2 Kings 17:29

17:29 But each of these nations made ¹  its own gods and put them in the shrines on the high places that the people of Samaria ²  had made. Each nation did this in the cities where they lived.

2 Kings 23:18

23:18 The king ³  said, “Leave it alone! No one must touch his bones.” So they left his bones undisturbed, as well as the bones of the Israelite prophet buried beside him. ⁴ 

[17:29]  ¹ sn The verb “make” refers to the production of idols. See M. Cogan and H. Tadmor, II Kings (AB), 210-11.

[17:29]  ² tn Heb “Samaritans.” This refers to the Israelites who had been deported from the land.

[23:18]  ³ tn Heb “he”; the referent (the king) has been specified in the translation for clarity.

[23:18]  ⁴ tn Heb “and they left undisturbed his bones, the bones of the prophet who came from Samaria.” If the phrase “the bones of the prophet” were appositional to “his bones,” one would expect the sentence to end “from Judah” (see v. 17). Apparently the “prophet” referred to in the second half of the verse is the old prophet from Bethel who buried the man of God from Judah in his own tomb and instructed his sons to bury his bones there as well (1 Kgs 13:30-31). One expects the text to read “from Bethel,” but “Samaria” (which was not even built at the time of the incident recorded in 1 Kgs 13) is probably an anachronistic reference to the northern kingdom in general. See the note at 1 Kgs 13:32 and the discussion in M. Cogan and H. Tadmor, II Kings (AB), 290.