 Kingdoms 5 (= 2 Kings 5 MT) follows the standard critical text of the Septuagint as established in the Rahlfs–Hanhart edition (Septuaginta, rev. ed. 2006), an ancient and public-domain text; the critical apparatus is not reproduced. This is the kaige-recension portion of Kingdoms, and its Greek is markedly Hebraizing: relentless καί-parataxis, the captive maid rendered νεᾶνις/νεάνις, and the recurrent verb ἀποσυνάγω ('gather away / cure of leprosy', vv. 3, 6, 7, 11) — an unusual LXX rendering of אָסַף in its idiomatic sense 'remove (a disease).' The opening verse stacks honorifics on Naaman (ἄρχων, ἀνὴρ μέγας, τεθαυμασμένος, δυνατὸς ἰσχύι) only to undo them with one final word, λελεπρωμένος ('a leper'), which recurs at v. 27 of Gehazi — a deliberate framing inclusio. The episode turns on twin oath-formulas: ζῇ κύριος ('as the LORD lives', vv. 16, 20), used righteously by Elisha to refuse payment and then blasphemously by Gehazi to pursue it; and the Hebraizing oath-conditionals εἰ λήμψομαι (v. 16, emphatic negative) and εἰ μὴ … δραμοῦμαι (v. 20, emphatic positive), both rendering אִם / אִם לֹא. Naaman's confession at v. 15 — οὐκ ἔστιν θεὸς ἐν πάσῃ τῇ γῇ ὅτι ἀλλ᾽ ἢ ἐν τῷ Ισραηλ — is the theological summit, and it is precisely this cleansing of a Gentile that Jesus cites at Luke 4:27 (Ναιμαν ὁ Σύρος), the phrase echoed verbatim in the LXX at v. 20 (τοῦ Σύρου). The verb ἐβαπτίσατο (v. 14) for Naaman's sevenfold immersion has long resonated in the Christian baptismal tradition; the simile ὡς σὰρξ παιδαρίου μικροῦ ('like the flesh of a little child') is inverted at the close by Gehazi's leprosy ὡσεὶ χιών ('white as snow'). Two transliterations betray the kaige translator's caution before obscure Hebrew: δεβραθα (v. 19, kibrath-eretz, 'a stretch of land') and the place τὸ σκοτεινόν (v. 24).

4 Kingdoms 6 — ΒΑΣΙΛΕΙΩΝ Δ′ Ϛ′

Theme. Elisha thwarts Aram's plots, shows the unseen host of the Lord, and faces Samaria's famine under siege.

Outline.

• A · 6:1–7 — The floating axehead recovered at the Jordan. The sons of the prophets, cramped in their quarters, propose to build by the Jordan; while felling timber one drops a borrowed iron axehead into the water (vv. 1–5). At the man of God's word a thrown stick makes the iron float (ἐπεπόλασεν, v. 6), and the man lifts it out (v. 7) — a domestic miracle of restoration framing the chapter's larger deliverances.
• B · 6:8–12 — Elisha discloses the Aramean war-plans. The king of Aram repeatedly plans ambushes (παρεμβαλῶ, v. 8), but Elisha warns the king of Israel to avoid the very places (vv. 9–10). Suspecting a traitor in his ranks (v. 11), the Aramean king learns from a servant that the prophet Elisha in Israel reports even the words spoken in his bedchamber (v. 12).
• C · 6:13–23 — The army sent to Dothan struck blind and led to Samaria. Told that Elisha is at Dothan (v. 13), the king of Aram sends horses, chariots, and a heavy force by night to surround the city (v. 14). Elisha's terrified servant is reassured — 'those with us are more than those with them' — and his eyes are opened to see the mountain full of horses and chariots of fire (vv. 15–17). Elisha prays the army blind (ἀορασίᾳ, v. 18), leads them into Samaria where their sight returns (vv. 19–20), and — forbidding the king to slay captives — has them fed and released, so the Aramean raids cease (vv. 21–23).
• D · 6:24–31 — The siege of Samaria: famine and cannibalism. Afterward Ben-hadad besieges Samaria (v. 24), producing a famine so severe that a donkey's head sells for fifty shekels and dove's dung for five (v. 25). A woman on the wall begs the king for help (v. 26); he despairs (v. 27), then hears her account of the cannibalism pact — they boiled and ate her son, but the other woman hid hers (vv. 28–29). The king tears his clothes, revealing sackcloth on his flesh (v. 30), and swears to behead Elisha that very day (v. 31).
• E · 6:32–33 — Elisha foresees the assassin; 'this evil is from the LORD'. Elisha, sitting with the elders, foresees the 'son of the murderer' sending to take his head and orders the door barred against the messenger, sensing the king's feet behind him (v. 32). As he speaks, the messenger arrives with the king's despairing word: 'this evil is from the LORD; why should I wait for the LORD any longer?' (v. 33) — the crisis that chapter 7 will resolve.

Translation & textual notes. The Greek text of 4 Kingdoms (2 Kings) 6 follows the standard critical text of the Septuagint as established in the Rahlfs–Hanhart edition (Septuaginta, rev. ed. 2006), an ancient and public-domain text; the critical apparatus is not reproduced. 4 Kingdoms 6 gathers three Elisha episodes of escalating scale: the recovery of a borrowed axehead from the Jordan (vv. 1–7), the prophet's repeated frustration of Aramean raids by disclosing the enemy's plans to the king of Israel and the blinding of the army sent to seize him at Dothan (vv. 8–23), and the great siege of Samaria with its catastrophic famine (vv. 24–33). The translation is markedly literal — the so-called 'kaige' character of the Reigns sections — reproducing Hebrew parataxis with relentless καί, the distributive ἀνὴρ εἷς ('each man', v. 2), and the figura etymologica πατάξας πατάξω ('shall I utterly strike?', v. 21). The floating iron (ἐπεπόλασεν τὸ σιδήριον, v. 6) is narrated with stark economy. The rare ἀορασία ('blindness', v. 18) renders the Hebrew סַנְוֵרִים, a dazzling, disorienting blindness rather than ordinary loss of sight. The siege-famine prices — a donkey's head for fifty shekels of silver and a quarter-kab of dove's dung for five (v. 25) — measure the horror that culminates in the two women's cannibalism pact (vv. 28–29); the king's tearing of his garments reveals the sackcloth on his flesh (v. 30), and his oath against Elisha (v. 31) sets up the resolution withheld until ch. 7. Throughout, κύριος renders the Tetragrammaton when God is meant (vv. 17, 18, 20, 27, 33) but functions as the human honorific 'my lord' in the mouths of the desperate (vv. 5, 12, 15, 26) and as 'their master' for the released Aramean captives (vv. 22–23) and the approaching king (v. 32).

4 Kingdoms 7 — ΒΑΣΙΛΕΙΩΝ Δ′ Ζ′

Theme. The Lord overturns Samaria's famine overnight, and the mocked prophetic word comes true in full.

Outline.

• A · 7:1–2 — Elisha's oracle of cheap grain and the officer's scornful unbelief. Elisha announces with the messenger-formula τάδε λέγει κύριος that within a day the famine will break — a measure of fine flour and two of barley for a shekel at the gate of Samaria (v. 1). The royal adjutant (ὁ τριστάτης), on whose hand the king leans, scoffs that not even floodgates (καταρράκτας) opened in heaven could make it so (v. 2a). Elisha pronounces the counter-oracle that seals the chapter: 'You shall see it with your eyes, but you shall not eat of it' (v. 2b).
• B · 7:3–8 — The four lepers and the abandoned Aramean camp. Four lepers at the city gate reason that to stay is to starve and to enter the besieged city is to die, so they defect to the Aramean camp, accepting whatever comes (vv. 3–4). They arrive at twilight to find it deserted — for the LORD had made the Arameans hear the sound of chariots, horses, and a great army, so that they fled in panic at dusk, abandoning tents, horses, and donkeys (vv. 5–7). The lepers eat, drink, carry off silver, gold, and clothing, and hide their plunder (v. 8).
• C · 7:9–15 — The report to the city and the king's suspicion of ambush. Conscience-stricken — 'this day is a day of good news' — the lepers report to the gatekeepers, who relay word to the palace (vv. 9–11). The king, rising at night, suspects an Aramean stratagem: they have hidden in the field to lure the starving city out and take it (v. 12). A servant proposes sending scouts on the few surviving horses (v. 13); two teams are dispatched after the Aramean army to the Jordan and find the whole road strewn with garments and gear flung away in the rout (vv. 14–15).
• D · 7:16–20 — The plunder and the death of the officer: the word fulfilled. The people pour out and plunder the camp, and grain sells exactly as Elisha foretold — κατὰ τὸ ῥῆμα κυρίου (v. 16). The king sets the scornful officer over the gate, and the rushing crowd tramples him to death (v. 17), in precise fulfilment of the man of God's twofold word: the cheap grain (v. 18) and the officer's sentence — 'you shall see it but not eat of it' (v. 19). The chapter closes by repeating the fulfilment: 'and so it happened to him; the people trampled him at the gate, and he died' (v. 20).

Translation & textual notes. The Greek text of 4 Kingdoms 7 (= 2 Kings 7) follows the standard critical text of the Septuagint as established in the Rahlfs–Hanhart edition (Septuaginta, rev. ed. 2006), an ancient and public-domain text; the critical apparatus is not reproduced. The chapter belongs to the kaige-recension stratum of 4 Kingdoms, and its Greek is markedly Hebraistic: relentless καί-parataxis, the presentative ἰδού rendering הִנֵּה, the apodotic καί of conditional sentences (vv. 4, 9), and calques such as πρὸς τὸν πλησίον αὐτοῦ / πρὸς τὸν ἀδελφὸν αὐτοῦ ('to his neighbor / his brother') for אִישׁ אֶל־רֵעֵהוּ / אֶל־אָחִיו. The oracle's price-formula (μέτρον σεμιδάλεως σίκλου καὶ δίμετρον κριθῶν σίκλου, v. 1) recurs at the fulfilment (v. 16) and in the flashback restatement (v. 18, with barley and flour in reversed order and minor inflectional variation κριθῆς/κριθῶν, πύλῃ/πύλαις). The divine cause of the rout is stated in v. 6 by the calque ἀκουστὴν ἐποίησεν τὴν παρεμβολήν ('he made the camp hear', Hiphil הִשְׁמִיעַ), and the panic itself is named at v. 15 with the articular infinitive ἐν τῷ θαμβεῖσθαι αὐτούς ('in their being terrified'). The lepers' deliberation (vv. 3–4) is structured by five death-verbs and a closing balanced pair (ἐὰν ζωογονήσωσιν ... ἐὰν θανατώσωσιν). The phrase ἡμέρα εὐαγγελίας ('a day of good news', v. 9) is a notable LXX occurrence of the noun later central to NT 'gospel' vocabulary. The fulfilment is sealed theologically at v. 16 (κατὰ τὸ ῥῆμα κυρίου) and dramatically at vv. 17, 20 (συνεπάτησεν αὐτὸν ὁ λαὸς ... καὶ ἀπέθανεν), with the doubled citation of the officer's scorn (vv. 2/19) framing the whole as a courtroom-style proof that the prophet's word stands.

4 Kingdoms 8 — ΒΑΣΙΛΕΙΩΝ Δ′ Η′

Theme. Elisha restores the Shunammite's land, foretells Hazael's rise, and watches thrones shift in Aram and Judah.

Outline.

• A · 8:1–6 — The Shunammite woman's land restored after the seven-year famine. Elisha warns the woman whose son he had revived to flee the coming seven-year famine (v. 1); she sojourns in Philistine territory and returns to petition the king for her house and fields (vv. 2–3). Providentially, the king is at that very moment hearing Gehazi recount how Elisha revived a dead son, when the woman herself appears as living proof (vv. 4–5); the king restores all her property and its produce from the day she left (v. 6).
• B · 8:7–15 — Elisha in Damascus: Ben-Hadad's illness and Hazael's usurpation. Elisha comes to Damascus where the sick Ben-Hadad (υἱὸς Αδερ) sends Hazael with a gift to inquire of the LORD whether he will recover (vv. 7–9). Elisha tells Hazael to say the king will live, yet reveals that the LORD has shown him the king will die (v. 10); the prophet then weeps, foreseeing the atrocities Hazael will commit against Israel (vv. 11–12). When Hazael protests his lowliness, Elisha declares he will be king over Syria (v. 13). Hazael returns, deceives his master, and smothers him with a wet cloth, reigning in his place (vv. 14–15).
• C · 8:16–24 — The reign of Jehoram of Judah and the revolt of Edom and Libnah. Synchronized with Joram of Israel, Jehoram son of Jehoshaphat begins to reign in Judah at thirty-two, for eight years in Jerusalem (vv. 16–17); he walks in the way of the kings of Israel, having married a daughter of Ahab, and does evil (v. 18). Yet the LORD will not destroy Judah for David's sake, having promised him a lamp (v. 19). In his days Edom and Libnah revolt; Joram's punitive campaign at Zior fails to subdue Edom (vv. 20–22). His regnal summary and death close the panel (vv. 23–24).
• D · 8:25–29 — The reign of Ahaziah of Judah and the alliance against Hazael. Ahaziah son of Jehoram accedes in the twelfth year of Joram of Israel, reigning one year in Jerusalem; his mother is Athaliah, of the house of Omri (vv. 25–26). He too walks in the way of Ahab's house and does evil (v. 27). Allied with Joram of Israel, he goes to war against Hazael of Syria at Ramoth-gilead, where the Syrians wound Joram (v. 28); Joram withdraws to Jezreel to be healed, and Ahaziah goes down to visit him there (v. 29).

