2 Raja-raja 9:25-28

9:25 Jehu ordered ¹  his officer Bidkar, “Pick him up and throw him into the part of the field that once belonged to Naboth of Jezreel. Remember, you and I were riding together behind his father Ahab, when the Lord pronounced this judgment on him, 9:26 ‘“Know for sure that I saw the shed blood of Naboth and his sons yesterday,” says the Lord, “and that I will give you what you deserve right here in this plot of land,” ²  says the Lord.’ So now pick him up and throw him into this plot of land, just as the Lord said.” ³ 

9:27 When King Ahaziah of Judah saw what happened, he took off ⁴  up the road to Beth Haggan. Jehu chased him and ordered, “Shoot him too.” They shot him while he was driving his chariot up the ascent of Gur near Ibleam. ⁵  He fled to Megiddo ⁶  and died there. 9:28 His servants took his body ⁷  back to Jerusalem ⁸  and buried him in his tomb with his ancestors in the city of David.

2 Raja-raja 10:26

10:26 They hauled out the sacred pillar of the temple of Baal and burned it.

2 Raja-raja 18:4

18:4 He eliminated the high places, smashed the sacred pillars to bits, and cut down the Asherah pole. ⁹  He also demolished the bronze serpent that Moses had made, for up to that time ¹⁰  the Israelites had been offering incense to it; it was called Nehushtan. ¹¹ 

2 Raja-raja 23:4-6

23:4 The king ordered Hilkiah the high priest, the high-ranking priests, ¹²  and the guards ¹³  to bring out of the Lord’s temple all the items that were used in the worship of ¹⁴  Baal, Asherah, and all the stars of the sky. ¹⁵  The king ¹⁶  burned them outside of Jerusalem in the terraces ¹⁷  of Kidron, and carried their ashes to Bethel. ¹⁸  23:5 He eliminated ¹⁹  the pagan priests whom the kings of Judah had appointed to offer sacrifices ²⁰  on the high places in the cities of Judah and in the area right around Jerusalem. (They offered sacrifices ²¹  to Baal, the sun god, the moon god, the constellations, and all the stars in the sky.) 23:6 He removed the Asherah pole from the Lord’s temple and took it outside Jerusalem to the Kidron Valley, where he burned it. ²²  He smashed it to dust and then threw the dust in the public graveyard. ²³ 

2 Raja-raja 23:10

23:10 The king ²⁴  ruined Topheth in the Valley of Ben Hinnom so that no one could pass his son or his daughter through the fire to Molech. ²⁵ 

2 Raja-raja 23:14

23:14 He smashed the sacred pillars to bits, cut down the Asherah pole, and filled those shrines ²⁶  with human bones.

[9:25]  ¹ tn Heb “said to.”

[9:26]  ² tn Heb “and I will repay you in this plot of land.”

[9:26]  ³ tn Heb “according to the word of the Lord.”

[9:27]  ⁴ tn Heb “and Ahaziah king of Judah saw and fled.”

[9:27]  ⁵ tn After Jehu’s order (“kill him too”), the MT has simply, “to the chariot in the ascent of Gur which is near Ibleam.” The main verb in the clause, “they shot him” (וַיִּכְהוּ, vayyikhhu), has been accidentally omitted by virtual haplography/homoioteleuton. Note that the immediately preceding form הַכֻּהוּ (hakkuhu), “shoot him,” ends with the same suffix.

[9:27]  ⁶ map For location see Map1 D4; Map2 C1; Map4 C2; Map5 F2; Map7 B1.

[9:28]  ⁷ tn Heb “drove him.”

[9:28]  ⁸ map For location see Map5 B1; Map6 F3; Map7 E2; Map8 F2; Map10 B3; JP1 F4; JP2 F4; JP3 F4; JP4 F4.

[18:4]  ⁹ tn The term is singular in the MT but plural in the LXX and other ancient versions. It is also possible to regard the singular as a collective singular, especially in the context of other plural items.

[18:4]  sn Asherah was a leading deity of the Canaanite pantheon, wife/sister of El and goddess of fertility. She was commonly worshiped at shrines in or near groves of evergreen trees, or, failing that, at places marked by wooden poles. These were to be burned or cut down (Deut 12:3; 16:21; Judg 6:25, 28, 30; 2 Kgs 18:4).

[18:4]  ¹⁰ tn Heb “until those days.”

[18:4]  ¹¹ tn In Hebrew the name sounds like the phrase נְחַשׁ הַנְּחֹשֶׁת (nÿkhash hannÿkhoshet), “bronze serpent.”

[23:4]  ¹² tn Heb “the priests of the second [rank],” that is, those ranked just beneath Hilkiah.

[23:4]  ¹³ tn Or “doorkeepers.”

[23:4]  ¹⁴ tn Heb “for.”

[23:4]  ¹⁵ tn Heb “all the host of heaven” (also in v. 5).

[23:4]  ¹⁶ tn Heb “he”; the referent (the king) has been specified in the translation for clarity.

[23:4]  ¹⁷ tn Or “fields.” For a defense of the translation “terraces,” see M. Cogan and H. Tadmor, II Kings (AB), 285.

[23:4]  ¹⁸ map For location see Map4 G4; Map5 C1; Map6 E3; Map7 D1; Map8 G3.

[23:5]  ¹⁹ tn Perhaps, “destroyed.”

[23:5]  ²⁰ tn Or “burn incense.”

[23:5]  ²¹ tn Or “burned incense.”

[23:6]  ²² tn Heb “and he burned it in the Kidron Valley.”

[23:6]  ²³ tc Heb “on the grave of the sons of the people.” Some Hebrew, Greek, Syriac, Aramaic, and Latin witnesses read the plural “graves.”

[23:6]  tn The phrase “sons of the people” refers here to the common people (see BDB 766 s.v. עַם), as opposed to the upper classes who would have private tombs.

[23:10]  ²⁴ tn Heb “he”; the referent (the king) has been specified in the translation for clarity.

[23:10]  ²⁵ sn Attempts to identify this deity with a god known from the ancient Near East have not yet yielded a consensus. For brief discussions see M. Cogan and H. Tadmor II Kings (AB), 288 and HALOT 592 s.v. מֹלֶךְ. For more extensive studies see George C. Heider, The Cult of Molek, and John Day, Molech: A God of Human Sacrifice in the Old Testament.

[23:14]  ²⁶ tn Heb “their places.”