2 Raja-raja 21:6

21:6 He passed his son ¹  through the fire ²  and practiced divination and omen reading. He set up a ritual pit to conjure up underworld spirits, and appointed magicians to supervise it. ³  He did a great amount of evil in the sight of the Lord, provoking him to anger. ⁴ 

Yeremia 23:20

23:20 The anger of the Lord will not turn back

until he has fully carried out his intended purposes. ⁵ 

In days to come ⁶ 

you people will come to understand this clearly. ⁷ 

[21:6]  ¹ tc The LXX has the plural “his sons” here.

[21:6]  ² sn See the note at 2 Kgs 16:3.

[21:6]  ³ tn Heb “and he set up a ritual pit, along with conjurers.” The Hebrew אוֹב (’ov), “ritual pit,” refers to a pit used by a magician to conjure up underworld spirits. In 1 Sam 28:7 the witch of Endor is called a בַעֲלַת אוֹב (ba’alat ’ov), “owner of a ritual pit.” See H. Hoffner, “Second millennium Antecedents to the Hebrew ’OñBù,” JBL 86 (1967), 385-401.

[21:6]  ⁴ tc Heb “and he multiplied doing what is evil in the eyes of the Lord, angering.” The third masculine singular pronominal suffix (“him”) has been accidentally omitted in the MT by haplography (note the vav that immediately follows).

[23:20]  ⁵ tn Heb “until he has done and until he has carried out the purposes of his heart.”

[23:20]  ⁶ tn Heb “in the latter days.” However, as BDB 31 s.v. אַחֲרִית b suggests, the meaning of this idiom must be determined from the context. Sometimes it has remote, even eschatological, reference and other times it has more immediate reference as it does here and in Jer 30:23 where it refers to the coming days of Babylonian conquest and exile.

[23:20]  ⁷ tn The translation is intended to reflect a Hebrew construction where a noun functions as the object of a verb from the same root word (the Hebrew cognate accusative).