2 Kings 23:8-17

23:8 He brought all the priests from the cities of Judah and ruined ¹  the high places where the priests had offered sacrifices, from Geba to Beer Sheba. ²  He tore down the high place of the goat idols ³  situated at the entrance of the gate of Joshua, the city official, on the left side of the city gate. 23:9 (Now the priests of the high places did not go up to the altar of the Lord in Jerusalem, but they did eat unleavened cakes among their fellow priests.) ⁴  23:10 The king ⁵  ruined Topheth in the Valley of Ben Hinnom so that no one could pass his son or his daughter through the fire to Molech. ⁶  23:11 He removed from the entrance to the Lord’s temple the statues of horses ⁷  that the kings of Judah had placed there in honor of the sun god. (They were kept near the room of Nathan Melech the eunuch, which was situated among the courtyards.) ⁸  He burned up the chariots devoted to the sun god. ⁹  23:12 The king tore down the altars the kings of Judah had set up on the roof of Ahaz’s upper room, as well as the altars Manasseh had set up in the two courtyards of the Lord’s temple. He crushed them up ¹⁰  and threw the dust in the Kidron Valley. 23:13 The king ruined the high places east of Jerusalem, south of the Mount of Destruction, ¹¹  that King Solomon of Israel had built for the detestable Sidonian goddess Astarte, the detestable Moabite god Chemosh, and the horrible Ammonite god Milcom. 23:14 He smashed the sacred pillars to bits, cut down the Asherah pole, and filled those shrines ¹²  with human bones.

23:15 He also tore down the altar in Bethel ¹³  at the high place made by Jeroboam son of Nebat, who encouraged Israel to sin. ¹⁴  He burned all the combustible items at that high place and crushed them to dust; including the Asherah pole. ¹⁵  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; ¹⁶  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 ¹⁷  turned and saw the grave of the prophet who had foretold this. ¹⁸  23:17 He asked, “What is this grave marker I see?” The men from the city replied, “It’s the grave of the prophet ¹⁹  who came from Judah and foretold these very things you have done to the altar of Bethel.”

[23:8]  ¹ tn Heb “defiled; desecrated,” that is, “made ritually unclean and unusable.”

[23:8]  ² sn These towns marked Judah’s northern and southern borders, respectively, at the time of Josiah.

[23:8]  ³ tc The Hebrew text reads “the high places of the gates,” which is problematic in that the rest of the verse speaks of a specific gate. The translation assumes an emendation to בָּמוֹת הַשְּׁעָרִים (bamot hashÿ’arim), “the high place of the goats” (that is, goat idols). Worship of such images is referred to in Lev 17:7 and 2 Chr 11:15. For a discussion of the textual issue, see M. Cogan and H. Tadmor, II Kings (AB), 286-87.

[23:9]  ⁴ tn Heb “their brothers.”

[23:10]  ⁵ tn Heb “he”; the referent (the king) has been specified in the translation for clarity.

[23:10]  ⁶ sn Attempts to identify this deity with a god known from the ancient Near East have not yet yielded a consensus. For brief discussions see M. Cogan and H. Tadmor II Kings (AB), 288 and HALOT 592 s.v. מֹלֶךְ. For more extensive studies see George C. Heider, The Cult of Molek, and John Day, Molech: A God of Human Sacrifice in the Old Testament.

[23:11]  ⁷ tn The MT simply reads “the horses.” The words “statues of” have been supplied in the translation for clarity.

[23:11]  ⁸ tn Heb “who/which was in the […?].” The meaning of the Hebrew term פַּרְוָרִים (parvarim), translated here “courtyards,” is uncertain. The relative clause may indicate where the room was located or explain who Nathan Melech was, “the eunuch who was in the courtyards.” See M. Cogan and H. Tadmor, II Kings (AB), 288-89, who translate “the officer of the precincts.”

[23:11]  ⁹ tn Heb “and the chariots of the sun he burned with fire.”

[23:12]  ¹⁰ tc The MT reads, “he ran from there,” which makes little if any sense in this context. Some prefer to emend the verbal form (Qal of רוּץ [ruts], “run”) to a Hiphil of רוּץ with third plural suffix and translate, “he quickly removed them” (see BDB 930 s.v. רוּץ, and M. Cogan and H. Tadmor, II Kings [AB], 289). The suffix could have been lost in MT by haplography (note the mem [מ] that immediately follows the verb on the form מִשֳׁם, misham, “from there”). Another option, the one reflected in the translation, is to emend the verb to a Piel of רָצַץ (ratsats), “crush,” with third plural suffix.

[23:13]  ¹¹ sn This is a derogatory name for the Mount of Olives, involving a wordplay between מָשְׁחָה (mashÿkhah), “anointing,” and מַשְׁחִית (mashÿkhit), “destruction.” See HALOT 644 s.v. מַשְׁחִית and M. Cogan and H. Tadmor, II Kings (AB), 289.

[23:14]  ¹² tn Heb “their places.”

[23:15]  ¹³ map For location see Map4 G4; Map5 C1; Map6 E3; Map7 D1; Map8 G3.

[23:15]  ¹⁴ tn Heb “And also the altar that is in Bethel, the high place that Jeroboam son of Nebat who encouraged Israel to sin, also that altar and the high place he tore down.” The more repetitive Hebrew text is emphatic.

[23:15]  ¹⁵ tn Heb “he burned the high place, crushing to dust, and he burned the Asherah pole.” High places per se are never referred to as being burned elsewhere. בָּמָה (bamah) here stands by metonymy for the combustible items located on the high place. See M. Cogan and H. Tadmor, II Kings (AB), 289.

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

[23:16]  ¹⁷ tn Heb “the king”; this has been specified as “King Josiah” in the translation for clarity (cf. TEV, CEV, NLT).

[23:16]  ¹⁸ 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).

[23:17]  ¹⁹ tn Heb “man of God.”