Translation & textual notes. The Greek text of 4 Kingdoms 8 (= 2 Kings 8 MT) follows the standard critical text of the Septuagint as established in the Rahlfs–Hanhart edition (Septuaginta, rev. ed. 2006), an ancient and public-domain text; the critical apparatus is not reproduced. The chapter belongs to the kaige recension's stratum of 4 Kingdoms and is markedly Hebraistic: relentless καί-parataxis, the cognate-dative idioms ζωῇ ζήσῃ / θανάτῳ ἀποθανῇ (vv. 10, 14) rendering the Hebrew infinitive absolute, the regnal-formula calques (υἱὸς τριάκοντα καὶ δύο ἐτῶν 'son of thirty-two years', v. 17), and the transliterated Hebrew loanwords μαναα (מנחה, 'gift', vv. 8–9) and μαχμα (the bedcover/netting Hazael uses to smother Ben-Hadad, v. 15). The chapter falls into four panels. The Shunammite woman whose son Elisha had revived (cf. 4 Kgdms 4) is warned of a seven-year famine, sojourns in Philistine territory, and returns to petition the king for her property — restored on the strength of Gehazi's recital of Elisha's miracle (vv. 1–6). Elisha then comes to Damascus, where the sick Ben-Hadad (υἱὸς Αδερ) sends Hazael to inquire of the LORD through him; Elisha foretells both the king's death and Hazael's accession, weeping over the atrocities Hazael will inflict on Israel, whereupon Hazael smothers his master and reigns in his place (vv. 7–15). The narrative then turns to Judah: the regnal account of Jehoram son of Jehoshaphat, who married a daughter of Ahab's house and did evil, yet was spared destruction for David's sake; the revolt of Edom and Libnah (vv. 16–24); and the brief reign of Ahaziah son of Jehoram, who walked in the way of Ahab's house and joined Joram of Israel against Hazael at Ramoth-gilead, where Joram was wounded and withdrew to Jezreel (vv. 25–29).

4 Kingdoms 9 — ΒΑΣΙΛΕΙΩΝ Δ′ Θ′

Theme. Jehu is anointed to judge Ahab's house, and Joram, Ahaziah, and Jezebel fall under Naboth's curse.

Outline.

• A · 9:1–10 — Elisha's commission and the anointing of Jehu at Ramoth-gilead. Elisha sends a young member of the prophetic guild with a flask of oil to find Jehu son of Jehoshaphat son of Nimshi, draw him into an inner chamber, pour oil on his head and pronounce τάδε λέγει κύριος κέχρικά σε εἰς βασιλέα ἐπὶ Ισραηλ, then flee (vv. 1–6). The commission is total extermination (ἐξολεθρεύσεις) of Ahab's house and blood-vengeance for the prophets and servants of the LORD slain by Jezebel (vv. 7–8), making Ahab's house like Jeroboam's and Baasha's (v. 9), with the dogs devouring Jezebel in the plot of Jezreel (v. 10).
• B · 9:11–13 — Jehu proclaimed king by the captains. The officers probe what 'this madman' (ὁ ἐπίλημπτος) wanted; pressed, Jehu reports the oracle verbatim (vv. 11–12), and they spread their cloaks on the bare steps (γαρεμ τῶν ἀναβαθμῶν), blow the ram's horn, and cry ἐβασίλευσεν Ιου (v. 13).
• C · 9:14–20 — The conspiracy and the furious ride to Jezreel. Jehu conspires against the convalescing Joram and seals Ramoth-gilead so no word escapes (vv. 14–16); the Jezreel watchman sees the dust, two mounted messengers sent to ask εἰ εἰρήνη are absorbed into Jehu's train (vv. 17–19), and the watchman finally recognizes the headlong driving ἐν παραλλαγῇ — the manner of Jehu son of Nimshi (v. 20).
• D · 9:21–26 — The killing of Joram in the plot of Naboth. The two kings ride out and meet Jehu in Naboth's plot (v. 21); to Joram's εἰ εἰρήνη Jehu answers that there is no peace while Jezebel's whoredoms persist (v. 22); Joram flees crying treachery and is shot through the heart (vv. 23–24); Jehu orders Bidkar to cast the body into Naboth's field, recalling the LORD's oracle of blood-requital (vv. 25–26).
• E · 9:27–29 — The killing of Ahaziah of Judah. Ahaziah flees by the Beth-haggan road; Jehu's order καί γε αὐτόν has him struck in his chariot at the ascent of Gai near Ibleam; he dies at Megiddo (v. 27) and is buried in the city of David (v. 28). A synchronism dates his accession to Joram's eleventh year (v. 29).
• F · 9:30–37 — The death of Jezebel and the fulfilment of Elijah's word. Jezebel paints her eyes, adorns her head, and greets Jehu from the window with εἰ εἰρήνη Ζαμβρι ὁ φονευτὴς τοῦ κυρίου αὐτοῦ (vv. 30–31); the eunuchs throw her down, her blood spatters wall and horses, and she is trampled (vv. 32–33). Jehu eats and drinks, then orders her burial as a king's daughter, but only skull, feet, and palms remain (vv. 34–35), fulfilling the word the LORD spoke through Elijah that the dogs would devour Jezebel's flesh in the plot of Jezreel and her corpse would be as dung on the field (vv. 36–37).

Translation & textual notes. The Greek text of 4 Kingdoms 9 (= 2 Kings 9) follows the standard critical text of the Septuagint as established in the Rahlfs–Hanhart edition (Septuaginta, rev. ed. 2006), an ancient and public-domain text; the critical apparatus is not reproduced. This chapter belongs to the καίγε section of Kingdoms, a recension revising the Old Greek toward a proto-Masoretic Hebrew, and its diction is correspondingly literalistic and Hebraizing: relentless καί-parataxis, the crude calque οὐροῦντα πρὸς τοῖχον ('one pissing against a wall', v. 8) for מַשְׁתִּין בְּקִיר, transliterated technical and place-terms left untranslated (γαρεμ τῶν ἀναβαθμῶν v. 13; Ρεμμωθ Γαλααδ; Βαιθαγγαν; the variant ethnonym οἱ Αραμιν v. 16), and the personal name Ιου (Jehu) treated as indeclinable throughout while the Judean Οχοζιας and Ιουδαν take Greek endings. The performative perfect κέχρικά σε εἰς βασιλέα ('I have anointed you king', vv. 3, 6, 12) carries the anointing as an accomplished fact; the recurring εἰ εἰρήνη ('is it peace?', vv. 11, 17, 18, 19, 22, 31) threads ironic tension through the approach- and confrontation-scenes; and the famous note that Jehu drives ἐν παραλλαγῇ ('in derangement / like a madman', v. 20, rendering בְּשִׁגָּעוֹן) has become proverbial. The cognate constructions ὁ ἄγων ἦγεν (v. 20) and ἔπλησεν τὴν χεῖρα ... ἐν τῷ τόξῳ ('filled his hand with the bow', v. 24) woodenly mirror Hebrew idioms. The whole chapter is governed by a prophecy-and-fulfilment frame: the oracle that the dogs will devour Jezebel in the plot of Jezreel (v. 10) is cited as Elijah's word (3 Kgdms 21:23) and realized in the grim inventory of remains (vv. 35–37).

4 Kingdoms 10 — ΒΑΣΙΛΕΙΩΝ Δ′ Ι′

Theme. Jehu completes his bloody purge of Ahab's house and Baal's cult, yet stops short of full covenant fidelity.

Outline.

• A · 10:1–11 — The two letters and the seventy heads: the purge of Ahab's house in Jezreel. Jehu writes to the rulers, elders, and guardians of Ahab's seventy sons in Samaria, daring them to set up a king and fight (vv. 1–3). Terrified by the fate of the two kings already fallen, they submit as Jehu's servants (vv. 4–5). A second letter demands the heads of the royal sons; they are slaughtered, their heads sent in baskets to Jezreel and stacked in two heaps at the gate (vv. 6–8). At dawn Jehu addresses the people, owns his own conspiracy, and points to the LORD's fulfilled word against the house of Ahab spoken through Elijah (vv. 9–10), then kills all the remnant of Ahab's house, his nobles, acquaintances, and priests (v. 11).
• B · 10:12–17 — Ahaziah's kin at Baithakad and Jehonadab on the chariot. On the road to Samaria Jehu meets and slaughters forty-two relatives of Ahaziah of Judah at Baithakad (vv. 12–14). He then meets Jehonadab son of Rechab, tests whether his heart is straight with his own, takes his hand, and lifts him onto the chariot to 'see my zeal for the LORD of Hosts' (vv. 15–16); arriving in Samaria he strikes down all the remnant of Ahab there, fulfilling the word of the LORD spoken to Elijah (v. 17).
• C · 10:18–28 — The ruse against Baal: the assembly, the slaughter, and the demolished temple. Feigning greater devotion than Ahab ('Jehu will serve Baal much'), Jehu summons every prophet, priest, and servant of Baal to a great sacrifice on pain of death (vv. 18–21). The temple of Baal is filled 'mouth to mouth'; vestments are distributed, and Jehu, with Jehonadab, ensures no servant of the LORD is present (vv. 22–23). When the burnt offerings are finished, Jehu's eighty stationed men and his runners and officers put the worshipers to the sword and press on to the inner shrine (vv. 24–25). The pillar and temple of Baal are dragged out, burned, torn down, and made a latrine to this day, so Jehu abolished Baal from Israel (vv. 26–28).
• D · 10:29–36 — Jehu's reward and failure; Hazael's encroachment; the death of Jehu. Jehu does not turn from the sins of Jeroboam — the golden calves at Bethel and Dan (v. 29). For doing well against Ahab's house the LORD promises him four generations on Israel's throne, yet Jehu does not walk in the law of the LORD with all his heart (vv. 30–31). In those days the LORD begins to cut Israel short: Hazael strikes all the territory east of the Jordan — Gilead, Gad, Reuben, and Manasseh, from Aroer by the Arnon (vv. 32–33). The regnal-summary closes the reign: Jehu's other deeds are in the chronicle, he sleeps with his fathers and is buried in Samaria, Jehoahaz his son reigns in his place, and his reign over Israel lasted twenty-eight years (vv. 34–36).

Translation & textual notes. The Greek text of 4 Kingdoms 10 (= 2 Kings 10 MT) follows the standard critical text of the Septuagint as established in the Rahlfs–Hanhart edition (Septuaginta, rev. ed. 2006), an ancient and public-domain text; the critical apparatus is not reproduced. The chapter narrates the completion of Jehu's revolution. It opens with two rounds of letters to the rulers, elders, and guardians (τιθηνοί) of Samaria, demanding first their allegiance and then the heads of Ahab's seventy sons (ἑβδομήκοντα υἱοί); the heads are sent in baskets (κάρταλλοι) and stacked in two heaps (βουνοὺς δύο) at the gate of Jezreel (vv. 1–11). Jehu then slaughters the relatives of Ahaziah of Judah at Baithakad (vv. 12–14), meets Jehonadab son of Rechab and tests his loyalty ('is your heart right with my heart?', εἰ ἔστιν καρδία σου … εὐθεῖα), taking him up onto the chariot to 'see my zeal for the LORD' (ἐν τῷ ζηλῶσαί με τῷ κυρίῳ Σαβαωθ, vv. 15–17). The chapter's centerpiece is the great ruse: Jehu feigns devotion to Baal ('Ahab served Baal a little, Jehu will serve him much'), summons all the prophets, priests, and servants of Baal to a solemn assembly (ἱερείαν τῷ Βααλ), fills the temple 'mouth to mouth' (στόμα εἰς στόμα), and once the burnt offerings are completed has his runners and officers put them all to the sword; the pillar and temple of Baal are demolished and made into a latrine (εἰς λυτρῶνας) to this day (vv. 18–28). The chapter closes with the theological assessment: Jehu did not turn from the golden calves (αἱ δαμάλεις αἱ χρυσαῖ) of Jeroboam at Bethel and Dan, yet for his zeal against Ahab's house the LORD grants him four generations on the throne of Israel (υἱοὶ τέταρτοι); in his days Hazael (Αζαηλ) begins to cut off Israel's Transjordanian territory; and Jehu sleeps with his fathers, succeeded by Jehoahaz (vv. 29–36). The translation 'LORD' renders κύριος where it stands for the Tetragrammaton (vv. 10, 16, 17, 23, 30, 31, 32); the same word is rendered 'master / lord' where it denotes the human king Ahab/Joram ('the sons of your master', vv. 2, 3, 6; 'my master', v. 9).

4 Kingdoms 11 — ΒΑΣΙΛΕΙΩΝ Δ′ ΙΑ′

Theme. Joash is hidden, Athaliah is overthrown, and the Davidic line is restored through Jehoiada's temple coup.

Outline.

• A · 11:1–3 — Athaliah's purge and the hidden heir. On learning of her son Ahaziah's death, Athaliah destroys the whole royal line of Judah and seizes the throne (v. 1). But Jehosheba, the king's daughter and Ahaziah's sister, steals away the infant Joash with his nurse and conceals him from Athaliah, so that he is not killed (v. 2). For six years he remains hidden in the house of the LORD while Athaliah reigns over the land (v. 3) — the dynastic promise to David surviving by a single hidden child.
• B · 11:4–11 — Jehoiada's covenant and the temple-guard deployment. In the seventh year the priest Jehoiada summons the captains of the Carites and the runners into the house of the LORD, binds them by covenant and oath, and reveals the king's son (v. 4). He details a Sabbath-watch deployment (vv. 5–8): three companies guard the palace and gates, the off-duty divisions guard the temple around the king, every man with his weapon in hand, killing any who breach the ranks. The captains execute the plan, the priest issues David's spears and shields from the temple, and the runners take their stations from the right to the left of the house, around the king (vv. 9–11).
• C · 11:12 — The crowning and anointing of Joash. Jehoiada brings out the king's son, sets the diadem (τὸ νεζερ) and the testimony (τὸ μαρτύριον) upon him, makes him king and anoints him; the assembly claps and cries ζήτω ὁ βασιλεύς ('Long live the king!').
• D · 11:13–16 — Athaliah's discovery, cry of treason, and execution. Hearing the noise of the running people, Athaliah enters the temple and sees the king standing by the pillar amid singers and trumpets and the rejoicing people; she tears her garments and cries σύνδεσμος σύνδεσμος ('Conspiracy!', vv. 13–14). Jehoiada orders the captains to bring her out beyond the ranks and to kill any who follow her, sparing the LORD's house from her blood (v. 15); she is seized and put to death at the horses' entrance of the palace (v. 16).
• E · 11:17–20 — Covenant renewal, the fall of Baal, and the joy of the land. Jehoiada makes a covenant between the LORD, the king, and the people, that they should be the LORD's people (v. 17). The people demolish the temple of Baal, smash its altars and images, and kill Mattan its priest before the altars, while the priest appoints overseers over the LORD's house (v. 18). The captains, the Carites, the runners, and all the people bring the king down and enthrone him on the royal throne (v. 19); the land rejoices and the city is quiet, Athaliah having been slain by the sword at the palace (v. 20).

