But: What happens is quite contrary to the expectations of the Moabite army. For this reason the common Hebrew conjunction here is rendered by a contrastive conjunction in most English versions.
When they came to the camp of Israel, the Israelites rose and attacked the Moabites: In view of the fact that there were three armies (Israel, Judah and Edom), the use of the terms Israel and Israelites in this verse is surprising. Is this intended as a cover term for all three armies, or is it true that only the army of Israel is involved in the rest of the story? In view of verse 26 below, some commentators have speculated that the Edomites deserted Joram and the army of Israel. In any case, translators should follow what the text says since this is a problem of interpretation and not of translation.
Good News Translation combines rose and attacked into the single verb “attacked.” Sometimes the Hebrew verb for “arise” is used to indicate the beginning of some action, but here the meaning is probably literally that the Israelites “rose up” (New American Bible).
Till they fled before them is literally “and they fled before them.” The Hebrew uses the common conjunction to mark consecutive action. The subject pronoun they refers to the Moabites. In order to avoid confusion resulting from changing subjects, Good News Translation makes the Israelites the subject of this clause as well and changes the verb to “drove … back.” The meaning is thus retained and the structure is simplified.
They went forward, slaughtering the Moabites as they went: As indicated in the Good News Translation note, the meaning of the Hebrew words here is unclear. They went forward is literally “they went” in the Masoretic Text, but the correction in the margin of the text says that “they smote” (the same verb occurs at the beginning of this verse and is translated “attacked” in Revised Standard Version). Critique Textuelle de l’Ancien Testament gives a {C} rating to the reading in the text of the Masoretic Text itself, claiming that the reading in the margin occurred because of the same verb “smote” earlier in the verse.
Following the verb “went,” the Hebrew text reads “in it” (bah). Since the Hebrew has no stated antecedent for “it,” some follow the Syriac in reading “against them” (bam in Hebrew), which gives the sense “they went against them, slaughtering the Moabites.” Others, like the Septuagint, have corrected the Hebrew word bah to read “going” (boʾ), which is followed by numerous translations (Revised Standard Version, Good News Translation, Traduction œcuménique de la Bible). Revised Standard Version, for example, translates boʾ as as they went. Critique Textuelle de l’Ancien Testament indicates that the Septuagint reading is a correct interpretation of the reading in the Masoretic Text. Critique Textuelle de l’Ancien Testament, however, gives a {B} rating to the word in the Masoretic Text, showing that bah without an antecedent can have the meaning “there.” The sense is “they went there and smote the Moabites.” Perhaps the best translation of this difficult text is New Jewish Publication Society’s Tanakh: “They advanced, constantly attacking the Moabites.”
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 .