Text -- 2 Kings 23:1-10 (NET)

The King Institutes Religious Reform

23:1 The king summoned all the leaders of Judah and Jerusalem. 23:2 The king went up to the Lord’s temple, accompanied by all the people of Judah, all the residents of Jerusalem, the priests, and the prophets. All the people were there, from the youngest to the oldest. He read aloud all the words of the scroll of the covenant that had been discovered in the Lord’s temple. 23:3 The king stood by the pillar and renewed the covenant before the Lord, agreeing to follow the Lord and to obey his commandments, laws, and rules with all his heart and being, by carrying out the terms of this covenant recorded on this scroll. All the people agreed to keep the covenant. 23:4 The king ordered Hilkiah the high priest, the high-ranking priests, and the guards to bring out of the Lord’s temple all the items that were used in the worship of Baal, Asherah, and all the stars of the sky. The king burned them outside of Jerusalem in the terraces of Kidron, and carried their ashes to Bethel. 23:5 He eliminated the pagan priests whom the kings of Judah had appointed to offer sacrifices on the high places in the cities of Judah and in the area right around Jerusalem. (They offered sacrifices 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. He smashed it to dust and then threw the dust in the public graveyard. 23:7 He tore down the quarters of the male cultic prostitutes in the Lord’s temple, where women were weaving shrines for Asherah. 23:8 He brought all the priests from the cities of Judah and ruined the high places where the priests had offered sacrifices, from Geba to Beer Sheba. He tore down the high place of the goat idols 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.) 23:10 The king ruined Topheth in the Valley of Ben Hinnom so that no one could pass his son or his daughter through the fire to Molech.

Commentary -- Verse Notes / Footnotes

NET Notes: 2Ki 23:1

¹ tn Heb “and the king sent and all the elders of Judah and Jerusalem gathered to him.”

map For location see Map5 B1; Map6 F3; Map7 E2; Map8 F2; Map10 B3; JP1 F4; JP2 F4; JP3 F4; JP4 F4.

NET Notes: 2Ki 23:2

¹ tn Heb “read in their ears.”

NET Notes: 2Ki 23:3

¹ tn Heb “cut,” that is, “made, agreed to.”

² tn Heb “walk after.”

³ tn Or “soul.”

⁴ tn Heb “words.”

⁵ tn Heb “stood in the covenant.”

NET Notes: 2Ki 23:4

¹ tn Heb “the priests of the second [rank],” that is, those ranked just beneath Hilkiah.

² tn Or “doorkeepers.”

³ tn Heb “for.”

⁴ tn Heb “all the host of heaven” (also in v. 5).

⁵ tn Heb “he”; the referent (the king) has been specified in the translation for clarity.

⁶ tn Or “fields.” For a defense of the translation “terraces,” see M. Cogan and H. Tadmor, II Kings (AB), 285.

⁷ map For location see Map4 G4; Map5 C1; Map6 E3; Map7 D1; Map8 G3.

NET Notes: 2Ki 23:5

¹ tn Perhaps, “destroyed.”

² tn Or “burn incense.”

³ tn Or “burned incense.”

NET Notes: 2Ki 23:6

¹ tn Heb “and he burned it in the Kidron Valley.”

² tc Heb “on the grave of the sons of the people.” Some Hebrew, Greek, Syriac, Aramaic, and Latin witnesses read the plural “graves.”

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.

NET Notes: 2Ki 23:7

¹ tn Or “cubicles.” Heb “houses.”

² 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.

NET Notes: 2Ki 23:8

¹ tn Heb “defiled; desecrated,” that is, “made ritually unclean and unusable.”

² sn These towns marked Judah’s northern and southern borders, respectively, at the time of Josiah.

³ 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.

NET Notes: 2Ki 23:9

¹ tn Heb “their brothers.”

NET Notes: 2Ki 23:10

¹ tn Heb “he”; the referent (the king) has been specified in the translation for clarity.

² 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.