Translation & textual notes. The Greek text of 4 Kingdoms 11 (= 2 Kings 11) follows the standard critical text of the Septuagint as established in the Rahlfs–Hanhart edition (Septuaginta, rev. ed. 2006), an ancient and public-domain text; the critical apparatus is not reproduced. The chapter is a tightly plotted palace-coup narrative, dominated by Hebraizing καί-parataxis and a string of constative aorists carrying the action. It opens with the usurpation of Γοθολια (Athaliah), mother of Ahaziah, who destroys πᾶν τὸ σπέρμα τῆς βασιλείας ('all the royal seed', v. 1); the lone survivor, the infant Ιωας (Joash), is rescued by Ιωσαβεε (Jehosheba) and hidden ἐν οἴκῳ κυρίου ('in the house of the LORD') for six years (vv. 2–3). In the seventh year the priest Ιωδαε (Jehoiada) covenants with the captains of the Carites (τὸν Χορρι) and the runners (τὸν Ρασιμ), deploys them by Sabbath-watches around the temple and the king (vv. 4–11), and crowns and anoints the boy, placing on him τὸ νεζερ (the diadem, a transliteration of Hebrew נֵזֶר) and τὸ μαρτύριον ('the testimony'), with the acclamation ζήτω ὁ βασιλεύς ('Long live the king!', v. 12). Athaliah's cry σύνδεσμος σύνδεσμος ('Conspiracy! Conspiracy!', rendering Hebrew קֶשֶׁר) and her execution at the horses' entrance (vv. 13–16) are followed by the threefold covenant ἀνὰ μέσον κυρίου … τοῦ βασιλέως … τοῦ λαοῦ (v. 17), the demolition of the temple of Βααλ and the killing of its priest Ματθαν (Mattan, v. 18), the enthronement of Joash (v. 19), and the closing notice of the land's joy and the city's quiet (ἡ πόλις ἡσύχασεν, v. 20). The chapter preserves several untranslated Hebrew transliterations — σαδηρωθ (the temple courts/ranks), νεζερ (diadem) — characteristic of the kaige-recension stratum of 4 Kingdoms.

4 Kingdoms 12 — ΒΑΣΙΛΕΙΩΝ Δ′ ΙΒ′

Theme. Joash repairs the temple under Jehoiada, yet his reign ends in tribute, conspiracy, and assassination.

Outline.

• A · 12:1–4 — Joash's accession and the verdict on his reign. The regnal framework: Joash becomes king at seven (v. 1), in Jehu's seventh year, reigning forty years in Jerusalem, son of Abia of Beersheba (v. 2). The verdict is favorable but conditional — he did τὸ εὐθές before the LORD, but only 'all the days that Jehoiada the priest instructed him' (ἐφώτισεν αὐτόν, v. 3) — and immediately qualified by the standing high places where the people still sacrificed and burned incense (v. 4).
• B · 12:5–9 — The first repair-plan: the priests' collection and its failure. Joash commissions the priests to gather the sacred money — assessment-silver and freewill offerings (v. 5) — and to repair τὸ βεδεκ ('the breach') of the house themselves (v. 6). But by the twenty-third year the priests had not done so (v. 7); the king rebukes them, removes the money from their control, and redirects it to the repair (v. 8). The priests consent to take no more money and to relinquish the task (v. 9).
• C · 12:10–17 — The chest by the altar and the faithful repair of the temple. Jehoiada bores a hole in the lid of a chest beside the altar, and the gatekeeping priests deposit all incoming silver (v. 10). When much accumulates, the king's scribe and high priest bag and count it (v. 11), then pay it to the overseers and workmen — carpenters, builders (v. 12), masons, stonecutters — for timber and hewn stone (v. 13). None is diverted to silver vessels; it all goes to the work (vv. 14–15). No accounting is required, because the men act ἐν πίστει (v. 16); the guilt- and trespass-money belonged to the priests (v. 17).
• D · 12:18–19 — Hazael's threat and the buying-off with the temple treasures. Hazael of Syria captures Gath and sets his face on Jerusalem (v. 18). Joash strips the consecrated gifts of Jehoshaphat, Joram, and Ahaziah, his own dedications, and all the gold of temple and palace treasuries, and sends them to Hazael, who withdraws (v. 19).
• E · 12:20–22 — The conspiracy and assassination of Joash. The closing source-citation points to the chronicle of the kings of Judah (v. 20). His servants conspire and strike him at the house of Millo (v. 21); the named assassins — Jezichar son of Jemouath, Jezebuth son of Somer — kill him, and he is buried with his fathers in the city of David, succeeded by his son Amaziah (v. 22).

Translation & textual notes. The Greek text of 4 Kingdoms 12 (= 2 Kings 12 MT) follows the standard critical text of the Septuagint as established in the Rahlfs–Hanhart edition (Septuaginta, rev. ed. 2006), an ancient and public-domain text; the critical apparatus is not reproduced. The LXX numbering runs one ahead of the Hebrew/English (LXX v. 1 ≈ Eng. 11:21–12:1), so the chapter has 22 verses where the MT has 21. The chapter belongs to the broadly 'kaige' (proto-kaige) stratum of Greek Kingdoms, marked by heavy Hebraizing literalism: untranslated loanwords — βεδεκ (Hebrew בֶּדֶק 'breach/repair') appears six times transliterated rather than rendered (vv. 6, 7, 8, 9, 13), and the obscure ιαμιβιν (v. 10, likely a corruption of הַמִּזְבֵּחַ 'the altar') is left in Hebrew; wooden καί-parataxis; and calqued idioms — ὃ ἐὰν ἀναβῇ ἐπὶ καρδίαν ἀνδρός ('whatever may come up upon a man's heart', v. 5, for עַל לֵב), ἔταξεν τὸ πρόσωπον αὐτοῦ ('set his face', v. 18, for שִׂים פָּנִים), and ἔδησαν ... σύνδεσμον ('bound a bond' = conspired, v. 21, the figura etymologica קָשַׁר קֶשֶׁר). The repair-narrative turns on a leitwort of 'strengthening/repairing' rendered by a cluster of near-synonyms — κρατέω (v. 6), κραταιόω (vv. 7, 8, 13, 15), ἐνισχύω (v. 9), κατέχω (v. 13) — all for Hebrew חִזֵּק. The fiscal pair εἰσοδιάζω 'pay in' (v. 5) and ἐξοδιάζω 'pay out' (v. 13) brackets the flow of temple revenue. The verdict-formula ἐποίησεν τὸ εὐθὲς ἐνώπιον κυρίου (v. 3) renders the standard Deuteronomistic עָשָׂה הַיָּשָׁר בְּעֵינֵי יהוה, with the unusual ἐφώτισεν ('enlightened/instructed', for הוֹרָה) casting Jehoiada's guidance as illumination; πλήν (vv. 4, 14) marks the recurring high-places caveat and the ring-fencing of the funds; ὁ ἱερεὺς ὁ μέγας (v. 11) is the LXX title for the high priest (הַכֹּהֵן הַגָּדוֹל); ἐν πίστει (v. 16) carries the OT sense of 'good faith / reliability' (אֱמוּנָה), not the later theological sense of belief. The chapter closes with the standard death-burial-succession frame: ἔθαψαν ... μετὰ τῶν πατέρων αὐτοῦ ἐν πόλει Δαυιδ (v. 22) and ἐβασίλευσεν Αμεσσιας ... ἀντ᾿ αὐτοῦ.

4 Kingdoms 13 — ΒΑΣΙΛΕΙΩΝ Δ′ ΙΓ′

Theme. Israel suffers under Aram, Elisha dies, and his final sign limits Joash's victories even beyond the grave.

Outline.

• A · 13:1–9 — Jehoahaz of Israel: evil reign, Aramean oppression, and the LORD's deliverance. The frame opens the seventeen-year reign of Jehoahaz son of Jehu, condemned by the evil of Jeroboam's sins (vv. 1–2). The LORD's wrath delivers Israel into the hand of Hazael and Ben-Hadad (v. 3); when Jehoahaz entreats the LORD, the LORD hears, for he sees Israel's affliction (v. 4) and grants relief so that Israel dwells "as yesterday and the day before" (v. 5). Yet the people do not turn from the sins of the house of Jeroboam (v. 6), and the army is reduced to a remnant ground like dust (v. 7). The regnal closing records his acts and burial in Samaria, with Joash succeeding him (vv. 8–9).
• B · 13:10–13 — Jehoash (Joash) of Israel: accession and death notice. The sixteen-year reign of Joash son of Jehoahaz opens under the same verdict of Jeroboam's evil (vv. 10–11). The closing formula records his acts and wars with Amaziah of Judah (v. 12), his death and burial, and Jeroboam (II) seated on his throne (v. 13) — a death-notice placed in advance of the Elisha narrative.
• C · 13:14–19 — The death of Elisha (1): Joash's lament and the prophetic sign of the arrows. Elisha falls mortally ill, and king Joash weeps over him, "My father, my father, the chariot of Israel and its horseman!" (v. 14, echoing 2:12). The prophet stages a sign-act with bow and arrows and lays his hands on the king's (vv. 15–16); the eastward arrow is declared "an arrow of the LORD's deliverance … against Aram" (v. 17). Commanded to strike the ground, the king strikes only three times (v. 18); the grieved man of God declares that five or six blows would have meant total victory, but now Aram will be struck only three times (v. 19).
• D · 13:20–21 — The death of Elisha (2): burial and the revival on the prophet's bones. Elisha dies and is buried (v. 20). As Moabite raiders invade at the turn of the year, men burying a corpse throw it into Elisha's tomb; touching the prophet's bones, the dead man revives and stands on his feet (v. 21) — a posthumous miracle unique in the Hebrew canon.
• E · 13:22–25 — Covenant mercy and Joash's threefold recovery of the cities. A summary recalls Hazael's oppression throughout the days of Jehoahaz (v. 22), set against the LORD's threefold compassion — he had mercy, pitied, and regarded Israel for the sake of his covenant with Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, refusing to destroy or cast them from his presence (v. 23). At Hazael's death his son Ben-Hadad succeeds (v. 24), and Joash recovers the cities taken from his father, striking Ben-Hadad three times and restoring the cities of Israel (v. 25) — the fulfillment of Elisha's oracle.

Translation & textual notes. The Greek text of 4 Kingdoms 13 (= 2 Kings 13) follows the Rahlfs–Hanhart critical text of the Septuagint (Septuaginta, rev. ed. 2006), an ancient and public-domain text; the apparatus is not reproduced. The chapter belongs to the kaige section of Kingdoms, marked by Hebraizing technique: relentless καί-parataxis, the wooden καθὼς ἐχθὲς καὶ τρίτης ("as yesterday and the day before," v. 5) for כִּתְמוֹל שִׁלְשֹׁם, the calque ἀπὸ τοῦ προσώπου αὐτοῦ ("from his face," v. 23), and the diagnostic καί γε ("and indeed," v. 6) for וְגַם that gives the recension its name. The regnal formulae are formulaic — ἐποίησεν τὸ πονηρὸν ἐν ὀφθαλμοῖς κυρίου and the dynastic-sin refrain ἁμαρτιῶν Ιεροβοαμ … ὃς ἐξήμαρτεν τὸν Ισραηλ. Theologically the chapter pairs the verbs of oppression (Hazael's ἔθλιψεν / ἐξέθλιψεν) with the LORD's gift of σωτηρία (v. 5) and his covenant-grounded triad ἠλέησεν … οἰκτίρησεν … ἐπέβλεψεν (v. 23), motivated διὰ τὴν διαθήκην αὐτοῦ τὴν μετὰ Αβρααμ καὶ Ισαακ καὶ Ιακωβ. The Elisha pericope is the dramatic heart: the dying prophet's sign-act with τόξον and βέλη, the arrow named βέλος σωτηρίας τῷ κυρίῳ ("an arrow of the LORD's deliverance," v. 17), and Joash's striking τρὶς ("thrice," v. 18) that provokes the man of God's grief and limits the victories to three (v. 19). The chapter ends with the corpse revived on touching Elisha's bones (τῶν ὀστέων Ελισαιε, v. 21) and Joash's threefold recovery (τρὶς … καὶ ἐπέστρεψεν τὰς πόλεις, v. 25), the literal fulfillment of the oracle.

4 Kingdoms 14 — ΒΑΣΙΛΕΙΩΝ Δ′ ΙΔ′

Theme. Amaziah's pride brings Judah low, while Jeroboam II restores Israel's borders despite continuing evil.

Outline.

