2 Kings 10:19

10:19 So now, bring to me all the prophets of Baal, as well as all his servants and priests. ¹  None of them must be absent, for I am offering a great sacrifice to Baal. Any of them who fail to appear will lose their lives.” But Jehu was tricking them ²  so he could destroy the servants of Baal.

2 Kings 10:25

10:25 When he finished offering the burnt sacrifice, Jehu ordered the royal guard ³  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. ⁴  Then they entered the inner sanctuary of the temple of Baal. ⁵ 

2 Kings 18:4

18:4 He eliminated the high places, smashed the sacred pillars to bits, and cut down the Asherah pole. ⁶  He also demolished the bronze serpent that Moses had made, for up to that time ⁷  the Israelites had been offering incense to it; it was called Nehushtan. ⁸ 

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¹ tn Heb “and now, all the prophets of Baal, all his servants and all his priests summon to me.”

² tn Heb “acted with deception [or, ‘trickery’].”

³ tn Heb “runners.”

⁴ 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.

⁵ 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.”

⁶ tn The term is singular in the MT but plural in the LXX and other ancient versions. It is also possible to regard the singular as a collective singular, especially in the context of other plural items.

sn Asherah was a leading deity of the Canaanite pantheon, wife/sister of El and goddess of fertility. She was commonly worshiped at shrines in or near groves of evergreen trees, or, failing that, at places marked by wooden poles. These were to be burned or cut down (Deut 12:3; 16:21; Judg 6:25, 28, 30; 2 Kgs 18:4).

⁷ tn Heb “until those days.”

⁸ tn In Hebrew the name sounds like the phrase נְחַשׁ הַנְּחֹשֶׁת (nÿkhash hannÿkhoshet), “bronze serpent.”