Discovery Box2 Kings 3:27 
Context3:27 So he took his firstborn son, who was to succeed him as king, and offered him up as a burnt sacrifice on the wall. There was an outburst of divine anger against Israel, 1 so they broke off the attack 2 and returned to their homeland.
2 Kings 10:15
Context10:15 When he left there, he met 3 Jehonadab, son of Rekab, who had been looking for him. 4 Jehu greeted him and asked, 5 “Are you as committed to me as I am to you?” 6 Jehonadab answered, “I am!” Jehu replied, “If so, give me your hand.” 7 So he offered his hand and Jehu 8 pulled him up into the chariot.
2 Kings 23:5
Context23:5 He eliminated 9 the pagan priests whom the kings of Judah had appointed to offer sacrifices 10 on the high places in the cities of Judah and in the area right around Jerusalem. (They offered sacrifices 11 to Baal, the sun god, the moon god, the constellations, and all the stars in the sky.)
2 Kings 23:8
Context23:8 He brought all the priests from the cities of Judah and ruined 12 the high places where the priests had offered sacrifices, from Geba to Beer Sheba. 13 He tore down the high place of the goat idols 14 situated at the entrance of the gate of Joshua, the city official, on the left side of the city gate.
1 tn Heb “there was great anger against Israel.”
sn The meaning of this statement is uncertain, for the subject of the anger is not indicated. Except for two relatively late texts, the noun קֶצֶף (qetsef) refers to an outburst of divine anger. But it seems unlikely the Lord would be angry with Israel, for he placed his stamp of approval on the campaign (vv. 16-19). D. N. Freedman suggests the narrator, who obviously has a bias against the Omride dynasty, included this observation to show that the Lord would not allow the Israelite king to “have an undiluted victory” (as quoted in M. Cogan and H. Tadmor, II Kings [AB], 52, n. 8). Some suggest that the original source identified Chemosh the Moabite god as the subject and that his name was later suppressed by a conscientious scribe, but this proposal raises more questions than it answers. For a discussion of various views, see M. Cogan and H. Tadmor, II Kings (AB), 47-48, 51-52.
2 tn Heb “they departed from him.”
3 tn Heb “found.”
4 tn Heb “and he went from there and found Jehonadab son of Rekab [who was coming] to meet him.”
5 tn Heb “and he blessed him and said to him.”
6 tn Heb “Is there with your heart [what is] right, as my heart [is] with your heart?”
7 tc Heb “Jehonadab said, ‘There is and there is. Give your hand.’” If the text is allowed to stand, there are two possible ways to understand the syntax of וָיֵשׁ (vayesh), “and there is”: (1) The repetition of יֵשׁ (yesh, “there is and there is”) could be taken as emphatic, “indeed I am.” In this case, the entire statement could be taken as Jehonadab’s words or one could understand the words “give your hand” as Jehu’s. In the latter case the change in speakers is unmarked. (2) וָיֵשׁ begins Jehu’s response and has a conditional force, “if you are.” In this case, the transition in speakers is unmarked. However, it is possible that וַיֹּאמֶר (vayyo’mer), “and he said,” or וַיֹּאמֶר יֵהוּא (vayyo’mer yehu), “and Jehu said,” originally appeared between יֵשׁ and וָיֵשׁ and has accidentally dropped from the text by homoioarcton (note that both the proposed וַיֹּאמֶר and וָיֵשׁ begin with vav, ו). The present translation assumes such a textual reconstruction; it is supported by the LXX, Syriac Peshitta, and Vulgate.
8 tn Heb “he”; the referent (Jehu) has been specified in the translation for clarity.
9 tn Perhaps, “destroyed.”
10 tn Or “burn incense.”
11 tn Or “burned incense.”
12 tn Heb “defiled; desecrated,” that is, “made ritually unclean and unusable.”
13 sn These towns marked Judah’s northern and southern borders, respectively, at the time of Josiah.
14 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.