• A · 14:1–4 — Accession and reign-summary of Amaziah of Judah. Synchronized to the second year of Jehoash of Israel, Amaziah son of Joash becomes king of Judah at twenty-five and reigns twenty-nine years in Jerusalem (vv. 1–2). He did right in the LORD's eyes, yet not like David his ancestor — only like his father Joash (v. 3) — and the high places were not removed, so the people still sacrificed and burned incense there (v. 4).
• B · 14:5–6 — Execution of the assassins; the sons spared per the Torah (Deut 24:16). Once the kingdom is firmly in hand, Amaziah strikes down the servants who murdered his father (v. 5). But he does not put their sons to death, in explicit obedience to the book of the law of Moses, where the LORD commanded that fathers shall not die for sons nor sons for fathers, but each shall die for his own sin (v. 6) — a verbatim narrative application of Deut 24:16.
• C · 14:7 — Victory over Edom in the Valley of Salt; the capture of the Rock. Amaziah strikes ten thousand of Edom in Gaimele (the Valley of Salt) and seizes 'the Rock' (Petra) in battle, renaming it Kathoel 'to this day' — the success that motivates his proud challenge to Israel.
• D · 14:8–14 — Amaziah's challenge, Jehoash's thistle-fable, and Judah's defeat at Beth-shemesh. Flush with victory, Amaziah summons Jehoash to a face-to-face reckoning (v. 8). Jehoash answers with a fable (vv. 9–10): the thistle of Lebanon demanded the cedar's daughter for its son, and a wild beast trampled it — a warning that Amaziah's heart has been lifted up and that he should stay home lest he fall. Amaziah will not listen (v. 11); Judah is routed at Beth-shemesh (v. 12); Jehoash captures Amaziah, breaches Jerusalem's wall four hundred cubits (v. 13), plunders temple and palace, and returns to Samaria (v. 14).
• E · 14:15–22 — Death of Jehoash; death of Amaziah; accession of Azariah. Closing formulae frame both kings: Jehoash's acts are in the chronicles of Israel's kings, and he sleeps with his fathers, Jeroboam succeeding (vv. 15–16). Amaziah outlives him by fifteen years (v. 17); his acts are in Judah's chronicles (v. 18). A conspiracy in Jerusalem drives him to Lachish, where he is killed and brought back for burial in the city of David (vv. 19–20). The people make his son Azariah king (v. 21), who rebuilds Aelath and restores it to Judah (v. 22).
• F · 14:23–29 — The reign of Jeroboam II of Israel and the prophecy of Jonah. In Amaziah's fifteenth year Jeroboam son of Jehoash begins a forty-one-year reign in Samaria (v. 23). He does evil, not departing from the sins of Jeroboam son of Nebat (v. 24), yet restores Israel's border from Lebo-hamath to the Sea of the Arabah, exactly as the LORD God of Israel had spoken through his servant Jonah son of Amittai from Gath-hepher (v. 25). For the LORD saw Israel's bitter affliction and that there was no helper (v. 26), and had not decreed to blot out Israel's name from under heaven, so he saved them by Jeroboam's hand (v. 27). The closing formula records his acts, his recovery of Damascus and Hamath, his death, and the succession of Azariah son of Amaziah (vv. 28–29).

Translation & textual notes. The Greek text of 4 Kingdoms 14 (= 2 Kings 14) follows the standard critical text of the Septuagint as established in the Rahlfs–Hanhart edition (Septuaginta, rev. ed. 2006), an ancient and public-domain text; the critical apparatus is not reproduced. The chapter belongs to the kaige recension of Kingdoms and exhibits its characteristic literalism: heavy καί-parataxis, transliterated proper names left indeclinable (Ισραηλ, Ιουδα, Ιωας, Ιεροβοαμ, Εδωμ, Βαιθσαμυς), and calque renderings of Hebrew idiom (ὀφθῶμεν προσώποις 'let us look one another in the face', v. 8; ἐπῆρέν σε ἡ καρδία σου 'your heart has lifted you up', v. 10). The same indeclinable Ιωας names two different kings (Joash of Judah and Jehoash of Israel) within v. 1, disambiguated only by appended kingdom-titles. The toponym Γαιμελε (v. 7) treats the whole Hebrew phrase גֵּיא-מֶלַח ('Valley of Salt') as a single indeclinable name, while πέτρα ('the Rock', Sela/Petra) is translated rather than transliterated. The fable of vv. 9–10 deploys ακαν ('thistle', Heb. הַחוֹחַ) — here declined (nom. ακαν, acc. ακανα) — against κέδρος ('cedar'), a transparent allegory of Amaziah's overreach. v. 6 is a near-verbatim citation of Deut 24:16 LXX, introduced by the standing-authority formula καθὼς γέγραπται; the Hebraizing ὅτι ἀλλ᾿ ἤ ('but rather') renders כִּי אִם. v. 25 supplies the only narrative anchor in the Former Prophets for the prophet of the book of Jonah (Ιωνα υἱοῦ Αμαθι, 'Jonah son of Amittai', identical to Jonah 1:1), and frames Jeroboam's political triumph as κατὰ τὸ ῥῆμα κυρίου ('according to the word of the LORD'). The piled perfect participles of v. 26 (συνεχομένους, ἐσπανισμένους, ἐγκαταλελειμμένους) and the Exodus-echo εἶδεν κύριος τὴν ταπείνωσιν (cf. Exod 3:7) ground the deliverance in divine compassion, not royal merit; v. 27's ἐξαλεῖψαι … ὑποκάτωθεν τοῦ οὐρανοῦ ('blot out from under heaven') is the language of total annihilation (cf. Deut 9:14), here explicitly withheld. The obscure τῷ Ιουδα ἐν Ισραηλ (v. 28) reflects the translator's wooden handling of a difficult Vorlage.

4 Kingdoms 15 — ΒΑΣΙΛΕΙΩΝ Δ′ ΙΕ′

Theme. Judah endures under Azariah and Jotham while Israel collapses through coups, violence, and Assyrian pressure.

Outline.

• A · 15:1–7 — Azariah (Uzziah) of Judah: long reign, leprosy, and Jotham's regency. A synchronistic accession formula dates Azariah's reign to Jeroboam II's twenty-seventh year (v. 1); he reigns fifty-two years and does τὸ εὐθὲς ἐν ὀφθαλμοῖς κυρίου like his father, the high places excepted (vv. 2–4). The LORD strikes him with leprosy (ἥψατο κύριος τοῦ βασιλέως … ἦν λελεπρωμένος, v. 5) so that his son Ιωαθαμ governs the palace and judges the people of the land. The unit closes with the annal-citation and burial formula and Jotham's succession (vv. 6–7).
• B · 15:8–12 — Zechariah of Israel: the fourth generation of Jehu falls. Zechariah son of Jeroboam reigns over Israel only six months (ἑξάμηνον, v. 8), doing evil like his fathers (v. 9). Shallum son of Jabesh conspires, strikes him down, and reigns in his place (v. 10). The citation-formula (v. 11) is followed by the narrator's theological comment (v. 12): this fulfils the LORD's word to Jehu — υἱοὶ τέταρτοι καθήσονταί σοι ἐπὶ θρόνου Ισραηλ — καὶ ἐγένετο οὕτως.
• C · 15:13–16 — Shallum's month and Menahem's brutal seizure of power. Shallum reigns a single 'month of days' in Samaria (μῆνα ἡμερῶν, v. 13). Menahem son of Gaddi comes up from Tirzah, strikes down Shallum, and kills him (v. 14); the citation-formula records Shallum's conspiracy (v. 15). Then Menahem sacks Tiphsah/Tirzah and its territory because they would not open to him, and rips open all the pregnant women (τὰς ἐν γαστρὶ ἐχούσας ἀνέρρηξεν, v. 16).
• D · 15:17–22 — Menahem of Israel: tribute to Pul of Assyria. Menahem reigns ten years in Samaria (v. 17), doing evil and not departing from the sins of Jeroboam son of Nabat (v. 18). Pul king of the Assyrians comes against the land, and Menahem gives him a thousand talents of silver to secure his support (v. 19); he raises the tribute by exacting fifty shekels from each man of substance, and the Assyrian withdraws (v. 20). The unit closes with the citation, death, and succession of his son Pekahiah (vv. 21–22).
• E · 15:23–26 — Pekahiah of Israel: a two-year reign cut short. Pekahiah son of Menahem reigns two years (v. 23), doing evil (v. 24). His officer (τριστάτης) Pekah son of Romelias conspires against him with fifty Gileadite men, strikes him in the palace citadel, kills him, and reigns in his place (v. 25). The citation-formula closes the unit (v. 26).
• F · 15:27–31 — Pekah of Israel: the first Assyrian deportation, and Hoshea's coup. Pekah reigns twenty years (v. 27), doing evil (v. 28). In his days Tiglath-pileser takes the northern towns and Galilee and all the land of Naphtali and deports the people to Assyria (ἀπῴκισεν αὐτοὺς εἰς Ἀσσυρίους, v. 29) — the first Assyrian exile. Hoshea son of Elah then conspires against Pekah, strikes and kills him, and reigns in his place (v. 30). The citation-formula closes the unit (v. 31).
• G · 15:32–38 — Jotham of Judah: an upright reign and the first Syro-Ephraimite pressure. Jotham son of Azariah/Uzziah accedes in Pekah's second year (v. 32), reigns sixteen years, and does τὸ εὐθὲς ἐν ὀφθαλμοῖς κυρίου like his father Uzziah (vv. 33–34); the high places remain, but he builds the upper gate of the LORD's house (v. 35). After the citation-formula (v. 36) comes the first note of the coming Syro-Ephraimite threat: the LORD begins to send against Judah Rezin (Ραασσων) king of Syria and Pekah son of Romelias (v. 37). Jotham dies and is buried in the city of David, and his son Ahaz reigns in his place (v. 38).

Translation & textual notes. The Greek text of 4 Kingdoms 15 (= 2 Kings 15) follows the standard critical text of the Septuagint as established in the Rahlfs–Hanhart edition (Septuaginta, rev. ed. 2006), an ancient and public-domain text; the critical apparatus is not reproduced. The chapter is built almost entirely from the repeated regnal frame of the Deuteronomistic historian: a synchronistic accession formula (ἐν ἔτει … ἐβασίλευσεν), an evaluative verdict (ἐποίησεν τὸ εὐθές / τὸ πονηρὸν ἐν ὀφθαλμοῖς κυρίου), and a closing citation-formula referring to the βιβλίον λόγων τῶν ἡμερῶν (the royal annals). Around this frame the LXX narrates the leprous reign of Azariah/Uzziah, whose son Ιωαθαμ governs the palace ἐπὶ τῷ οἴκῳ (v. 5), and the violent collapse of the northern dynasty of Jehu. The proper-name orthography is the transliterated LXX form throughout; note especially the king's two names, Αζαριας (vv. 1, 6, 7, 8) and Οζιας (v. 34), reflecting the Hebrew doublet Azariah/Uzziah, and the parallel pair Φακεϊας (Pekahiah, Menahem's son) vs. Φακεε (Pekah, the usurper). The same Assyrian monarch appears under two names: Φουλ (Pul, his Babylonian throne-name, v. 19) and Θαγλαθφελλασαρ (Tiglath-pileser, his Assyrian name, v. 29). The recurring coup-vocabulary — συστρέφομαι / συστροφή / σύστρεμμα (vv. 10, 15, 25, 30) — and the standing northern indictment οὐκ ἀπέστη ἀπὸ (πασῶν) ἁμαρτιῶν Ιεροβοαμ υἱοῦ Ναβατ ὃς ἐξήμαρτεν τὸν Ισραηλ (vv. 9, 18, 24, 28) bind the chaotic succession into a single theological pattern. The αφφουσωθ of v. 5 is an untranslated transliteration of Hebrew בֵּית הַחָפְשִׁית, the quarantine-house of the leprous king. The deportation-verb ἀπῴκισεν (v. 29) is the technical LXX term for exile (rendering the Hiphil of גָּלָה), here marking the first Assyrian deportation of Israelites and prefiguring the fall of Samaria in chs. 17–18.

4 Kingdoms 16 — ΒΑΣΙΛΕΙΩΝ Δ′ ΙϚ′

Theme. Ahaz answers crisis with Assyria and remakes Judah's worship after a foreign altar.

Outline.

• A · 16:1–4 — Ahaz of Judah: accession and apostasy. In the seventeenth year of Pekah son of Remaliah, Ahaz son of Jotham becomes king of Judah at twenty and reigns sixteen years in Jerusalem (vv. 1–2a). Unlike David his father, he does not do τὸ εὐθὲς ἐν ὀφθαλμοῖς κυρίου (v. 2b): he walks in the way of Jeroboam and the kings of Israel, even passing his son through the fire after the abominations of the nations YHWH had dispossessed (v. 3), and he sacrifices and burns incense at the high places, on the hills, and under every leafy tree (v. 4).
• B · 16:5–9 — The Syro-Ephraimite war and the appeal to Assyria. Rezin of Aram and Pekah of Israel march up against Jerusalem to war and besiege Ahaz but cannot fight against him (v. 5); Rezin recovers Ailath for Syria, expelling the Judeans, and Edomites settle there (v. 6). Ahaz then sends messengers to Tiglath-Pileser of Assyria with a vassal's confession — δοῦλός σου καὶ υἱός σου ἐγώ — begging deliverance from the kings of Aram and Israel (v. 7), and dispatches the temple and palace silver and gold as a gift (v. 8). The Assyrian king complies: he goes up against Damascus, captures and deports it, and puts Rezin to death (v. 9).
• C · 16:10–16 — The Damascus altar copied and installed. Going to meet Tiglath-Pileser at Damascus, Ahaz sees the altar there and sends its pattern (ὁμοίωμα) and full design to Uriah the priest (v. 10), who builds a replica before the king returns (v. 11). Ahaz ascends the new altar and offers his whole-burnt offering, grain offering, and libation upon it, pouring out the blood of his peace-offerings (vv. 12–13). He moves the bronze altar that stood before the LORD to the north flank (v. 14) and commands Uriah to offer all the morning and evening, royal and popular offerings on the great new altar, while the bronze altar is reserved 'for my inquiry'; Uriah does all the king commanded (vv. 15–16).
• D · 16:17–20 — Temple furnishings stripped, and Ahaz's death. Ahaz cuts off the panels of the stands and removes the laver from them, takes down the bronze Sea from the bronze oxen beneath it and sets it on a stone base (v. 17), and alters the foundation of the seat and the king's outer entry in the house of the LORD 'because of the king of Assyria' (v. 18). The regnal closure follows: the rest of Ahaz's acts are written in the chronicle of the kings of Judah (v. 19); he sleeps with his fathers, is buried in the city of David, and Hezekiah his son reigns in his place (v. 20).

