2 Raja-raja 23:4

Bahasa Indonesia Sehari-hari

Raja memberi perintah kepada imam besar Hilkia dan kepada para imam tingkat dua dan kepada para penjaga pintu untuk mengeluarkan dari bait TUHAN segala perkakas yang telah dibuat untuk Baal dan Asyera dan untuk segala tentara langit, lalu dibakarnyalah semuanya itu di luar kota Yerusalem di padang-padang Kidron, dan diangkutnyalah abunya ke Betel.

Parallel Translations

Alkitab Terjemahan Baru
Raja memberi perintah kepada imam besar Hilkia dan kepada para imam tingkat dua dan kepada para penjaga pintu untuk mengeluarkan dari bait TUHAN segala perkakas yang telah dibuat untuk Baal dan Asyera dan untuk segala tentara langit, lalu dibakarnyalah semuanya itu di luar kota Yerusalem di padang-padang Kidron, dan diangkutnyalah abunya ke Betel.

Alkitab Terjemahan Lama
Maka titah baginda kepada imam besar Hilkia dan segala imam dari pada martabat yang kedua dan segala penunggu pintu, disuruhnya keluarkan dari dalam kaabah Tuhan segala perkakasan yang telah diperbuat akan Baal dan patung hutan dan akan segala tentara di langit, lalu dibakarnya habis akan semuanya itu di luar Yeruzalem di lembah Kideron, maka abunya disuruhnya bawa lalu ke Bait-el.

Contextual Overview

⁴ And the king commaunded Helchia the hie prieste, and the inferior priestes, and the kepers of the ornamentes, to bryng out of the temple of the Lorde all the vessels that were made for Baal, for the idoll groues, and for all the hoast of heauen: And he burnt them without Hierusalem in the fieldes of Cedron, and carryed the asshes of them into Bethel. ⁵ And he put downe the ministers [of Baal] whom the kinges of Iuda had founded to burne incense in the high places and cities of Iuda that were rounde about Hierusalem, & also them that burnt incense vnto Baal, to the sunne, to the moone, to the planets, and to all the hoast of heauen. ⁶ And he brought out the groue from the temple of the Lorde without Hierusalem vnto the brooke Cedron, and burnt it there at the brooke Cedron, and stampt it to powder, and cast the dust thereof vpon the graues of the children of the people. ⁷ And he brake downe the celles of the male stewes that were by the house of the Lorde, where the women woue hanginges for the idol groue. ⁸ And he brought all the priestes out of the cities of Iuda, and defiled the high places where the priestes had burnt incense, euen from Geba to Beerseba, and destroyed the high places of the gates that were in the entering in of the gate of Iosua ye gouernour of the citie, which were [as a man goeth in] on the left hande of the gate of the citie. ⁹ Neuerthelesse, the priestes of the high places came not vp to the aulter of the Lorde in Hierusalem, saue onely they did eate of the sweete bread among their brethren. ¹⁰ And he defiled Thopheth, which is in the valley of the children of Hinnom, because no man should offer his sonne or his daughter in fire to Moloch. ¹¹ He put downe the horses that the kinges of Iuda had geuen to the sunne, at the entering in of the house of the Lorde, by the chambre of Nathanmelech the chamberlayne, which was ruler of the suburbes, and burnt the charets of the sunne with fire. ¹² And the aulters that were on the top of the parlour of Ahaz which the kinges of Iuda had made, and the aulters which Manasse had made in the two courtes of the house of the Lorde, did the king breake downe, & ran thence, and cast the dust of them into the brooke Cedron. ¹³ And the high places that were before Hierusalem, on the right hand of the mount Oliuet, which Solomon the king of Israel had builded for Astaroth the idol of the Zidons, and for Chamos the idol of the Moabites, and for Milthon the abhominable idoll of the children of Ammon, those the king defiled:

Bible Verse Review
  from Treasury of Scripure Knowledge

priestss of the second order: These were either such as occasionally supplied the high priests's office, or those of the second course or order established by David. See the references. 1 Chronicles 24:4-19, Matthew 26:3, Matthew 27:1

the keepers: 2 Kings 22:4, 1 Chronicles 26:1-19

to bring: 2 Kings 21:3, 2 Kings 21:7, 2 Chronicles 33:3, 2 Chronicles 33:7, 2 Chronicles 34:3, 2 Chronicles 34:4

Baal: 2 Kings 17:16, Judges 2:13, 1 Kings 16:31, 1 Kings 18:19, 1 Kings 18:26, 1 Kings 18:40, 1 Kings 19:18, Isaiah 27:9, Jeremiah 7:9

