Translations
F.O.G.MPrimary
F.O.G MessageFrom there he went up to Bethel. As he walked along the road, a mob of young men poured out of the city and jeered at him, shouting, 'Go on up, baldy! Go on up, baldy!'
F.O.GSecondary
The F.O.GFrom there he went up to Beit-El. As he was going up on the road, some young lads came out of the city and taunted him, saying, 'Go up, qereach! Go up, qereach!'
KJV
King James VersionAnd he went up from thence unto Bethel: and as he was going up by the way, there came forth little children out of the city, and mocked him, and said unto him, Go up, thou bald head; go up, thou bald head.
BSB
Berean Standard BibleFrom there, Elisha went up to Bethel, and as he was walking up the road, a group of boys came out of the city and jeered at him, chanting, “Go up, you baldhead! Go up, you baldhead!”
Footnotes
The taunts are layered with lethal irony. *Aleh* (עֲלֵה) — 'go up' — is the very verb used for Eliyahu's ascent to the skies (*ya'al*, v. 11): these young men are mockingly telling Elisha to vanish as his master did, and in doing so they are heaping contempt on the entire prophetic office and its God. *Qereach* (קֵרֵחַ) — 'baldhead' — may reference mourning (shaved heads, cf. Isaiah 22:12) or simply physical mockery. The description *ne'arim qetinim* (נְעָרִים קְטַנִּים) is often rendered 'small boys' but *qatan* can denote low social status or insignificance as readily as age, and *na'ar* spans childhood through young adulthood. FOG preserves *qereach* as a transliteration to make the wordplay with *aleh* visible; FOG Message renders it 'baldy' for blunt English impact.