Translation & textual notes. The Greek text of 4 Kingdoms 16 (= 2 Kings 16 in the Hebrew/English versification) follows the standard critical text of the Septuagint as established in the Rahlfs–Hanhart edition (Septuaginta, rev. ed. 2006), an ancient and public-domain text; the critical apparatus is not reproduced. The chapter narrates the reign of Ahaz of Judah, son of Jotham, who reigned in Jerusalem and did not do τὸ εὐθὲς ἐν ὀφθαλμοῖς κυρίου (v. 2): he walked in the way of the kings of Israel and even passed his son through the fire (διῆγεν ἐν πυρί, v. 3), sacrificing and burning incense at the high places (vv. 3–4). The Syro-Ephraimite war follows (vv. 5–9): Rezin king of Aram (Ραασσων βασιλεὺς Συρίας) and Pekah son of Remaliah king of Israel besiege Jerusalem but cannot prevail; Rezin recovers Ailath for Syria (v. 6). Ahaz appeals to Tiglath-Pileser of Assyria (Θαγλαθφελλασαρ), declaring δοῦλός σου καὶ υἱός σου ἐγώ ('I am your servant and your son', v. 7), and sends him the silver and gold from the temple and palace treasuries as δῶρα (v. 8); the Assyrian king takes Damascus, deports it, and kills Rezin (v. 9). The chapter's center (vv. 10–16) concerns the Damascus altar: at Damascus Ahaz sees a pagan altar and sends its ὁμοίωμα ('likeness/pattern') to Uriah the priest, who builds a copy; Ahaz himself ascends and offers on it (vv. 12–13), displaces the bronze altar that stood ἀπέναντι κυρίου to the north side (v. 14), and commands Uriah to make the great new altar the locus of all the daily and royal and popular offerings, reserving the bronze altar 'for my inquiry' (vv. 15–16). The closing section (vv. 17–20) records Ahaz's stripping and rearrangement of the temple furnishings — the panels of the stands (τὰ συγκλείσματα τῶν μεχωνωθ), the laver, and the bronze Sea taken down from its bronze oxen onto a stone base — done 'because of the king of Assyria' (ἀπὸ προσώπου βασιλέως Ἀσσυρίων, v. 18), followed by the regnal-death formula: Ahaz slept with his fathers and Hezekiah his son reigned in his stead (v. 20). The transliterated furnishing-term μεχωνωθ (Hebrew מְכֹנוֹת, 'stands/bases') is left untranslated, a sign of the Greek translator's technical-cultic reticence.

4 Kingdoms 17 — ΒΑΣΙΛΕΙΩΝ Δ′ ΙΖ′

Theme. Samaria falls, Israel is exiled, and the book explains the northern kingdom's destruction as covenant judgment.

Outline.

• A · 17:1–6 — Hoshea's reign and the fall of Samaria. The regnal frame of Ωσηε son of Elah, the last king of Israel (vv. 1–2), who did evil but not as the kings before him. Shalmaneser of Assyria makes him a vassal (δοῦλος, v. 3); Hoshea conspires with Σηγωρ of Egypt and withholds tribute (μαναα), so the Assyrian imprisons him, besieges Samaria three years (vv. 4–5), and in Hoshea's ninth year captures the city and deports Israel εἰς Ἀσσυρίους, resettling them at Halah and the Habor (v. 6).
• B · 17:7–12 — Theodicy I: Israel's sin and the worship of other gods. The narrator turns from event to explanation: it happened because (ὅτι) Israel sinned against the LORD their God who brought them up out of Egypt, and feared other gods (v. 7). They walked in the statutes of the nations the LORD had dispossessed (v. 8), built high places in every city (v. 9), set up pillars and sacred groves on every high hill (v. 10), burned incense there like the nations (v. 11), and served idols against the express prohibition of the LORD (v. 12).
• C · 17:13–17 — Theodicy II: prophetic warning rejected, full apostasy. The LORD solemnly testified (διεμαρτύρατο) through every prophet and seer, calling Israel to turn from their evil ways and keep the commandments (v. 13); but they did not listen, stiffening their neck (v. 14), despising the testimonies and going after vanity until they became vain (v. 15). They forsook the commandments, made the two molten calves and sacred groves, worshipped all the host of heaven and served Baal (v. 16), passed their children through fire, practised divination and augury, and sold themselves to do evil (v. 17).
• D · 17:18–23 — Theodicy III: the LORD removes Israel; Judah's complicity; the exile. The LORD was greatly angered and removed Israel from his presence, leaving only the tribe of Judah (v. 18) — yet Judah too did not keep the commandments but walked in Israel's statutes (v. 19). So the LORD rejected all the seed of Israel and gave them into the hand of plunderers (v. 20). The root cause is traced to the schism: Jeroboam drove Israel from following the LORD and made them sin a great sin (v. 21), in which they persisted (v. 22) until the LORD removed Israel from his presence, as he had spoken through the prophets, and Israel was exiled to Assyria to this day (v. 23).
• E · 17:24–28 — Resettlement of Samaria and the sending of the lions. The king of Assyria brings peoples from Babylon, Cuthah, Avva, Hamath and Sepharvaim and settles them in the cities of Samaria in place of Israel (v. 24). Because at first they did not fear the LORD, he sent lions among them which killed some (v. 25). Reported to the Assyrian king as ignorance of 'the manner of the god of the land' (vv. 26–27), he sends back one of the deported priests, who settles in Bethel and teaches them how to fear the LORD (v. 28).
• F · 17:29–33 — Each nation makes its own gods: the catalogue of syncretism. Nation by nation the settlers make their own gods and place them in the shrines of the high places the Samaritans had made (v. 29): the men of Babylon make Succoth-benoth, Cuth makes Nergal, Hamath makes Ashima (v. 30), the Avvites make Nibhaz and Tartak, and the Sepharvites burn their children in fire to Adrammelech and Anammelech (v. 31). So they 'feared the LORD' yet made for themselves priests of the high places (v. 32) — fearing the LORD and serving their own gods after the custom of the nations from which they were deported (v. 33).
• G · 17:34–41 — The divided heart: covenant recalled, syncretism enduring. To this day they act after their former custom: they neither truly fear the LORD nor keep his statutes, law, and commandment given to the sons of Jacob whom he named Israel (v. 34). The LORD had made a covenant with them, charging: do not fear, bow to, serve, or sacrifice to other gods (v. 35), but only to the LORD who brought you up from Egypt (vv. 36–38) — fear him and he will deliver you (v. 39), and do not follow the nations' custom (v. 40). Yet these nations both feared the LORD and served their carved images, they and their children, to this day (v. 41).

Translation & textual notes. The Greek text of 4 Kingdoms 17 (= 2 Kings 17 MT) follows the standard critical text of the Septuagint as established in the Rahlfs–Hanhart edition (Septuaginta, rev. ed. 2006), an ancient and public-domain text; the critical apparatus is not reproduced. The chapter is the theological epitaph of the northern kingdom. It opens with the brief regnal notice of Ωσηε (Hoshea) son of Elah, the last king of Israel (vv. 1–2), the vassalage and rebellion against Σαλαμανασαρ (Shalmaneser) of Assyria (vv. 3–4), the three-year siege of Samaria, and the deportation εἰς Ἀσσυρίους (vv. 5–6). There follows the great Deuteronomistic theodicy (vv. 7–23): Israel ἥμαρτον … τῷ κυρίῳ ('sinned against the LORD') who had brought them up out of Egypt, ἐφοβήθησαν θεοὺς ἑτέρους ('feared other gods'), walked in the δικαιώματα ('statutes') of the nations, built ὑψηλά ('high places'), erected στήλας and ἄλση (pillars and sacred groves), made the χώνευμα δύο δαμάλεις ('two molten calves'), worshipped πάσῃ τῇ δυνάμει τοῦ οὐρανοῦ ('all the host of heaven') and served τῷ Βααλ, passed their sons and daughters through fire (διῆγον … ἐν πυρί), and would not heed the prophets whom the LORD sent διεμαρτύρατο ('solemnly testifying'); so YHWH ἀπέστησεν αὐτούς ('removed them') from his presence, leaving only Judah — who likewise did not keep the commandments. The narrative closes (vv. 24–41) with the resettlement of Samaria by deportees from Babylon, Cuthah, Hamath and Sepharvaim, the divinely-sent λέοντες ('lions'), the imported Israelite priest at Bethel, and the enduring religious syncretism that gave rise to the Samaritans: τὸν κύριον ἐφοβοῦντο καὶ τοῖς θεοῖς αὐτῶν ἐλάτρευον ('they feared the LORD and served their own gods', v. 33), a divided allegiance persisting ἕως τῆς ἡμέρας ταύτης ('to this day'). The chapter is dense with the LXX's standard rendering of Hebrew cultic vocabulary — δικαιώματα for חֻקּוֹת, ὑψηλά for בָּמוֹת, ἄλση for אֲשֵׁרִים, στῆλαι for מַצֵּבוֹת — and with the covenantal verbs of obedience and apostasy that structure the books of Kingdoms. Several verses (notably 9, 11) are textually difficult, the LXX diverging from MT and rendering an obscure Vorlage; these are flagged in the word-level notes.

4 Kingdoms 18 — ΒΑΣΙΛΕΙΩΝ Δ′ ΙΗ′

Theme. Hezekiah reforms Judah, but Assyria presses Jerusalem with blasphemy and siege.

Outline.

• A · 18:1–8 — Hezekiah's accession and reform: trust in the LORD and the breaking of Nehushtan. Hezekiah son of Ahaz becomes king of Judah in the third year of Hoshea of Israel (vv. 1–2). He does "the right in the eyes of the LORD" like David (v. 3): he removes the high places, shatters the pillars, destroys the groves, and breaks the bronze serpent of Moses, which Israel had burned incense to, renaming it Νεεσθαν (v. 4). His incomparable trust (vv. 5–6) is rewarded: the LORD is with him, he rebels successfully against Assyria, and strikes the Philistines as far as Gaza (vv. 7–8).
• B · 18:9–12 — The fall of Samaria recalled. A dated flashback: Shalmaneser besieges Samaria from Hezekiah's fourth (Hoshea's seventh) year, taking it after three years (vv. 9–10); the king of Assyria deports the North to Halah, Habor by the Gozan, and the mountains of the Medes (v. 11) — because they did not obey the voice of the LORD their God but transgressed his covenant (v. 12).
• C · 18:13–16 — Sennacherib's invasion and Hezekiah's tribute. In Hezekiah's fourteenth year Sennacherib seizes the fortified cities of Judah (v. 13). Hezekiah sues for terms at Lachish ("I have sinned"), and the king imposes three hundred talents of silver and thirty of gold (v. 14). Hezekiah hands over all the temple and palace silver (v. 15), even stripping the gold from the temple doors and posts he himself had gilded (v. 16).
• D · 18:17–25 — The Rabshakeh's embassy and first taunt. The king of Assyria sends the Tartan, Rabsaris, and Rabshakeh with a heavy force; they stand at the conduit of the upper pool (v. 17), and Hezekiah's three officials come out (v. 18). The Rabshakeh delivers "the great king's" words: what is this confidence? (v. 19); mere words are no strategy for war (v. 20); Egypt is a bruised reed piercing the hand that leans on it (v. 21); if you trust the LORD — is he not the one whose high places Hezekiah removed? (v. 22). He offers a mocking wager of horses (v. 23), belittles Judah's reliance on Egypt (v. 24), and claims to come up at the LORD's own command (v. 25).
• E · 18:26–27 — The plea for Aramaic and the crude refusal. The officials beg him to speak Aramaic (Συριστί), not Judean (Ιουδαϊστί), in the people's hearing (v. 26). The Rabshakeh refuses with a deliberately crude retort about the besieged eating their own dung and drinking their own urine (v. 27).
• F · 18:28–35 — The public proclamation: surrender, and the boast that no god delivers. He stands and cries aloud in Judean (v. 28): let not Hezekiah deceive you, he cannot deliver you (v. 29); let him not make you trust the LORD (v. 30). Make peace and come out, each to his own vine and fig (v. 31), until I take you to a land like your own (v. 32). Then the climactic blasphemy: have the gods of the nations delivered their lands? (v. 33); where are the gods of Hamath, Arpad, Sepharvaim — did they deliver Samaria? (v. 34); which of all the gods of the lands has delivered his land, that the LORD should deliver Jerusalem? (v. 35).
• G · 18:36–37 — The people's silence and the officials' report. The people keep silent and answer not a word, for the king's command was "You shall not answer him" (v. 36). Eliakim, Shebna, and Joah come to Hezekiah with torn garments and report the Rabshakeh's words (v. 37) — opening the way to chapter 19.

Translation & textual notes. The Greek text of 4 Kingdoms 18 (= 2 Kings 18 MT) follows the Rahlfs–Hanhart critical text of the Septuagint (rev. ed. 2006); the apparatus is not reproduced. The chapter falls within the καίγε section of Kingdoms, marked by strongly Hebraizing, formally-equivalent translation. The reform-summary of v. 4 climaxes in the breaking of Moses' bronze serpent (Num 21:8–9), renamed Νεεσθαν — a wordplay on נְחֹשֶׁת ('bronze') and נָחָשׁ ('serpent') reducing the venerated relic to mere metal. The incomparability formula of v. 5 (οὐκ ἐγενήθη ὅμοιος αὐτῷ) is the strongest praise in Kings. v. 7's συνῆκεν renders שָׂכַל in the sense 'prosper / have success', not 'understand'; ἠθέτησεν ('rebelled') will be thrown back at Hezekiah in the Rabshakeh's mouth (v. 20). The Samaria flashback (vv. 9–12) double-synchronizes the siege and supplies the Deuteronomistic verdict (v. 12). The Rabshakeh's speeches are dense with the trust-vocabulary πέποιθα / πεποίθησις / ἐλπίζω (vv. 19–24) and the deliverance-vocabulary ἐξαιρέω / ῥύομαι and the refrain ἐκ χειρός ('out of the hand', vv. 29–35). The 'bruised reed' image of v. 21 (ῥάβδον τὴν καλαμίνην τὴν τεθλασμένην) is verbatim Isa 36:6, part of the close Isaiah-Kings parallel; the conduit of the upper pool on the fuller's-field road (v. 17) is the same location as Isaiah's meeting with Ahaz (Isa 7:3; 36:2). v. 22 turns Hezekiah's own cult-centralization into an argument against trust in YHWH — a pagan's misreading of pious reform. The surrender-offer (vv. 31–32) cynically appropriates Israel's own peace-imagery (every man under his vine and fig tree; a land of grain, wine, oil, and honey) to gild deportation. The climactic blasphemy (vv. 33–35) ranks κύριος among the impotent national gods — the affront that drives the theological resolution of chapter 19.

