1 Kings 15:13

15:13 He also removed Maacah his grandmother ¹  from her position as queen because she had made a loathsome Asherah pole. Asa cut down her Asherah pole and burned it in the Kidron Valley.

1 Kings 15:2

15:2 He ruled for three years in Jerusalem. ²  His mother was Maacah, the daughter of Abishalom. ³ 

1 Kings 15:23

15:23 The rest of the events of Asa’s reign, including all his successes and accomplishments, as well as a record of the cities he built, are recorded in the scroll called the Annals of the Kings of Judah. ⁴  Yet when he was very old he developed a foot disease. ⁵ 

1 Kings 15:2

15:2 He ruled for three years in Jerusalem. ⁶  His mother was Maacah, the daughter of Abishalom. ⁷ 

1 Kings 1:6

1:6 (Now his father had never corrected ⁸  him ⁹  by saying, “Why do you do such things?” He was also very handsome and had been born right after Absalom. ¹⁰ )

1 Kings 1:2

1:2 His servants advised ¹¹  him, “A young virgin must be found for our master, the king, ¹²  to take care of the king’s needs ¹³  and serve as his nurse. She can also sleep with you ¹⁴  and keep our master, the king, warm.” ¹⁵ 

1 Kings 1:16

1:16 Bathsheba bowed down on the floor before ¹⁶  the king. The king said, “What do you want?”

Jeremiah 31:40

31:40 The whole valley where dead bodies and sacrificial ashes are thrown ¹⁷  and all the terraced fields ¹⁸  out to the Kidron Valley ¹⁹  on the east as far north ²⁰  as the Horse Gate ²¹  will be included within this city that is sacred to the Lord. ²²  The city will never again be torn down or destroyed.”

John 18:1

Betrayal and Arrest

18:1 When he had said these things, ²³  Jesus went out with his disciples across the Kidron Valley. ²⁴  There was an orchard ²⁵  there, and he and his disciples went into it.

¹ tn Heb “mother,” but Hebrew often uses the terms “father” and “mother” for grandparents and more remote ancestors.

² map For location see Map5-B1; Map6-F3; Map7-E2; Map8-F2; Map10-B3; JP1-F4; JP2-F4; JP3-F4; JP4-F4.

³ sn Abishalom (also in v. 10) is a variant of the name Absalom (cf. 2 Chr 11:20). The more common form is used by TEV, NLT.

⁴ tn Heb “As for the rest of all the events of Asa, and all his strength and all which he did and the cities which he built, are they not written on the scroll of the events of the days of the kings of Judah?”

⁵ tn Heb “Yet in the time of his old age he became sick in his feet.”

⁶ map For location see Map5-B1; Map6-F3; Map7-E2; Map8-F2; Map10-B3; JP1-F4; JP2-F4; JP3-F4; JP4-F4.

⁷ sn Abishalom (also in v. 10) is a variant of the name Absalom (cf. 2 Chr 11:20). The more common form is used by TEV, NLT.

⁸ tn Or “disciplined.”

⁹ tn Heb “did not correct him from his days.” The phrase “from his days” means “from his earliest days,” or “ever in his life.” See GKC 382 §119.w, n. 2.

¹⁰ tn Heb “and she gave birth to him after Absalom.” This does not imply they had the same mother; Absalom’s mother was Maacah, not Haggith (2 Sam 3:4).

¹¹ tn Heb “said to.”

¹² tn Heb “let them seek for my master, the king, a young girl, a virgin.” The third person plural subject of the verb is indefinite (see GKC 460 §144.f). The appositional expression, “a young girl, a virgin,” is idiomatic; the second term specifically defines the more general first term (see IBHS 230 §12.3b).

¹³ tn Heb “and she will stand before the king.” The Hebrew phrase “stand before” can mean “to attend; to serve” (BDB 764 s.v. עָמַד).

¹⁴ tn Heb “and she will lie down in your bosom.” The expression might imply sexual intimacy (see 2 Sam 12:3 [where the lamb symbolizes Bathsheba] and Mic 7:5), though v. 4b indicates that David did not actually have sex with the young woman.

¹⁵ tn Heb “and my master, the king, will be warm.”

¹⁶ tn Heb “bowed low and bowed down to.”

¹⁷ sn It is generally agreed that this refers to the Hinnom Valley which was on the southwestern and southern side of the city. It was here where the people of Jerusalem had burned their children as sacrifices and where the Lord had said that there would be so many dead bodies when he punished them that they would be unable to bury all of them (cf. Jer 7:31-32). Reference here may be to those dead bodies and to the ashes of the cremated victims. This defiled place would be included within the holy city.

¹⁸ tc The translation here follows the Qere and a number of Hebrew mss in reading שְׁדֵמוֹת (shÿdemot) for the otherwise unknown word שְׁרֵמוֹת (shÿremot) exhibiting the common confusion of ר (resh) and ד (dalet). The fields of Kidron are mentioned also in 2 Kgs 23:4 as the place where Josiah burned the cult objects of Baal.

¹⁹ sn The Kidron Valley is the valley that joins the Hinnom Valley in the southeastern corner of the city and runs northward on the east side of the city.

²⁰ tn The words “on the east” and “north” are not in the text but are supplied in the translation to give orientation.

²¹ sn The Horse Gate is mentioned in Neh 3:28 and is generally considered to have been located midway along the eastern wall just south of the temple area.

²² tn The words “will be included within this city that is” are not in the text. The text merely says that “The whole valley…will be sacred to the Lord.” These words have been supplied in the translation because they are really implicit in the description of the whole area as being included within the new city plan, not just the Hinnom and terraced fields as far as the Kidron Valley.

²³ sn When he had said these things appears to be a natural transition at the end of the Farewell Discourse (the farewell speech of Jesus to his disciples in John 13:31-17:26, including the final prayer in 17:1-26). The author states that Jesus went out with his disciples, a probable reference to their leaving the upper room where the meal and discourse described in chaps. 13-17 took place (although some have seen this only as a reference to their leaving the city, with the understanding that some of the Farewell Discourse, including the concluding prayer, was given en route, cf. 14:31). They crossed the Kidron Valley and came to a garden, or olive orchard, identified in Matt 26:36 and Mark 14:32 as Gethsemane. The name is not given in Luke’s or John’s Gospel, but the garden must have been located somewhere on the lower slopes of the Mount of Olives.

²⁴ tn Grk “the wadi of the Kidron,” or “the ravine of the Kidron” (a wadi is a stream that flows only during the rainy season and is dry during the dry season).

²⁵ tn Or “a garden.”