2 Chronicles 35:21
2 Chronicles 35:2121But Neco sent messengers to him, saying, “What is the issue between you and me, O king of Judah? I have not come against you today, but I am fighting another dynasty. God told me to hurry; so stop opposing God, who is with me, or He will destroy you!”
JWs rarely cite directly — it is not a Watchtower proof-text in its own right. The verse surfaces in apologetic discussions as a Hebrew-idiom parallel: Neco of Egypt sends messengers to Josiah saying, "What is the issue between you and me, O king of Judah?" The Watchtower framework treats this simply as reported speech without theological weight, and the rs book's broader reading of ("Woman, what have I to do with thee?") as a rebuke of Mary does not notice that the verse pattern repeats across the Old Testament.
matters because it anchors a decisive rebuttal to the Watchtower's reading of at Cana. The Greek phrase "ti emoi kai soi" is a direct word-for-word rendering of the Hebrew idiom mah-li va-lak — "what to me and to you" — which appears in at least five Old Testament contexts: (Jephthah to Ammonites), (David to the sons of Zeruiah), (widow of Zarephath to Elijah), (Elisha to the king of Israel), and here (Neco to Josiah).
In every occurrence the idiom signals distance of intent or non-alignment of agenda — not contempt, not rejection, not rebuke. At Cana, Jesus is telling his mother that his messianic timing is not set by her social cue — his hour has not yet come. Verse 5 then shows Mary calmly instructing the servants to "do whatever he tells you," and verse 7 shows Jesus performing the miracle anyway. If verse 4 were a rejection of Mary, verse 7 would contradict it. The Hebrew-idiom reading is not a sophisticated dodge — it is just reading the phrase the way the OT uses it five times already.