4 Kingdoms 19 — ΒΑΣΙΛΕΙΩΝ Δ′ ΙΘ′

Theme. Hezekiah prays, Isaiah answers, and the Lord shatters Sennacherib without Jerusalem falling.

Outline.

• A · 19:1–4 — Hezekiah's mourning and appeal to Isaiah. Hearing the Rabshakeh's report, King Hezekiah tears his garments, dons sackcloth, and enters the house of the LORD (v. 1). He sends Eliakim the steward, Shebna the scribe, and the elders of the priests, themselves in sackcloth, to the prophet Isaiah son of Amos (v. 2). Their message names this 'a day of distress and rebuke and provocation' (v. 3), likened to children come to the birth with no strength to deliver, and voices the hope that the LORD God will hear the words of the Rabshakeh, sent by the Assyrian king to reproach the living God, and will take up a prayer for the surviving remnant (v. 4).
• B · 19:5–7 — Isaiah's first oracle: do not fear. Hezekiah's servants come to Isaiah (v. 5), who answers with the messenger-formula and the reassurance μὴ φοβηθῇς ('do not fear') the words by which the king of Assyria's lackeys have blasphemed (v. 6). The LORD promises to put a 'spirit' in Sennacherib so that, hearing a report, he will return to his own land and there fall by the sword (v. 7).
• C · 19:8–13 — Sennacherib's renewed threat and blasphemous letter. The Rabshakeh returns and finds the king of Assyria fighting against Libnah, having departed from Lachish (v. 8). Hearing of Tirhakah king of Ethiopia advancing against him, Sennacherib sends messengers to Hezekiah (v. 9) with a renewed taunt: let not your God deceive you that Jerusalem will not be given into the king of Assyria's hand (v. 10). The classic Assyrian boast follows — the kings of Assyria have devastated all lands (v. 11); did the gods of the nations deliver them, Gozan, Haran, Rezeph, the sons of Eden in Telassar (v. 12), and where are the kings of Hamath, Arpad, Sepharvaim, Hena, and Ivvah (v. 13)?
• D · 19:14–19 — Hezekiah's prayer before the LORD. Hezekiah takes the letters from the messengers' hand, reads them, goes up to the house of the LORD, and spreads them out before the LORD (v. 14). His prayer addresses the LORD God of Israel enthroned upon the cherubim, confessing σὺ εἶ ὁ θεὸς μόνος over all the kingdoms of the earth and Maker of heaven and earth (v. 15). He pleads with the LORD to incline his ear and open his eyes and hear the words of Sennacherib sent to reproach the living God (v. 16). He concedes that the Assyrian kings have truly laid waste the nations (v. 17) and burned their gods — which were no gods but the work of human hands, wood and stone (v. 18) — and prays for deliverance so that all the kingdoms of the earth may know that the LORD alone is God (v. 19).
• E · 19:20–28 — Isaiah's oracle against Sennacherib. Isaiah son of Amos sends word that the LORD God of hosts, the God of Israel, has heard Hezekiah's prayer about Sennacherib (v. 20). The oracle is the word the LORD has spoken against him: the virgin daughter of Zion despises and mocks him, the daughter of Jerusalem shakes her head (v. 21). Whom has he reproached and blasphemed but the Holy One of Israel (v. 22)? By his messengers he has reproached the LORD and boasted of climbing the heights of Lebanon, felling its cedars and choice cypresses, digging foreign wells and drying up rivers with the sole of his foot (vv. 23–24). Yet it was the LORD who long ago purposed and formed it (v. 25); the inhabitants were powerless, dismayed grass of the field (v. 26). The LORD knows Sennacherib's every movement and his rage (v. 27); because of his arrogance the LORD will put his hook in his nose and his bridle in his lips and turn him back the way he came (v. 28).
• F · 19:29–31 — The sign of the harvest and the remnant. Hezekiah is given a sign: this year you shall eat what grows of itself, the second year what springs from that, and in the third year sow and reap, plant vineyards and eat their fruit (v. 29). The surviving remnant of the house of Judah shall again take root downward and bear fruit upward (v. 30), for out of Jerusalem shall go forth a remnant and survivors from Mount Zion — the zeal of the LORD of hosts shall accomplish this (v. 31).
• G · 19:32–34 — The LORD's verdict: he shall not enter this city. Therefore thus says the LORD concerning the king of Assyria: he shall not enter this city nor shoot an arrow there, nor advance against it with a shield, nor cast up a siege-ramp against it (v. 32). By the way he came he shall return, and into this city he shall not enter, says the LORD (v. 33). The LORD will shield this city for his own sake and for the sake of David his servant (v. 34).
• H · 19:35–37 — The angel's stroke and Sennacherib's death. That night the Angel of the LORD goes out and strikes 185,000 in the Assyrian camp; at dawn they are all dead bodies (v. 35). Sennacherib king of Assyria departs, returns, and dwells in Nineveh (v. 36). While he is worshipping in the temple of Nisroch his god, his sons Adrammelech and Sharezer strike him down with the sword and escape to the land of Ararat, and Esarhaddon his son reigns in his place (v. 37).

Translation & textual notes. The Greek text of 4 Kingdoms 19 (= 2 Kings 19 MT) follows the standard critical text of the Septuagint as established in the Rahlfs–Hanhart edition (Septuaginta, rev. ed. 2006), an ancient and public-domain text; the critical apparatus is not reproduced. The chapter is the great Hezekiah–Sennacherib deliverance narrative, closely parallel to Isaiah 37, and the LXX of Kingdoms here renders the Hebrew with a markedly Hebraising, paratactic καί-style — including apodotic καί after temporal clauses (vv. 1, 35, 37), the messenger-formula τάδε λέγει κύριος (vv. 3, 6, 20, 32), the genitive-absolute temporal frame of v. 37, and the redundant resumptive pronouns in relative clauses (ὃν ... αὐτόν, v. 4; ἐφ᾿ ᾧ ... ἐπ᾿ αὐτῷ, v. 10; ᾗ ... ἐν αὐτῇ, vv. 28, 33). Several proper names in Rahlfs' Kingdoms are declined (Εζεκιας/Εζεκιου/Εζεκιαν, Ησαιας/Ησαιαν, Ραψακης/Ραψακου) and so are tagged as nouns with case, whereas the transliterated indeclinables (Σενναχηριμ, Ιερουσαλημ, Σιων, Ισραηλ, Ιουδα, Δαυιδ, Νινευη, Νεσεραχ, Αραρατ, Ασορδαν, and the place-names of the conqueror's roll-call) are tagged 'x' with no case. The divine title κύριος ὁ θεὸς τῶν δυνάμεων ('LORD God of hosts/powers', v. 20; cf. v. 31) renders יְהוָה צְבָאוֹת, and the throne-formula ὁ καθήμενος ἐπὶ τῶν χερουβιν (v. 15) renders יֹשֵׁב הַכְּרֻבִים. Hezekiah's prayer (vv. 15–19) frames a strict monotheistic confession (σὺ εἶ ὁ θεὸς μόνος, v. 15; σὺ κύριος ὁ θεὸς μόνος, v. 19) as a doxological inclusio, with the anti-idol polemic of v. 18 (οὐ θεοί εἰσιν ἀλλ᾿ ἢ ἔργα χειρῶν ἀνθρώπων, ξύλα καὶ λίθοι) anticipating Isaiah 44. The oracle (vv. 20–28) deploys vivid personification (παρθένος θυγάτηρ Σιων ... ἐμυκτήρισέν σε, v. 21) and the anthropomorphic judgement θήσω τὰ ἄγκιστρά μου ἐν τοῖς μυκτῆρσίν σου ('I will put my hooks in your nostrils', v. 28) — the cognate of μυκτηρίζω ('sneer', v. 21): the nose that sneered will itself be hooked. The boast of v. 23 contains a difficult, probably corrupt reading, εἰς μελον τέλους αὐτοῦ ('to the farthest height/lodging of its end'), where the Hebrew has מְלוֹן קִצֹּה ('the lodging-place of its farthest border') and some witnesses read μέρος or μέσον; the form μελον is retained verbatim from Rahlfs. The verdict of v. 32 opens with οὐχ οὕτως ('not so'), a flat denial where the MT reads לָכֵן ('therefore'). The 185,000 of v. 35 are rendered ἑκατὸν ὀγδοήκοντα πέντε χιλιάδας; the climactic σώματα νεκρά ('dead bodies') closes the scene with grim economy. The chapter's verbal architecture ties oracle to fulfillment: ἀποστραφήσεται / ἀποστρέψω (vv. 7, 28, 33) is realized in the threefold retreat-chain ἀπῆρεν ... ἐπορεύθη ... ἀπέστρεψεν (v. 36), and καταβαλῶ αὐτὸν ἐν ῥομφαίᾳ (v. 7) in ἐπάταξαν αὐτὸν ἐν μαχαίρᾳ (v. 37).

4 Kingdoms 20 — ΒΑΣΙΛΕΙΩΝ Δ′ Κ′

Theme. Hezekiah is healed and given time, but his display to Babylon foreshadows exile.

Outline.

• A · 20:1–6 — Hezekiah's mortal illness, his prayer, and the LORD's reversing word. Hezekiah falls sick to the point of death, and Isaiah son of Amos brings the messenger-word: 'Set your house in order, for you shall die and not live' (v. 1). The king turns his face to the wall and prays, appealing to his faithful walk before YHWH, and weeps bitterly (vv. 2–3). Before Isaiah has left the middle court, the word of YHWH comes again, reversing the verdict: the LORD, the God of David, has heard the prayer and seen the tears, will heal Hezekiah on the third day (vv. 4–5), and adds fifteen years to his life and the promise to deliver the city from the Assyrian king's hand for David's sake (v. 6).
• B · 20:7–11 — The fig-poultice cure and the sign of the receding shadow. Isaiah prescribes a cake of figs to be laid on the ulcer, and Hezekiah recovers (v. 7). Hezekiah asks for a confirming sign that he will indeed go up to the house of the LORD on the third day (v. 8). Isaiah offers a choice concerning the shadow on the stairway of Ahaz — shall it advance ten steps or retreat ten? (v. 9). Hezekiah judges the forward motion 'a light thing' and asks instead for the harder reversal (v. 10), and at the prophet's cry to YHWH the shadow goes back ten steps on the stairway (v. 11).
• C · 20:12–19 — The Babylonian embassy and Isaiah's oracle of exile. Marodach-baladan son of Baladan, king of Babylon, sends letters and a gift on hearing of Hezekiah's illness (v. 12). Hezekiah rejoices and shows the envoys his entire treasure-house — silver, gold, spices, fine oil, and his armory — withholding nothing (v. 13). Isaiah comes and interrogates the king about the visitors and what they saw; Hezekiah admits he showed them everything (vv. 14–15). Isaiah then delivers the oracle: all that is in the house, and what the fathers stored up, will be carried to Babylon, and Hezekiah's own descendants will become eunuchs in the palace of the king of Babylon (vv. 16–18). Hezekiah pronounces the word of the LORD 'good,' content that there will be peace in his own days (v. 19).
• D · 20:20–21 — Regnal summary, waterworks, and the death of Hezekiah. The narrator closes with the standard regnal-summary formula: the rest of Hezekiah's acts and his might — including the pool and the conduit by which he brought water into the city — are recorded in the book of the chronicles of the kings of Judah (v. 20). Hezekiah sleeps with his fathers and is buried in the city of David, and Manasseh his son reigns in his place (v. 21).

Translation & textual notes. The Greek text of 4 Kingdoms 20 follows the standard critical text of the Septuagint as established in the Rahlfs–Hanhart edition (Septuaginta, rev. ed. 2006), an ancient and public-domain text; the critical apparatus is not reproduced. 4 Kingdoms 20 (= 2 Kings 20 MT) is the Septuagintal account of the closing episodes of Hezekiah's reign and runs closely parallel to Isaiah 38–39. The chapter divides into four movements: Hezekiah's mortal illness, his weeping prayer, and Isaiah's reversing oracle of fifteen added years and the city's deliverance (vv. 1–6); the fig-poultice cure and the confirmatory sign of the shadow retreating ten steps on the stairway (vv. 7–11); the embassy of Marodach-baladan of Babylon, Hezekiah's display of all his treasures, and Isaiah's oracle that everything will be carried to Babylon and Hezekiah's sons made eunuchs in the Babylonian palace (vv. 12–19); and the regnal-summary notice of his waterworks and his death-and-burial formula, with Manasseh succeeding (vv. 20–21). The LXX preserves several distinctive features: the prophetic messenger-formula τάδε λέγει κύριος (vv. 1, 5); the transliterated court-loanwords μαναα ('gift / tribute', v. 12) and νεχωθα (the treasure-/spice-house, v. 13); the technical βαθμοί ('steps / degrees') and ἀναβαθμοί ('stairway') for the sundial-stairway of Ahaz (vv. 9–11); and the standard regnal death-formula ἐκοιμήθη … μετὰ τῶν πατέρων αὐτοῦ (v. 21). κύριος throughout renders the Tetragrammaton.

4 Kingdoms 21 — ΒΑΣΙΛΕΙΩΝ Δ′ ΚΑ′

Theme. Manasseh fills Judah with apostasy and bloodshed, and Amon briefly continues the same evil.

Outline.

