When the king of Israel saw them: The pronoun them does not include Elisha, but refers only to the enemy soldiers that the king of Israel saw. This is not because Elisha would not have been visible, but because it would not have been a surprising thing to see him in Samaria. That the king was focusing on the Syrians is proven by the fact that he speaks of killing them in his question to the prophet.

My father: This expression shows the high regard the king had for the prophet Elisha (see the comments on 2 Kgs 2.12 and 5.13). It should probably not be rendered literally although there are a number of languages where the word for “father” is used as a general term of respect. Both Good News Translation and Contemporary English Version use the English word “sir.”

Shall I slay them? Shall I slay them?: The Hebrew verb translated slay is literally “hit” or “strike,” but the meaning is certainly striking a death blow. Scholars debate the vowel pointing of the Hebrew text here. The vowels of the traditional text, followed by Revised Standard Version and Good News Translation, yield a reading that is generally considered poor grammar, but which might, in fact, reflect the kind of thing an excited person would say when suddenly faced with such incredibly good fortune. If the vowel points are altered, the construction would be one that is emphatic, using two different forms of the same verb. For the translator who is trying to put the meaning into another language, the main question is whether or not to repeat the question as in Revised Standard Version and Good News Translation, or to translate it one time only as in New American Bible, Revised English Bible, New Jewish Publication Society’s Tanakh, New Jerusalem Bible and American Bible, as well as in several ancient versions.

Quoted with permission from Omanson, Roger L. and Ellington, John E. A Handbook on 1-2 Kings, Volume 2. (UBS Helps for Translators). New York: UBS, 2008. For this and other handbooks for translators see here .