Kidron: 2 Samuel 15:23, John 18:1, Cedron

Bethel: 1 Kings 12:29, Hosea 4:15, Amos 4:4

Reciprocal: Deuteronomy 4:19 - when thou 2 Kings 11:18 - went 2 Kings 12:9 - the priests 2 Kings 13:6 - and there remained 2 Kings 18:4 - brake 2 Kings 21:5 - in the two courts 1 Chronicles 9:11 - the ruler 2 Chronicles 29:16 - Kidron 2 Chronicles 34:9 - Hilkiah 2 Chronicles 34:33 - took away Nehemiah 13:22 - I commanded Isaiah 30:22 - defile Jeremiah 7:30 - they Jeremiah 11:13 - For according Ezekiel 8:6 - even Zephaniah 1:4 - the remnant

Cross-References

Genesis 3:19
In the sweatte of thy face shalt thou eate thy breade, tyll thou be turned agayne into the ground, for out of it wast thou taken: For dust thou art, and into dust shalt thou be turned agayne.

Genesis 17:8
And I wyll geue vnto thee and to thy seede after thee, the lande wherein thou art a strauger [euen] al the lande of Chanaan, for an euerlastyng possession, and wyll be their God.

Genesis 23:12
And Abraham bowed him selfe before the people of the lande.

Genesis 23:13
And spake vnto Ephron in the audience of the people of the countrey, saying: yf thou wylt [geue it] then I pray thee heare me, I wyll geue syluer for the fielde, take it of me, and I will bury my dead therin.

Genesis 23:16
And Abraham hearkened vnto Ephron, and wayed him the siluer which he had sayde in the aundience of the sonnes of Heth, euen foure hundred syluer sicles of currant money amongest marchauntes.

Genesis 47:9
Iacob sayd vnto Pharao, The dayes of my pilgrimage are an hundred and thirtie yeres: Fewe and euill haue the dayes of my life ben, and haue not attayned vnto the yeres of ye lyfe of my fathers, in the dayes of theyr pilgrimage.

Genesis 49:30
In the caue that is in the fielde of Machpelah, which is before Mamre in the lande of Chanaan, which Abraham bought with the fielde of Ephron the Hethite for a possession to bury in.

Genesis 50:13
For his sonnes caryed hym into the lande of Chanaan, & buryed hym in the caue of the fielde Machpelah, whiche fielde Abraham bought to be a place to bury in of Ephron the Hethite, before Mamre.

Leviticus 25:23
The lande shall not be solde to waste: for the lande is myne, & ye be but staungers and soiourners with me.

1 Chronicles 29:15
For we be but straungers before thee, and soiourners, as were al our fathers: Our dayes on the earth also are but as a shadowe, and there is none abiding.

Gill's Notes on the Bible

And the king commanded Hilkiah the high priest, and the priests of the second order,.... Or the second course of the priests; the course of Jedaiah, 1 Chronicles 24:7 as some think; or rather, the two chief priests next to the high priest, who were of the line both of Eleazar and Ithamar; though the Targum interprets it of the Sagan of the priests, a deputy of the high priest, such as in later times the high priest had always appointed for him on the day of atonement r:

and the keepers of the door: the porters at the door and gates of the temple; or rather the treasurers, as the Targum; such as were appointed over the vessels of the sanctuary, as the Jewish writers generally interpret it, and which best agrees with what follows:

to bring forth out of the temple of the Lord all the vessels that were made for Baal: used in burning incense, or offering sacrifices to him:

and for the grove: the idol of the grove, or Asherah, that is, Ashtoreth, or Astarte, the same with Venus, or the moon, as Baal was the sun, the one the husband, and the other the wife, according to the Jews s:

and for all the host of heaven: the stars:

and he burnt them without Jerusalem in the fields of Kidron; or plain of Kidron, as the Targum; through which the brook Kidron ran:

and carried the ashes of them unto Bethel; where one of Jeroboam's calves was set, and was the source of idolatry; and this he did in contempt of that place; and, to show his detestation of the idolatry there, he made it a dunghill of ashes of things used in idolatrous service; this he could do, that place being in the hands of the kings of Judah from the times of Ahijah, 2 Chronicles 13:19.

r Misn. Yoma, c. 1. sect. 1. s Zohar in Gen. fol. 34. 3.

Barnes' Notes on the Bible

A parenthesis giving the earlier reforms of Josiah.

2 Kings 23:4

The priests of the second order - This is a new expression; and probably refers to the ordinary priests, called here “priests of the second order,” in contrast with the high priest, whose dignity was reviving (2 Kings 12:2 note).

The vessels - This would include the whole apparatus of worship, altars, images, dresses, utensils, etc., for Baal, etc. (2 Kings 21:3-5 notes).

