Verse-by-Verse Bible Commentary

Adam Clarke Commentary

Made it a draught house - A place for human excrement; so all the versions understand it. Nothing could be more degrading than this; he made it a public necessary.

Albert Barnes' Notes on the Whole Bible

And they brake down the image of Baal - The other images, it appears, were not images of Baal, but of inferior deities. The image of Baal, which was “broken down,” and not burned, would seem to have been of stone, perhaps erected in front of the temple.

John Gill's Exposition of the Whole Bible

And they broke down the temple of Baal,.... Which some take to be Belus, others Saturn, others the sun, which seems most probable:

and broke down the house of Baal; his temple, demolished it:

and made it a draught house until this day; a common sewer, a jakes; a fit place for dunghill gods to be thrown into, and an idol temple to be turned into.

Keil & Delitzsch Old Testament Commentary

Lastly, they destroyed the temple itself and made it למחראות, privies, for which the Masoretes have substituted the euphemistic מוצאות, sinks, as a mark of the greatest insult, many examples of which are to be met with among Oriental tribes (vid., Ezra 6:11; Daniel 2:5, and Haevernick in loc .). - Thus Jehu exterminated Baal from Israel. This remark in 2 Kings 10:28 forms the introduction to the history of Jehu's reign, with which the last epoch in the history of the ten tribes begins.

Wesley's Explanatory Notes

And they brake down the image of Baal, and brake down the house of Baal, and made it a draught house unto this day.

Draught-house — A sink or common shore.

John Trapp Complete Commentary

2 Kings 10:27 And they brake down the image of Baal, and brake down the house of Baal, and made it a draught house unto this day.

Ver. 27. And brake down the house of Baal.] So Theodosius pulled down the idol temples, which Constantine had shut only, but Julian opened them again; and our Henry VIII demolished the abbeys and monasteries, using these words, Corvorum nidi sunt penitus disturbandi, ne iterum ad cohabitandum convolent: Those crows’ nests are to be utterly destroyed, that they be no more frequented and re-inhabited.

And made it a draught house.] Or, Jakes or out house. Here the Masorites put a more cleanly word in their Keri in the margin; as if they would prompt to the Holy Ghost a more mannerly speech. (a) {Hebrew Text Note} So they do in Deuteronomy 28:30, Jeremiah 3:2. Less marvel, then, if they deal so with the words of Rabshakeh, Isaiah 36:12.

Matthew Poole's English Annotations on the Holy Bible

The image of Baal; the chief image, which they worshipped more than the rest.

Brake down the house of Baal; and the like they did with the rest of the houses of Baal in Israel; as may be gathered both from the nature and reason of the thing, and from 2 Kings 10:28.

Whedon's Commentary on the Bible

27.The image of Baal — This was probably a vast molten statue of the god, erected outside of the temple, perhaps at the portal.

A draught house — A place of refuse and filth. The Masoretes have substituted a word which signifies sewers.

Thus did Jehu terribly destroy these worshippers of Baal, mingling their blood with the sacrifices of the altar, and making the very site of their great temple a place of filth. This would cover the very name of Baal with infamy and reproach.

George Haydock's Catholic Bible Commentary

A jakes, or necessary [latrine]. (Haydock) --- See 1 Esdras vi. 11., and Daniel ii. 5.

E.W. Bullinger's Companion Bible Notes

draught house = dunghill, middens, latrince.

Ellicott's Commentary for English Readers

(27) The image of Baal.—Again the word is pillar, which in this case is the conical pillar of stone representing the Baal himself. The wooden pillars of 2 Kings 10:26 probably symbolised companion deities ( παρέδρυι συμβώμοι) of the principal idol.

Made it a draught house.—By way of utter desecration. (Comp. Ezekiel 6:11; Daniel 2:5.)

Unto this day.—On the bearing of this phrase, see the Introduction to the Books of Kings.

Treasury of Scripture Knowledge

brake down the image

18:4; 23:7-14; Leviticus 26:30; Deuteronomy 7:5,25; 1 Kings 16:32; 2 Chronicles 34:3-7

made it a draught house

This was an ancient mode of degradation, which still continues in the East; and we are informed, that Abbas the Great, king of Persia, having conquered Bagdad, treated the tomb of Hanifah, one of the fathers of the church among the Turks, in a similar manner.

Ezra 6:11; Daniel 2:5; 3:29