2 Kings 7:8

7:8 When the men with a skin disease reached the edge of the camp, they entered a tent and had a meal. ¹  They also took some silver, gold, and clothes and went and hid it all. ²  Then they went back and entered another tent. They looted it ³  and went and hid what they had taken.

2 Kings 9:12

9:12 But they said, “You’re lying! Tell us what he said.” So he told them what he had said. He also related how he had said, ⁴  “This is what the Lord says, ‘I have designated you as king over Israel.’”

2 Kings 18:4

18:4 He eliminated the high places, smashed the sacred pillars to bits, and cut down the Asherah pole. ⁵  He also demolished the bronze serpent that Moses had made, for up to that time ⁶  the Israelites had been offering incense to it; it was called Nehushtan. ⁷ 

2 Kings 18:27

18:27 But the chief adviser said to them, “My master did not send me to speak these words only to your master and to you. ⁸  His message is also for the men who sit on the wall, for they will eat their own excrement and drink their own urine along with you.” ⁹ 

2 Kings 23:15

23:15 He also tore down the altar in Bethel ¹⁰  at the high place made by Jeroboam son of Nebat, who encouraged Israel to sin. ¹¹  He burned all the combustible items at that high place and crushed them to dust; including the Asherah pole. ¹² 

2 Kings 23:24

23:24 Josiah also got rid of ¹³  the ritual pits used to conjure up spirits, ¹⁴  the magicians, personal idols, disgusting images, ¹⁵  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 ¹⁶  recorded on the scroll that Hilkiah the priest had discovered in the Lord’s temple.

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¹ tn Heb “they ate and drank.”

² tn Heb “and they hid [it].”

³ tn Heb “and they took from there.”

⁴ tn Heb “So he said, ‘Like this and like this he said to me, saying.’” The words “like this and like this” are probably not a direct quote of Jehu’s words to his colleagues. Rather this is the narrator’s way of avoiding repetition and indicating that Jehu repeated, or at least summarized, what the prophet had said to him.

⁵ 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).

⁶ tn Heb “until those days.”

⁷ tn In Hebrew the name sounds like the phrase נְחַשׁ הַנְּחֹשֶׁת (nÿkhash hannÿkhoshet), “bronze serpent.”

⁸ tn Heb “To your master and to you did my master send me to speak these words?” The rhetorical question expects a negative answer.

⁹ tn Heb “[Is it] not [also] to the men…?” The rhetorical question expects the answer, “Yes, it is.”

sn The chief adviser alludes to the horrible reality of siege warfare, when the starving people in the besieged city would resort to eating and drinking anything to stay alive.

¹⁰ map For location see Map4-G4; Map5-C1; Map6-E3; Map7-D1; Map8-G3.

¹¹ 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.

¹² 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.

¹³ 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.

¹⁴ sn See the note at 2 Kgs 21:6.

¹⁵ sn See the note at 1 Kgs 15:12.

¹⁶ tn Heb “carrying out the words of the law.”