• A · 21:1–9 — Manasseh's apostasy: high places, Baal, the host of heaven, child-sacrifice, divination, and the carved Asherah. The regnal formula introduces Manasseh (v. 1). He reverses Hezekiah's reforms, rebuilding the high places, raising an altar to Baal, making sacred poles, and worshipping πάσῃ τῇ δυνάμει τοῦ οὐρανοῦ ('all the host of heaven', vv. 2–3). He builds pagan altars within the very temple and its two courts (vv. 4–5), passes his sons through fire, practises divination and necromancy (v. 6), and sets the carved image of the Asherah in the house where YHWH set his name (v. 7). The narrator recalls the conditional land-promise mediated through Moses (v. 8) and indicts Manasseh for leading Judah astray ὑπὲρ τὰ ἔθνη ('beyond the nations', v. 9).
• B · 21:10–16 — The prophetic doom: the LORD will wipe Jerusalem as a dish is wiped, and Manasseh's innocent blood. YHWH speaks ἐν χειρὶ δούλων αὐτοῦ τῶν προφητῶν (v. 10). The indictment recalls Manasseh's abominations, worse than the Amorite's (v. 11). The oracle of judgment follows: evil so great that both ears of every hearer will ring (v. 12); YHWH will stretch over Jerusalem the measuring-line of Samaria and the plummet of Ahab's house, and wipe the city as an alabaster dish is wiped and overturned (v. 13); he will abandon the remnant of his inheritance to plunder (v. 14) — all because of the provocation since the Exodus (v. 15). A final charge adds the innocent blood Manasseh shed στόμα εἰς στόμα ('mouth to mouth') across Jerusalem (v. 16).
• C · 21:17–18 — Manasseh's death and the accession of Amon. The standard regnal-closing notice: the rest of Manasseh's acts and his sin are written in the chronicle of the kings of Judah (v. 17); he sleeps with his fathers and is buried in the garden of his house, the garden of Uzza, and Amon his son reigns in his place (v. 18).
• D · 21:19–26 — Amon's evil reign, his assassination, and the accession of Josiah. The regnal formula introduces Amon (v. 19), who does evil as his father did, walking in all his father's way and serving the idols (vv. 20–22). His own servants conspire and kill him in his house (v. 23), but 'the people of the land' strike down the conspirators and make Josiah his son king in his place (v. 24). The closing notice records the chronicle-reference (v. 25) and Amon's burial in the garden of Uzza, with Josiah succeeding him (v. 26).

Translation & textual notes. The Greek text of 4 Kingdoms 21 (= 2 Kings 21 MT) follows the standard critical text of the Septuagint as established in the Rahlfs–Hanhart edition (Septuaginta, rev. ed. 2006), an ancient and public-domain text; the critical apparatus is not reproduced. The chapter narrates the reign of Manasseh of Judah, the archetypal apostate king, and that of his son Amon. The regnal-formula opening (v. 1) gives his age, length of reign, and mother (Οψιβα = Hephzibah). Manasseh reverses the reforms of his father Hezekiah: he rebuilds the high places (τὰ ὑψηλά), raises an altar τῇ Βααλ, makes sacred groves/poles (ἄλση, the LXX rendering of אֲשֵׁרָה), worships and serves πάσῃ τῇ δυνάμει τοῦ οὐρανοῦ ('all the host of heaven', vv. 3, 5), builds pagan altars even ἐν οἴκῳ κυρίου and in its two courts, passes his sons through fire (διῆγεν … ἐν πυρί, v. 6), practises divination (ἐκληδονίζετο, οἰωνίζετο) and necromancy (θελητὴν καὶ γνώστας, 'a medium and soothsayers'), and sets the carved image of the grove (τὸ γλυπτὸν τοῦ ἄλσους) in the very house where YHWH had set his name (v. 7). The narrator's theological summary (vv. 8–9) recalls the conditional land-promise and Manasseh's leading of Judah astray ὑπὲρ τὰ ἔθνη ('beyond the nations'). A prophetic doom-oracle follows (vv. 10–15): YHWH, speaking ἐν χειρὶ δούλων αὐτοῦ τῶν προφητῶν, announces an evil so great that ἀμφότερα τὰ ὦτα ('both ears') of every hearer will ring; he will stretch over Jerusalem the measuring-line of Samaria and the plummet of the house of Ahab, and wipe Jerusalem clean ὡς ἀπαλείφεται ὁ ἀλάβαστρος — 'as an alabaster dish is wiped and turned upside down.' The verdict adds Manasseh's shedding of innocent blood (αἷμα ἀθῷον … στόμα εἰς στόμα, v. 16). The regnal-closing notices (vv. 17–18) record his death, burial in the garden of Uzza, and the accession of Amon. Amon's brief reign (vv. 19–26) replicates his father's idolatry (vv. 20–22), ends in a palace conspiracy (συνεστράφησαν οἱ παῖδες, v. 23), and is avenged by 'the people of the land' (ὁ λαὸς τῆς γῆς), who execute the conspirators and enthrone Josiah (vv. 24, 26).

4 Kingdoms 22 — ΒΑΣΙΛΕΙΩΝ Δ′ ΚΒ′

Theme. Josiah hears the rediscovered law, humbles himself, and begins Judah's last great reform.

Outline.

• A · 22:1–2 — Regnal accession and evaluation: Josiah the righteous king. The chapter opens with the stereotyped Deuteronomistic formulae: age at accession (eight years), length of reign (thirty-one years), capital, and queen-mother's name and lineage (v. 1); then the unqualified approval — he did what was right in the eyes of the LORD and walked in all the way of David his father, turning aside neither right nor left (v. 2).
• B · 22:3–7 — The temple-repair commission: Shaphan, Hilkiah, and the silver. In the eighteenth year Josiah sends Shaphan the scribe to Hilkiah the high priest to total the temple-silver gathered by the keepers of the threshold, and to disburse it to the overseers and workmen — carpenters, builders, masons — for timber and hewn stone to repair the fabric (τὸ βεδεκ) of the house (vv. 3–6). No audit was required, for the workmen acted in good faith (ἐν πίστει, v. 7).
• C · 22:8–10 — The finding of the book of the law and its report to the king. Hilkiah announces to Shaphan that he has found the book of the law in the house of the LORD and gives it to him (v. 8). Shaphan returns to the king, first reports the proper handling of the silver (v. 9), then discloses the book and reads it before the king (v. 10).
• D · 22:11–13 — The king's grief and the commission to inquire of the LORD. Hearing the words of the law, Josiah tears his garments (v. 11) and commissions a five-man delegation (Hilkiah, Ahikam, Achobor, Shaphan, Asaiah) to inquire of the LORD on his behalf and for all Judah, because the LORD's wrath is great and kindled against them for the fathers' disobedience (vv. 12–13).
• E · 22:14–20 — The oracle of Huldah: disaster for Judah, peace for Josiah. The delegation goes to Huldah the prophetess in Jerusalem (v. 14). She speaks in two movements: against the place, irrevocable evil because they forsook the LORD and burned incense to other gods, with wrath kindled and unquenchable (vv. 15–17); and to the king, a personal word of clemency — because his heart was tender and he humbled himself, wept, and rent his clothes, he will be gathered to his grave in peace and not see the coming evil (vv. 18–20). The delegation returns the word to the king.

Translation & textual notes. The Greek text of 4 Kingdoms 22 (= 2 Kings 22) follows the standard critical text of the Septuagint as established in the Rahlfs–Hanhart edition (Septuaginta, rev. ed. 2006), an ancient and public-domain text; the critical apparatus is not reproduced. The chapter opens with the regnal accession and evaluation formulae: υἱὸς ὀκτὼ ἐτῶν ('a son of eight years', v. 1) is a Hebraism for age at accession, and ἐποίησεν τὸ εὐθὲς ἐν ὀφθαλμοῖς κυρίου (v. 2) is the fixed Deuteronomistic approval-formula, completed by the right/left merism (δεξιὰ ἢ ἀριστερά) drawn from Deut 5:32; 17:20. The temple-repair section retains the untranslated Hebrew loanword βεδεκ (בֶּדֶק, 'breach / structural fabric', vv. 5, 6), governed twice by synonymous purpose-infinitives (τοῦ κατισχῦσαι, τοῦ κραταιῶσαι). At v. 7 the workmen's integrity (ἐν πίστει) makes auditing unnecessary, a motif paralleled at 4 Kgdms 12:16. The narrative hinge is Hilkiah's announcement βιβλίον τοῦ νόμου εὗρον (v. 8), the fronted object giving the find emphatic prominence; the scroll is traditionally identified with a form of Deuteronomy. The king's response — διέρρηξεν τὰ ἱμάτια ἑαυτοῦ (v. 11) — is the conventional gesture of grief and contrition, recalled approvingly by the LORD himself in v. 19 (διέρρηξας τὰ ἱμάτιά σου). Josiah's commission uses the technical idiom ἐκζητῆσαι / ἐπιζητῆσαι τὸν κύριον ('seek/inquire of the LORD', vv. 13, 18), and voices his theological alarm in the perfect participle ἐκκεκαυμένη ('kindled', v. 13) — fire-imagery for divine wrath (חָרָה). Huldah is identified by her office (τὴν προφῆτιν), her husband's lineage and post (ἱματιοφύλαξ, 'keeper of the wardrobe'), and her residence in the μασενα (מִשְׁנֶה, the 'Second Quarter' of Jerusalem, v. 14, another untranslated loanword). Her oracle deploys the messenger-formula τάδε λέγει κύριος three times (vv. 15, 16, 18) and the closing λέγει κύριος (v. 19, = נְאֻם יהוה). The judgment-word announces ἰδοὺ ἐγὼ ἐπάγω κακά (v. 16) and grounds it in the apostasy-indictment ἀνθ᾽ ὧν ἐγκατέλιπόν με … ἐθυμίων θεοῖς ἑτέροις (v. 17), with the unquenchable-fire image ἐκκαυθήσεται ὁ θυμός μου … καὶ οὐ σβεσθήσεται. The clemency-word turns on the same ἀνθ᾽ ὧν construction (v. 19), now grounding favor in contrition: ἡπαλύνθη ἡ καρδία σου ('your heart was made tender', רַךְ) and ἐνετράπης ἀπὸ προσώπου κυρίου ('you humbled yourself before the LORD', כָּנַע). The reciprocity of hearing is pointed: the king ἤκουσας and the LORD answers καί γε ἐγὼ ἤκουσα. The promise προστίθημί σε πρὸς τοὺς πατέρας σου … συναχθήσῃ εἰς τὸν τάφον σου ἐν εἰρήνῃ (v. 20) renders the death-euphemism 'gathered to one's fathers'; the emphatic ἐγώ εἰμι ἐπάγω (v. 20) likely reflects the Hebrew participle of imminent action (מֵבִיא). The chapter closes with ἐπέστρεψαν τῷ βασιλεῖ τὸ ῥῆμα, the report-idiom that frames the chapter (cf. v. 9), setting up the reform of chapter 23.

4 Kingdoms 23 — ΒΑΣΙΛΕΙΩΝ Δ′ ΚΓ′

Theme. Josiah renews the covenant and purges Judah's cults, yet the decreed wrath still hangs over Jerusalem.

Outline.

• A · 23:1–3 — Covenant renewal: the reading of the Book of the Covenant. Josiah gathers the elders of Judah and Jerusalem (v. 1), ascends to the house of the LORD with the whole people, priests, and prophets, and reads all the words of the recovered Book of the Covenant in their ears (v. 2). Standing by the pillar, he makes covenant before the LORD to walk after him and keep his commandments, testimonies, and ordinances with all heart and soul; all the people stand in the covenant (v. 3).
• B · 23:4–14 — The great purge in Jerusalem and Judah. A catalogue of demolition: Baal/Asherah/astral vessels are burned at the Kidron (v. 4); the idolatrous priests (χωμαριμ) are deposed (v. 5); the Asherah is burned, ground to dust, and scattered on graves (v. 6); cult-prostitute quarters are torn down (v. 7); high places from Geba to Beersheba are defiled (vv. 8–9); Topheth, the horses and chariot of the sun, and the altars of Ahaz and Manasseh are removed (vv. 10–12); Solomon's shrines for Astarte, Chemosh, and Milcom are defiled, their pillars smashed, and their sites filled with bones (vv. 13–14).
• C · 23:15–20 — The altar at Bethel and the high places of Samaria. Josiah tears down Jeroboam's altar at Bethel, burns it to dust, and burns human bones upon it, fulfilling the word proclaimed in 3 Kingdoms 13 (vv. 15–16). He identifies and spares the prophet's tomb (vv. 17–18), removes the high-place shrines in the cities of Samaria, slaughters their priests on the altars, burns human bones upon them, and returns to Jerusalem (vv. 19–20).
• D · 23:21–23 — The unprecedented Passover. The king commands the people to keep the Passover to the LORD as written in the Book of the Covenant (v. 21). No such Passover had been kept since the days of the judges or throughout the monarchic period (v. 22); only in Josiah's eighteenth year was this Passover kept to the LORD in Jerusalem (v. 23).
• E · 23:24–25 — Final reforms; no king like Josiah. Josiah removes mediums, wizards, teraphim, idols, and abominations from Judah and Jerusalem to establish the words of the law found by Hilkiah (v. 24). The incomparability formula seals his reign: no king before or after turned to the LORD with all heart, soul, and strength, according to all the law of Moses (v. 25).
• F · 23:26–27 — The LORD's unrelenting wrath against Judah. Despite Josiah's reform, the LORD does not turn from the heat of his great wrath, kindled against Judah because of Manasseh's provocations (v. 26). He declares he will remove Judah from his presence as he removed Israel, and will reject Jerusalem and the house where he had set his name (v. 27).
• G · 23:28–30 — Josiah's death at Megiddo. The rest of Josiah's acts are referred to the royal annals (v. 28). Pharaoh Neco goes up toward the Euphrates; Josiah meets him and is killed at Megiddo (v. 29). His servants carry him to Jerusalem for burial, and the people of the land anoint Jehoahaz in his place (v. 30).
• H · 23:31–32 — Jehoahaz's brief evil reign. Jehoahaz, twenty-three years old, reigns three months in Jerusalem (v. 31) and does evil in the eyes of the LORD according to all his fathers had done (v. 32), the immediate relapse after Josiah's unparalleled fidelity.