The ashes of the idolatrous objects burned in the first instance in the “fields of Kidron” (i. e., in the part of the valley which lies northeast of the city, a part much broader than that between the Temple Hill and the Mount of Olives) were actually taken to Bethel, as to an accursed place, and one just beyond the borders of Judah; while those of other objects burned afterward were not carried so far, the trouble being great and the need not absolute, but were thrown into the Kidron 2 Kings 23:12, when there happened to be water to carry them away, or scattered on graves which were already unclean 2 Kings 23:6. Compare 1 Kings 15:13.

2 Kings 23:5

He put down ... - or, “He caused to cease the idolatrous priests” (margin); i. e., he stopped them. The word translated “idolatrous priests” (see the margin) is a rare one, occurring only here and in marginal references. Here and in Zephaniah it is contrasted with כהן kôhên, another class of high-place priests. The כהן kôhên were probably “Levitical,” the כהן kâhêm “non-Levitical priests of the highplaces.” כהן kâhêm appears to have been a foreign term, perhaps derived from the Syriac cumro, which means a priest of any kind.

Whom the kings of Judah had ordained - The consecration of non-Levitical priests by the kings of Judah (compare 1 Kings 12:31) had not been previously mentioned; but it is quite in accordance with the other proceedings of Manasseh and Amon.

The planets - See the marginal note, i. e., the “signs of the Zodiac.” Compare Job 38:32 margin. The word in the original probably means primarily “houses” or “stations,” which was the name applied by the Babylonians to their divisions of the Zodiac.

2 Kings 23:6

The ashes, being polluted and polluting, were thrown upon graves, because there no one could come into contact with them, since graves were avoided as unclean places.

2 Kings 23:7

By the house of the Lord - This did not arise from intentional desecration, but from the fact that the practices in question were a part of the idolatrous ceremonial, being regarded as pleasing to the gods, and, indeed, as positive acts of worship (compare the marginal reference).

The “women” were probably the priestesses attached to the worship of Astarte, which was intimately connected with that of the Asherah or “grove.” Among their occupations one was the weaving of coverings (literally “houses” margin) for the Asherah, which seem to have been of various colors (marginal reference).

2 Kings 23:8

Josiah removed the Levitical priests, who had officiated at the various high-places, from the scenes of their idolatries, and brought them to Jerusalem, where their conduct might be watched.

From Geba to Beer-sheba - i. e., from the extreme north to the extreme south of the kingdom of Judah. On Geba see the marginal reference note. The high-place of Beer-sheba had obtained an evil celebrity Amos 5:5; Amos 8:14.

The high places of the gates ... - Render, “He brake down the high-places of the gates, both that which was at the entering in of the gate of Joshua, the governor of the city (1 Kings 22:26 note), and also that which was on a man’s left hand at the gate of the city.” According to this, there were only two “high-places of the gates” (or idolatrous shrines erected in the city at gate-towers) at Jerusalem. The “gate of Joshua is conjectured to have been a gate in the inner wall; and the “gate of the city,” the Valley-gate (modern “Jaffa-gate”).

2 Kings 23:9

Nevertheless - Connect this verse with the first clause of 2 Kings 23:8. The priests were treated as if they had been disqualified from serving at the altar by a bodily blemish Leviticus 21:21-23. They were not secularised, but remained in the priestly order and received a maintenance from the ecclesiastical revenues. Contrast with this treatment Josiah’s severity toward the priests of the high-places in Samaria, who were sacrificed upon their own altars 2 Kings 23:20. Probably the high-place worship in Judaea had continued in the main a worship of Yahweh with idolatrous rites, while in Samaria it had degenerated into an actual worship of other gods.

2 Kings 23:10

The word Topheth, or Topher - variously derived from toph, “a drum” or “tabour,” because the cries of the sacrificed children were drowned by the noise of such instruments; or, from a root taph or toph, meaning “to burn” - was a spot in the valley of Hinnom (marginal reference note). The later Jewish kings, Manasseh and Amon (or, perhaps, Ahaz, 2 Chronicles 28:3), had given it over to the Moloch priests for their worship; and here, ever since, the Moloch service had maintained its ground and flourished (marginal references).

2 Kings 23:11

The custom of dedicating a chariot and horses to the Sun is a Persian practice. There are no traces of it in Assyria; and it is extremely curious to find that it was known to the Jews as early as the reign of Manasseh. The idea of regarding the Sun as a charioteer who drove his horses daily across the sky, so familiar to the Greeks and Romans, may not improbably have been imported from Asia, and may have been at the root of the custom in question. The chariot, or chariots, of the Sun appear to have been used, chiefly if not solely, for sacred processions. They were white, and were drawn probably by white horses. The kings of Judah who gave them were Manasseh and Amon certainly; perhaps Ahaz; perhaps even earlier monarchs, as Joash and Amaziah.

