2 Raja-raja 23:5-9

23:5 He eliminated ¹  the pagan priests whom the kings of Judah had appointed to offer sacrifices ²  on the high places in the cities of Judah and in the area right around Jerusalem. (They offered sacrifices ³  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. ⁴  He smashed it to dust and then threw the dust in the public graveyard. ⁵  23:7 He tore down the quarters ⁶  of the male cultic prostitutes in the Lord’s temple, where women were weaving shrines ⁷  for Asherah.

23:8 He brought all the priests from the cities of Judah and ruined ⁸  the high places where the priests had offered sacrifices, from Geba to Beer Sheba. ⁹  He tore down the high place of the goat idols ¹⁰  situated at the entrance of the gate of Joshua, the city official, on the left side of the city gate. 23:9 (Now the priests of the high places did not go up to the altar of the Lord in Jerusalem, but they did eat unleavened cakes among their fellow priests.) ¹¹ 

[23:5]  ¹ tn Perhaps, “destroyed.”

[23:5]  ² tn Or “burn incense.”

[23:5]  ³ tn Or “burned incense.”

[23:6]  ⁴ tn Heb “and he burned it in the Kidron Valley.”

[23:6]  ⁵ 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.

[23:7]  ⁶ tn Or “cubicles.” Heb “houses.”

[23:7]  ⁷ tn Heb “houses.” Perhaps tent-shrines made from cloth are in view (see BDB 109 s.v. בַּיִת). M. Cogan and H. Tadmor (II Kings [AB], 286) understand this as referring to clothes made for images of the goddess.

[23:8]  ⁸ tn Heb “defiled; desecrated,” that is, “made ritually unclean and unusable.”

[23:8]  ⁹ sn These towns marked Judah’s northern and southern borders, respectively, at the time of Josiah.

[23:8]  ¹⁰ tc The Hebrew text reads “the high places of the gates,” which is problematic in that the rest of the verse speaks of a specific gate. The translation assumes an emendation to בָּמוֹת הַשְּׁעָרִים (bamot hashÿ’arim), “the high place of the goats” (that is, goat idols). Worship of such images is referred to in Lev 17:7 and 2 Chr 11:15. For a discussion of the textual issue, see M. Cogan and H. Tadmor, II Kings (AB), 286-87.

[23:9]  ¹¹ tn Heb “their brothers.”