---
title: 2 Kings 3:13
url: https://jw-apologetics.app/verses/2-kings-3-13/
markdown: https://jw-apologetics.app/verses/2-kings-3-13.md
type: verse
perspective: Protestant (historic Nicene) response to Jehovah's Witness teaching
reference: 2 Kings 3:13
testament: OT
section: History
index: https://jw-apologetics.app/llms.txt
---

# 2 Kings 3:13

## Text (Berean Standard Bible)

> Elisha, however, said to the king of Israel, “What have we to do with each other? Go to the prophets of your father and of your mother!”  “No,” replied the king of Israel, “for it is the LORD who has summoned these three kings to deliver them into the hand of Moab.”

## JW Usage

JWs do not cite 2 Kings 3:13 as a standalone proof-text. Elisha's words to the king of Israel — "What have I to do with you? Go to the prophets of your father and to the prophets of your mother" — surface in the Watchtower treatment only as a literal-reading comparison, because the rs book reads similar phrasing in John 2:4 ("Woman, what have I to do with thee?") as Jesus's blunt rebuke of Mary's spiritual authority. The Hebrew-idiom pattern across the OT goes unacknowledged.

## Protestant Usage

2 Kings 3:13 anchors one of the five main Old Testament occurrences of the Hebrew idiom *mah-li va-lak* ("what to me and to you"), which stands behind the Greek phrase John renders as "ti emoi kai soi" at Cana. The idiom appears in Judges 11:12 (Jephthah to Ammonites), 2 Samuel 16:10 (David to sons of Zeruiah), 1 Kings 17:18 (widow of Zarephath to Elijah), 2 Kings 3:13 here (Elisha to king of Israel), and 2 Chronicles 35:21 (Neco to Josiah). In every case it signals *distance of intent* or *non-alignment of agenda* — not contempt, not rebuke, not rejection.
When Jesus uses the same idiom at Cana in John 2:4, he is telling Mary that his messianic timing is not set by her social cue — his hour has not yet come. Verse 5 shows Mary calmly directing the servants to "do whatever he tells you." Verse 7 shows Jesus performing the miracle. If 2:4 were a rebuke, 2:7 would contradict it. And the same Greek word *gynai* ("woman") Jesus uses at Cana is the word he uses from the cross in John 19:26 — the tenderest moment in John's Gospel. The literal-rejection reading of John 2:4 is linguistically unsustainable once the Hebrew-idiom parallels are read.

## Arguments Using This Verse

- [Theotokos Is About Jesus, Not About Mary](https://jw-apologetics.app/arguments/mary-theotokos-christological-fence.md) — Luke 1:43 / John 1:14 / Colossians 2:9 [Deity of Christ]