In the suburbs - The expression used here פרברים parbārı̂ym is of unknown derivation and occurs nowhere else. A somewhat similar word occurs in 1 Chronicles 26:18, namely, פרבר parbār, which seems to have been a place just outside the western wall of the temple, and therefore a sort of “purlieu” or “suburb.” The פרברים parbārı̂ym of this passage may mean the same place or it may signify some other “suburb” of the temple.

2 Kings 23:12

The upper chamber of Ahaz - Conjectured to be a chamber erected on the flat roof of one of the gateways which led into the temple court. It was probably built in order that its roof might be used for the worship of the host of heaven, for which house-tops were considered especially appropriate (compare the marginal references).

Brake them down from thence - Rather as in the margin, i. e., he “hasted and cast the dust into Kidron.”

2 Kings 23:13

On the position of these high-places see 1 Kings 11:7 note. As they were allowed to remain under such kings as Asa, Jehoshaphat, and Hezekiah, they were probably among the old high-places where Yahweh had been worshipped blamelessly, or at least without any consciousness of guilt (see 1 Kings 3:2 note). Manasseh or Amon had however restored them to the condition which they had held in the reign of Solomon, and therefore Josiah would condemn them to a special defilement.

The mount of corruption - See the margin. It is suspected that the original name was Har ham-mishcah, “mount of anointing,” and that this was changed afterward, by way of contempt, into Har ham-mashchith, “mount of corruption.”

2 Kings 23:14

The Law attached uncleanness to the “bones of men,” no less than to actual corpses Numbers 19:16. We may gather from this and other passages 2 Kings 23:20; 1 Kings 13:2, that the Jews who rejected the Law were as firm believers in the defilement as those who adhered to the Law.

2 Kings 23:15

And burned the high place - This “high place” is to be distinguished from the altar and the grove (אשׁרה 'ăshêrâh). It may have been a shrine or tabernacle, either standing by itself or else covering the “grove” (2 Kings 23:7 note; 1 Kings 14:23 note). As it was “stamped small to powder,” it must have been made either of metal or stone.

2 Kings 23:16

To burn human bones was contrary to all the ordinary Jewish feelings with respect to the sanctity of the sepulchre, and had even been denounced as a sin of a heinous character when committed by a king of Moab Amos 2:1. Joshua did it, because justified by the divine command (marginal reference).

2 Kings 23:17

What title is that? - Rather, “What pillar is that?” The word in the original indicates a short stone pillar, which was set up either as a way-mark Jeremiah 31:21, or as a sepulchral monument Genesis 35:20; Ezekiel 39:15.

2 Kings 23:19

The cities of Samaria - The reformation which Josiah effected in Samaria, is narrated in Chronicles. It implies sovereignty to the furthest northern limits of Galilee, and is explained by the general political history of the East during his reign. Between 632-626 B.C. the Scythians ravaged the more northern countries of Armenia, Media, and Cappadocia, and found their way across Mesopotamia to Syria, and thence, made an attempt to invade Egypt. As they were neither the fated enemy of Judah, nor had any hand in bringing that enemy into the country, no mention is made of them in the Historical Books of Scripture. It is only in the prophets that we catch glimpses of the fearful sufferings of the time Zephaniah 2:4-6; Jeremiah 1:13-15; Jeremiah 6:2-5; Ezekiel 38:0; Ezekiel 39:0. The invasion had scarcely gone by, and matters settled into their former position, when the astounding intelligence must have reached Jerusalem that the Assyrian monarchy had fallen; that Nineveh was destroyed, and that her place was to be taken, so far as Syria and Palestine were concerned, by Babylon. This event is fixed about 625 B.C., which seems to be exactly the time during which Josiah was occupied in carrying out his reformation in Samaria. The confusion arising in these provinces from the Scythian invasion and the troubles in Assyria was taken advantage of by Josiah to enlarge his own sovereignty. There is every indication that Josiah did, in fact, unite under his rule all the old “land of Israel” except the trans-Jordanic region, and regarded himself as subject to Nabopolassar of Babylon.

2 Kings 23:20

Here, as in 2 Kings 23:16, Josiah may have regarded himself as bound to act as he did (marginal reference “b”). Excepting on account of the prophecy, he would scarcely have slain the priests upon the altars.

Clarke's Notes on the Bible

Verse 2 Kings 23:4. The priests of the second order — These were probably such as supplied the place of the high priest when he was prevented: from fulfilling the functions of his office. So the Chaldee understood the place - the sagan of the high priests. But the words may refer to those of the second course or order established by David: though it does not appear that those orders were now in use, yet the distinction was continued even to the time of our Lord. We find the course of Abia, which was the eighth, mentioned Luke 1:5; where see the note. Luke 1:5.

All the vessels — These had been used for idolatrous purposes; the king is now to destroy them; for although no longer used in this way, they might, if permitted to remain, be an incentive to idolatry at a future time.