Translation & textual notes. The Greek text of 4 Kingdoms 23 (= 2 Kings 23) follows the standard critical text of the Septuagint as established in the Rahlfs–Hanhart edition (Septuaginta, rev. ed. 2006), an ancient and public-domain text; the critical apparatus is not reproduced. The chapter is the narrative climax of the Deuteronomistic history of Judah: Josiah's covenant renewal and his sweeping cultic reform. After the rediscovered Book of the Covenant is read aloud (vv. 1–2), the king stands by the pillar (πρὸς τὸν στῦλον) and cuts a covenant before the LORD (v. 3); there follows a relentless purge catalogued by a chain of aorists (ἐνετείλατο, κατέκαυσεν, κατέπαυσεν, ἐξήνεγκεν, καθεῖλεν, ἐμίανεν, συνέτριψεν): the vessels made for Baal, the Asherah (τὸ ἄλσος), and all the host of heaven (πάσῃ τῇ δυνάμει τοῦ οὐρανοῦ) are burned at the Kidron; the idolatrous priests (οἱ χωμαριμ, a transliteration of Hebrew כְּמָרִים), the houses of the cult-prostitutes (οἱ καδησιμ = קְדֵשִׁים), the high places, Topheth in the Valley of the son of Hinnom (φάραγγι υἱοῦ Εννομ) where children were made to pass through fire to Molech, the horses and chariot of the sun, and the altars of Ahaz and Manasseh are all defiled or destroyed. The reform reaches Bethel, where Josiah tears down Jeroboam's altar and burns human bones upon it, fulfilling to the letter the word of the man of God (3 Kgdms 13), while sparing the prophet's tomb (vv. 15–18). The chapter then narrates the great Passover, unlike any since the days of the judges (vv. 21–23), the removal of mediums and idols (v. 24), and the incomparability formula — no king before or after turned to the LORD with all his heart, soul, and strength (v. 25) — yet the LORD does not turn from the heat of his great wrath provoked by Manasseh (vv. 26–27). The narrative closes with Josiah's death at Megiddo against Pharaoh Neco (vv. 28–30) and the brief, disastrous reign of Jehoahaz (vv. 31–32). The chapter is dense with Hebraic transliterations of cultic technical terms (χωμαριμ, μαζουρωθ, καδησιμ, χεττιιν, σαδημωθ, φαρουριμ, θεραφιν) left untranslated by the Greek translator, a hallmark of the kaige-recension character of LXX Kingdoms.

4 Kingdoms 24 — ΒΑΣΙΛΕΙΩΝ Δ′ ΚΔ′

Theme. Babylon closes in through Jehoiakim, Jehoiachin, and Zedekiah as Judah's kingdom begins to collapse.

Outline.

• A · 24:1–7 — Jehoiakim's vassalage and rebellion; the raiders sent against Judah. Nebuchadnezzar comes up and Jehoiakim becomes his servant for three years before rebelling (ἠθέτησεν, v. 1). In response the LORD sends raiding bands of Chaldeans, Syrians, Moabites, and Ammonites against Judah 'to destroy it according to the word of the LORD by the hand of his servants the prophets' (v. 2). The narrator interprets the disaster theologically: it was 'according to the wrath of the LORD' to remove Judah from his presence for the sins of Manasseh and the innocent blood that filled Jerusalem, which the LORD would not pardon (vv. 3–4). The regnal-summary formula and Jehoiakim's death follow (vv. 5–6), with a closing note that the king of Egypt no longer ventured out, for the king of Babylon had taken all that was Egypt's from the Wadi of Egypt to the Euphrates (v. 7).
• B · 24:8–17 — Jehoiachin and the first deportation of Judah to Babylon. Jehoiachin (rendered Ιωακιμ here, as his father) reigns three months in Jerusalem and does evil in the LORD's eyes like his father (vv. 8–9). Nebuchadnezzar besieges the city (vv. 10–11); the king surrenders with his mother, servants, officials, and eunuchs and is taken in the eighth year of the Babylonian reign (v. 12). The temple and palace treasures are carried off and the gold vessels Solomon had made are cut up, 'according to the word of the LORD' (v. 13). The first deportation removes the officials, the warriors, the craftsmen, and the smiths — ten thousand captives — leaving only the poorest of the land (v. 14); the king, queen mother, royal women, eunuchs, and the mighty of the land are exiled to Babylon (vv. 15–16). Nebuchadnezzar then makes Mattaniah king in his place, renaming him Zedekiah (v. 17).
• C · 24:18–20 — Zedekiah's reign, evil-doing, and rebellion against Babylon. Zedekiah, twenty-one years old, reigns eleven years in Jerusalem (v. 18) and does evil in the LORD's sight as Jehoiakim had done (v. 19). The chapter closes by tracing the catastrophe again to the wrath of the LORD against Jerusalem and Judah, 'until he cast them out from his presence', and notes that Zedekiah rebelled (ἠθέτησεν) against the king of Babylon (v. 20) — the act of treachery that will precipitate the final siege and destruction of chapter 25.

Translation & textual notes. The Greek text of 4 Kingdoms 24 (= 2 Kings 24 in the Hebrew/English numbering) follows the standard critical text of the Septuagint as established in the Rahlfs–Hanhart edition (Septuaginta, rev. ed. 2006), an ancient and public-domain text; the critical apparatus is not reproduced. The chapter narrates Jehoiakim's three-year vassalage to Nebuchadnezzar and his rebellion (v. 1), the raiding bands (μονόζωνοι, 'light-armed raiders') of Chaldeans, Syrians, Moabites, and Ammonites sent against Judah 'according to the word of the LORD by the hand of his servants the prophets' (v. 2), framed as the outworking of the LORD's wrath for the sins of Manasseh and the innocent blood that filled Jerusalem (vv. 3–4). After the regnal-summary formula and Jehoiakim's death (vv. 5–6) and the eclipse of Egyptian power before Babylon from the Wadi of Egypt to the Euphrates (v. 7), the chapter turns to Jehoiachin — rendered Ιωακιμ in this Greek text, identically to his father, so that context alone distinguishes them: his three-month reign (v. 8), the Babylonian siege (vv. 10–11), his surrender and the first deportation of 597 BC (vv. 12–16), and the cutting-up of Solomon's gold temple vessels 'according to the word of the LORD' (v. 13). Finally Nebuchadnezzar installs Mattaniah, renaming him Zedekiah (v. 17), whose eleven-year reign (v. 18), evil-doing (v. 19), and rebellion against Babylon (v. 20) set the stage for chapter 25. The chapter is structured by repeated theological refrains: ἐπὶ τὸν θυμὸν κυρίου (vv. 3, 20), κατὰ τὸν λόγον / τὸ ῥῆμα κυρίου (vv. 2, 13), and the Deuteronomistic regnal-evaluation formula ἐποίησεν τὸ πονηρὸν ἐν / ἐνώπιον κυρίου (vv. 9, 19). The verb ἀθετέω ('rebel / break faith', vv. 1, 20) brackets the chapter by inclusio.

4 Kingdoms 25 — ΒΑΣΙΛΕΙΩΝ Δ′ ΚΕ′

Theme. Jerusalem falls, the temple burns, Judah goes into exile, and Jehoiachin's release leaves a final note of hope.

Outline.

• A · 25:1–7 — The siege and fall of Jerusalem; Zedekiah's flight, capture, and blinding. Nebuchadnezzar besieges Jerusalem from Zedekiah's ninth year, building a siege-wall (περίτειχος) round about (v. 1); the city holds under siege (ἐν περιοχῇ) until the eleventh year (v. 2), when famine breaks the people (v. 3) and the wall is breached (ἐρράγη, v. 4). The garrison flees by night toward the Arabah; the Chaldeans pursue, scatter the king's force, and capture him in the plains of Jericho (vv. 4–5). Sentenced at Riblah (v. 6), Zedekiah watches his sons slaughtered, is blinded, bound, and taken to Babylon (v. 7).
• B · 25:8–17 — Nebuzaradan burns the temple and city; the second deportation; the bronze plundered. In the fifth month of Nebuchadnezzar's nineteenth year, Nebuzaradan the captain of the guard comes to Jerusalem (v. 8), burns the temple, palace, and all the city's houses (vv. 9–10), deports the remnant and the deserters (v. 11), leaving only the poorest as vinedressers and field-laborers (v. 12). The Chaldeans break up the two bronze pillars, the stands (μεχωνωθ), and the bronze sea (vv. 13–17), carrying off the bronze, the utensils, and the gold and silver vessels — the weight of the bronze beyond reckoning.
• C · 25:18–21 — Execution of the chief priests and royal officials at Riblah; Judah exiled. Nebuzaradan seizes the chief priest Seraiah, the second priest Zephaniah, and the three threshold-keepers (v. 18), with a eunuch overseer of the soldiers, five royal courtiers, the army-commander's muster-scribe, and sixty men of the land (v. 19); brought to the king at Riblah (v. 20), they are struck down and killed in the land of Hamath, and the section closes: 'and Judah was exiled (ἀπῳκίσθη) from its land' (v. 21).
• D · 25:22–26 — Gedaliah's governorship at Mizpah, his assassination, and the flight to Egypt. Over the remnant Nebuchadnezzar sets Gedaliah son of Ahikam (v. 22); the scattered captains gather to him at Mizpah, and he swears them an oath: do not fear, settle, serve the king of Babylon, and it will be well (vv. 23–24). But in the seventh month Ishmael son of Nethaniah, of the royal seed, comes with ten men, strikes down Gedaliah with the Judeans and Chaldeans at Mizpah (v. 25), and all the people, small and great, flee to Egypt for fear of the Chaldeans (v. 26).
• E · 25:27–30 — The release and exaltation of Jehoiachin: a closing note of hope. In the thirty-seventh year of Jehoiachin's exile, Evil-merodach of Babylon, in his accession year, 'lifts up the head' (ὕψωσεν τὴν κεφαλήν) of Jehoiachin and brings him out of prison (v. 27); he speaks kindly (ἐλάλησεν ἀγαθά) to him and sets his throne above the thrones of the other captive kings (v. 28); Jehoiachin exchanges his prison garments and eats at the royal table continually (v. 29), provided a perpetual daily allowance all the days of his life (v. 30) — the ember of the Davidic line, and the corpus, ending in suspended hope.

Translation & textual notes. The Greek text of 4 Kingdoms 25 follows the standard critical text of the Septuagint as established in the Rahlfs–Hanhart edition (Septuaginta, rev. ed. 2006), an ancient and public-domain text; the critical apparatus is not reproduced. 4 Kingdoms 25 (= 2 Kings 25 MT) closes 4 Kingdoms and the whole Kingdoms corpus (1–4 Kingdoms = 1–2 Samuel + 1–2 Kings), narrating Jerusalem's fall to Nebuchadnezzar (Ναβουχοδονοσορ) in 587/586 BC. The chapter belongs to the kaige (γδ) section of 4 Kingdoms, marked by an extremely literal, Hebraizing technique: long καί-parataxis rendering waw-consecutive (καὶ ἐγενήθη = וַיְהִי, vv. 1, 25, 27), the literalistic ἐπάνωθεν for מֵעַל / מֵעָל (vv. 5, 21, 28), the redundant resumptive pronoun (ἐν οἷς … ἐν αὐτοῖς, v. 14), and a cluster of untranslated transliterations of Hebrew technical vocabulary — μεχωνωθ (מְכֹנוֹת, the bronze 'stands', vv. 13, 16), χωθαρ (כֹּתֶרֶת, the pillar 'capital', v. 17), σαβαχα (שְׂבָכָה, the 'lattice/network', v. 17), ιαμιν (the altar 'shovels', v. 14), and γαβιν (the 'field-workers', v. 12). Place-names too are transliterated: Δεβλαθα = Riblah (vv. 6, 20, 21), Αραβωθ Ιεριχω = 'the plains of Jericho' (v. 5), ὁδὸν τὴν Αραβα = 'the way of the Arabah' (v. 4), Αιμαθ = Hamath (v. 21), Μασσηφαθ = Mizpah (vv. 23, 25). The judicial idiom ἐλάλησεν μετ᾿ αὐτοῦ κρίσιν ('pronounced sentence with him', v. 6) is pointedly reversed at v. 28 by ἐλάλησεν μετ᾿ αὐτοῦ ἀγαθά ('spoke kindly with him'). The execution-and-exile of vv. 18–21 culminates in the formula ἀπῳκίσθη Ιουδας ('Judah was exiled'), matching the verdict on the northern kingdom at 17:23. Gedaliah's counsel μὴ φοβεῖσθε … καλῶς ἔσται ὑμῖν (v. 24) follows Jeremiah's pro-Babylonian line (Jer 27; 40:9), and his murder triggers the anti-Exodus return εἰς Αἴγυπτον (v. 26). The book ends with the release-notice for Jehoiachin (here named Ιωακιμ, a form coinciding with that of his father): ὕψωσεν τὴν κεφαλήν renders נָשָׂא רֹאשׁ ('pardon, restore to favor'), and the closing daily-allowance idiom λόγον ἡμέρας ἐν τῇ ἡμέρᾳ (דְּבַר־יוֹם בְּיוֹמוֹ) leaves the Davidic heir alive at the empire's center — a faint Davidic ember left glowing over the ashes of Jerusalem and over the close of the Kingdoms corpus.

Major translation & exegetical cruxes

Where the Greek legitimately admits more than one rendering or reading — or where the LXX diverges from the Hebrew — the point was flagged in the lexical notes and chapter text_notes rather than decided silently; the more common analysis was generally taken and the alternative noted. The principal cruxes in LXX 4 Kingdoms:

How the data set is organized

• lxx-interlinear/data/4kingdoms{1..25}.json — the durable scholarly content: one JSON object per chapter (reference, titles, text-note, outline, and verses with per-word annotation and per-verse discourse notes). The data set shares the nt-interlinear toolkit and schema with the New Testament volumes.
• lxx-interlinear/ — the LXX data home and index builder; rendering reuses the chapter-agnostic nt-interlinear toolkit (stdlib-only HTML; headless-Chromium PDF). Adding a chapter (or a book) requires no code changes.
• Rendered artifacts — 4Kingdoms{1..25}.html and .pdf under lxxsite/4Kingdoms/, linked from its index.html in the Septuagint site root.

The interpretive tiers (syntactic function, semantic force, discourse structure, and the proposed argument outlines) are interpretive by nature; where readings legitimately differ, the more common analysis was generally chosen, and the lexical notes are condensed orientation rather than a substitute for a lexicon (e.g. LEH / Muraoka) or a full commentary.