10:25 When he finished offering the burnt sacrifice, Jehu ordered the royal guard 1 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. 2 Then they entered the inner sanctuary of the temple of Baal. 3
23:4 The king ordered Hilkiah the high priest, the high-ranking priests, 6 and the guards 7 to bring out of the Lord’s temple all the items that were used in the worship of 8 Baal, Asherah, and all the stars of the sky. 9 The king 10 burned them outside of Jerusalem in the terraces 11 of Kidron, and carried their ashes to Bethel. 12 23:5 He eliminated 13 the pagan priests whom the kings of Judah had appointed to offer sacrifices 14 on the high places in the cities of Judah and in the area right around Jerusalem. (They offered sacrifices 15 to Baal, the sun god, the moon god, the constellations, and all the stars in the sky.)
1 tn Heb “runners.”
2 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.
3 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.”
4 sn See the note at 2 Kgs 17:16.
5 tn Or “served.”
6 tn Heb “the priests of the second [rank],” that is, those ranked just beneath Hilkiah.
7 tn Or “doorkeepers.”
8 tn Heb “for.”
9 tn Heb “all the host of heaven” (also in v. 5).
10 tn Heb “he”; the referent (the king) has been specified in the translation for clarity.
11 tn Or “fields.” For a defense of the translation “terraces,” see M. Cogan and H. Tadmor, II Kings (AB), 285.
12 map For location see Map4-G4; Map5-C1; Map6-E3; Map7-D1; Map8-G3.
13 tn Perhaps, “destroyed.”
14 tn Or “burn incense.”
15 tn Or “burned incense.”