Discovery Box2 Kings 3:25 
Context3:25 They tore down the cities and each man threw a stone into every cultivated field until they were covered. 1 They stopped up every spring and chopped down every productive tree.
Only Kir Hareseth was left intact, 2 but the slingers surrounded it and attacked it.
2 Kings 9:11
Context9:11 When Jehu rejoined 3 his master’s servants, they 4 asked him, “Is everything all right? 5 Why did this madman visit you?” He replied, “Ah, it’s not important. You know what kind of man he is and the kinds of things he says.” 6
2 Kings 23:8
Context23:8 He brought all the priests from the cities of Judah and ruined 7 the high places where the priests had offered sacrifices, from Geba to Beer Sheba. 8 He tore down the high place of the goat idols 9 situated at the entrance of the gate of Joshua, the city official, on the left side of the city gate.
2 Kings 23:24
Context23:24 Josiah also got rid of 10 the ritual pits used to conjure up spirits, 11 the magicians, personal idols, disgusting images, 12 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 13 recorded on the scroll that Hilkiah the priest had discovered in the Lord’s temple.
1 tn Heb “and [on] every good portion they were throwing each man his stone and they filled it.” The vav + perfect (“and they filled”) here indicates customary action contemporary with the situation described in the preceding main clause (where a customary imperfect is used, “they were throwing”). See the note at 3:4.
2 tn Heb “until he had allowed its stones to remain in Kir Hareseth.”
3 tn Heb “went out to.”
4 tc The MT has the singular, “he said,” but many witnesses correctly read the plural.
5 tn Heb “Is there peace?”
6 tn Heb “He said, ‘You, you know the man and his thoughts.’” Jehu tries to deflect their question by reminding them that the man is an eccentric individual who says strange things. His reply suggests that the man said nothing of importance. The translation seeks to bring out the tone and intent of Jehu’s reply.
7 tn Heb “defiled; desecrated,” that is, “made ritually unclean and unusable.”
8 sn These towns marked Judah’s northern and southern borders, respectively, at the time of Josiah.
9 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.
10 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.
11 sn See the note at 2 Kgs 21:6.
12 sn See the note at 1 Kgs 15:12.
13 tn Heb “carrying out the words of the law.”
