2 Raja-raja 23:19-25

23:19 Josiah also removed all the shrines on the high places in the cities of Samaria. The kings of Israel had made them and angered the Lord. ¹  He did to them what he had done to the high place in Bethel. ²  23:20 He sacrificed all the priests of the high places on the altars located there, and burned human bones on them. Then he returned to Jerusalem.

23:21 The king ordered all the people, “Observe the Passover of the Lord your God, as prescribed in this scroll of the covenant.” 23:22 He issued this edict because ³  a Passover like this had not been observed since the days of the judges; it was neglected for the entire period of the kings of Israel and Judah. ⁴  23:23 But in the eighteenth year of King Josiah’s reign, such a Passover of the Lord was observed in Jerusalem.

23:24 Josiah also got rid of ⁵  the ritual pits used to conjure up spirits, ⁶  the magicians, personal idols, disgusting images, ⁷  and all the detestable idols that had appeared in the land of Judah and in Jerusalem. In this way he carried out the terms of the law ⁸  recorded on the scroll that Hilkiah the priest had discovered in the Lord’s temple. 23:25 No king before or after repented before the Lord as he did, with his whole heart, soul, and being in accordance with the whole law of Moses. ⁹ 

[23:19]  ¹ tc Heb “which the kings of Israel had made, angering.” The object has been accidentally omitted in the MT. It appears in the LXX, Syriac, and Vulgate versions.

[23:19]  ² tn Heb “and he did to them according to all the deeds he had done in Bethel.”

[23:19]  map For location see Map4 G4; Map5 C1; Map6 E3; Map7 D1; Map8 G3.

[23:22]  ³ tn The Hebrew text has simply “because.” The translation attempts to reflect more clearly the logical connection between the king’s order and the narrator’s observation. Another option is to interpret כִּי (ki) as asseverative and translate, “indeed.”

[23:22]  ⁴ tn Heb “because there had not been observed [one] like this Passover from the days of the judges who judged Israel and all the days of the kings of Israel and the kings of Judah.”

[23:24]  ⁵ tn Here בִּעֵר (bi’er) is not the well attested verb “burn,” but the less common homonym meaning “devastate, sweep away, remove.” See HALOT 146 s.v. בער.

[23:24]  ⁶ sn See the note at 2 Kgs 21:6.

[23:24]  ⁷ sn See the note at 1 Kgs 15:12.

[23:24]  ⁸ tn Heb “carrying out the words of the law.”

[23:25]  ⁹ tn Heb “and like him there was not a king before him who returned to the Lord with all his heart, and with all his soul, and with all his being according to all the law of Moses, and after him none arose like him.”

[23:25]  sn The description of Josiah’s devotion as involving his whole “heart, soul, and being” echoes the language of Deut 6:5.