2 Kings 18:4

18:4 He eliminated the high places, smashed the sacred pillars to bits, and cut down the Asherah pole.¹ He also demolished the bronze serpent that Moses had made, for up to that time² the Israelites had been offering incense to it; it was called Nehushtan.³

2 Kings 25:16-17

25:16 The bronze of the items that King Solomon made for the Lord’s temple – including the two pillars, the big bronze basin called “The Sea,” the twelve bronze bulls under “The Sea,”⁴ and the movable stands – was too heavy to be weighed. 25:17 Each of the pillars was about twenty-seven feet⁵ high. The bronze top of one pillar was about four and a half feet⁶ high and had bronze latticework and pomegranate shaped ornaments all around it. The second pillar with its latticework was like it.

¹tn 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).

²tn Heb “until those days.”

³tn In Hebrew the name sounds like the phrase נְחַשׁ הַנְּחֹשֶׁת (nÿkhash hannÿkhoshet), “bronze serpent.”

⁴tc The MT lacks “the twelve bronze bulls under ‘the Sea,’” but these words have probably been accidentally omitted by homoioarcton. The scribe’s eye may have jumped from the וְהָ (vÿha-) on וְהַבָּקָר (vÿhabbaqar), “and the bulls,” to the וְהָ on וְהַמְּכֹנוֹת (vÿhammÿkhonot), “and the movable stands,” causing him to leave out the intervening words. See the parallel passage in Jer 52:20.

⁵tn Heb “eighteen cubits.” The standard cubit in the OT is assumed by most authorities to be about eighteen inches (45 cm) long.

⁶tn Heb “three cubits.” The parallel passage in Jer 52:22 has “five.”