2 Kings 10:20-28

10:20 Then Jehu ordered, “Make arrangements for ¹  a celebration for Baal.” So they announced it. 10:21 Jehu sent invitations throughout Israel, and all the servants of Baal came; not one was absent. They arrived at the temple of Baal and filled it up from end to end. ²  10:22 Jehu ordered the one who was in charge of the wardrobe, ³  “Bring out robes for all the servants of Baal.” So he brought out robes for them. 10:23 Then Jehu and Jehonadab son of Rekab went to the temple of Baal. Jehu ⁴  said to the servants of Baal, “Make sure there are no servants of the Lord here with you; there must be only servants of Baal.” ⁵  10:24 They went inside to offer sacrifices and burnt offerings. Now Jehu had stationed eighty men outside. He had told them, “If any of the men inside get away, you will pay with your lives!” ⁶ 

10:25 When he finished offering the burnt sacrifice, Jehu ordered the royal guard ⁷  and officers, “Come in and strike them down! Don’t let any escape!” So the royal guard and officers struck them down with the sword and left their bodies lying there. ⁸  Then they entered the inner sanctuary of the temple of Baal. ⁹  10:26 They hauled out the sacred pillar of the temple of Baal and burned it. 10:27 They demolished ¹⁰  the sacred pillar of Baal and ¹¹  the temple of Baal; it is used as ¹²  a latrine ¹³  to this very day. 10:28 So Jehu eradicated Baal worship ¹⁴  from Israel.

¹ tn Heb “set apart”; or “observe as holy.”

² tn Heb “and the house of Baal was filled mouth to mouth.”

³ tn Heb “and he said to the one who was over the wardrobe.”

⁴ tn Heb “he”; the referent (Jehu) has been specified in the translation for clarity.

⁵ tn Heb “Search carefully and observe so that there are not here with you any servants of the Lord, only the servants of Baal.”

⁵ tn Heb “The man who escapes from the men whom I am bringing into your hands, [it will be] his life in place of his life.”

⁶ tn Heb “runners.”

⁷ tn Heb “and they threw.” No object appears. According to M. Cogan and H. Tadmor (II Kings [AB], 116), this is an idiom for leaving a corpse unburied.

⁸ tn Heb “and they came to the city of the house of Baal.” It seems unlikely that a literal city is meant. Some emend עִיר (’ir), “city,” to דְּבִיר (dÿvir) “holy place,” or suggest that עִיר is due to dittography of the immediately preceding עַד (’ad) “to.” Perhaps עִיר is here a technical term meaning “fortress” or, more likely, “inner room.”

⁷ tn Or “pulled down.”

⁸ tn The verb “they demolished” is repeated in the Hebrew text.

⁹ tn Heb “and they made it into.”

¹⁰ tn The consonantal text (Kethib) has the hapax legomenon מַחֲרָאוֹת (makhara’ot), “places to defecate” or “dung houses” (note the related noun חרא (khr’)/חרי (khri), “dung,” HALOT 348-49 s.v. *חֲרָאִים). The marginal reading (Qere) glosses this, perhaps euphemistically, מוֹצָאוֹת (motsa’ot), “outhouses.”

⁸ tn Heb “destroyed Baal.”