2 Kings 23:16

23:16 When Josiah turned around, he saw the tombs there on the hill. So he ordered the bones from the tombs to be brought; ¹  he burned them on the altar and defiled it. This fulfilled the Lord’s announcement made by the prophet while Jeroboam stood by the altar during a festival. King Josiah ²  turned and saw the grave of the prophet who had foretold this. ³ 

2 Kings 23:19

23:19 Josiah also removed all the shrines on the high places in the cities of Samaria. The kings of Israel had made them and angered the Lord. ⁴  He did to them what he had done to the high place in Bethel. ⁵ 

2 Kings 23:29-30

23:29 During Josiah’s reign Pharaoh Necho king of Egypt marched toward ⁶  the Euphrates River to help the king of Assyria. King Josiah marched out to fight him, but Necho ⁷  killed him at Megiddo ⁸  when he saw him. 23:30 His servants transported his dead body ⁹  from Megiddo in a chariot and brought it to Jerusalem, where they buried him in his tomb. The people of the land took Josiah’s son Jehoahaz, poured olive oil on his head, ¹⁰  and made him king in his father’s place.

[23:16]  ¹ tn Heb “and he sent and took the bones from the tombs.”

[23:16]  ² tn Heb “the king”; this has been specified as “King Josiah” in the translation for clarity (cf. TEV, CEV, NLT).

[23:16]  ³ tc The MT is much shorter than this. It reads, “according to the word of the Lord which the man of God proclaimed, who proclaimed these words.” The LXX has a much longer text at this point. It reads: “[which was proclaimed by the man of God] while Jeroboam stood by the altar at a celebration. Then he turned and saw the grave of the man of God [who proclaimed these words].” The extra material attested in the LXX was probably accidentally omitted in the Hebrew tradition when a scribe’s eye jumped from the first occurrence of the phrase “man of God” (which appears right before the extra material) and the second occurrence of the phrase (which appears at the end of the extra material).

[23:19]  ⁴ tc Heb “which the kings of Israel had made, angering.” The object has been accidentally omitted in the MT. It appears in the LXX, Syriac, and Vulgate versions.

[23:19]  ⁵ tn Heb “and he did to them according to all the deeds he had done in Bethel.”

[23:29]  ⁷ tn Heb “went up to.” The idiom עַל…עָלָה (’alah …’al) can sometimes mean “go up against,” but here it refers to Necho’s attempt to aid the Assyrians in their struggle with the Babylonians.

[23:29]  ⁸ tn Heb “he”; the referent (Necho) has been specified in the translation for clarity.

[23:29]  ⁹ map For location see Map1 D4; Map2 C1; Map4 C2; Map5 F2; Map7 B1.

[23:30]  ¹⁰ tn Heb “him, dead.”

[23:30]  ¹¹ tn Or “anointed him.”