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The Lord was angry with Israel and for a long time gave them into the power of Hazael, king of Aram, and of Ben-hadad, son of Hazael. Then Jehoahaz entreated the Lord, who heard him, since he saw the oppression to which the king of Aram had subjected Israel.(A) So the Lord gave Israel a savior,[a] and the Israelites, freed from the power of Aram, dwelt in their own tents as formerly. Nevertheless, they did not desist from the sins the house of Jeroboam had caused Israel to commit, but persisted in them. The Asherah[b] remained even in Samaria.(B) No army was left to Jehoahaz, except fifty horses with ten chariots and ten thousand foot soldiers, since the king of Aram had destroyed them and trampled them like dust.

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Footnotes

  1. 13:5 A savior: i.e., a military leader (cf. Jgs 3:9, 15). Here the identity of the savior is unclear, but the reappearance of a militant Elisha in this chapter after an absence of several chapters and nearly thirty years suggests the narrator may have had him in mind. Two generations later Joash’s grandson, Jeroboam II, will also “save” Israel (14:27).
  2. 13:6 Asherah: see note on Ex 34:13.

14 Israel has forgotten his maker(A)
    and has built palaces.
Judah, too, has fortified many cities,
    but I will send fire upon his cities,
    to devour their strongholds.(B)

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