2 Kings 23:4

23:4 The king ordered Hilkiah the high priest, the high-ranking priests, ¹  and the guards ²  to bring out of the Lord’s temple all the items that were used in the worship of ³  Baal, Asherah, and all the stars of the sky. ⁴  The king ⁵  burned them outside of Jerusalem in the terraces ⁶  of Kidron, and carried their ashes to Bethel. ⁷ 

2 Kings 23:24

23:24 Josiah also got rid of ⁸  the ritual pits used to conjure up spirits, ⁹  the magicians, personal idols, disgusting images, ¹⁰  and all the detestable idols that had appeared in the land of Judah and in Jerusalem. In this way he carried out the terms of the law ¹¹  recorded on the scroll that Hilkiah the priest had discovered in the Lord’s temple.

[23:4]  ¹ tn Heb “the priests of the second [rank],” that is, those ranked just beneath Hilkiah.

[23:4]  ² tn Or “doorkeepers.”

[23:4]  ³ tn Heb “for.”

[23:4]  ⁴ tn Heb “all the host of heaven” (also in v. 5).

[23:4]  ⁵ tn Heb “he”; the referent (the king) has been specified in the translation for clarity.

[23:4]  ⁶ tn Or “fields.” For a defense of the translation “terraces,” see M. Cogan and H. Tadmor, II Kings (AB), 285.

[23:4]  ⁷ map For location see Map4 G4; Map5 C1; Map6 E3; Map7 D1; Map8 G3.

[23:24]  ⁸ tn Here בִּעֵר (bi’er) is not the well attested verb “burn,” but the less common homonym meaning “devastate, sweep away, remove.” See HALOT 146 s.v. בער.

[23:24]  ⁹ sn See the note at 2 Kgs 21:6.

[23:24]  ¹⁰ sn See the note at 1 Kgs 15:12.

[23:24]  ¹¹ tn Heb “carrying out the words of the law.”