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2 Kings 23:9-11
New English Translation
2 Kings 23:9-11
New English Translation
9 (Now the priests of the high places did not go up to the altar of the Lord in Jerusalem, but they did eat unleavened cakes among their fellow priests.)[a] 10 The king[b] ruined Topheth in the Valley of Ben Hinnom so that no one could pass his son or his daughter through the fire to Molech.[c] 11 He removed from the entrance to the Lord’s temple the statues of horses[d] that the kings of Judah had placed there in honor of the sun god. (They were kept near the room of Nathan Melech the eunuch, which was situated among the courtyards.)[e] He burned up the chariots devoted to the sun god.[f]
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- 2 Kings 23:9 tn Heb “their brothers.”
- 2 Kings 23:10 tn Heb “he”; the referent (the king) has been specified in the translation for clarity.
- 2 Kings 23:10 sn Attempts to identify this deity with a god known from the ancient Near East have not yet yielded a consensus. For brief discussions see M. Cogan and H. Tadmor II Kings (AB), 288 and HALOT 592 s.v. מֹלֶךְ. For more extensive studies see George C. Heider, The Cult of Molek, and John Day, Molech: A God of Human Sacrifice in the Old Testament.
- 2 Kings 23:11 tn The MT simply reads “the horses.” The words “statues of” have been supplied in the translation for clarity.
- 2 Kings 23:11 tn Heb “who/which was in the […?].” The meaning of the Hebrew term פַּרְוָרִים (parvarim), translated here “courtyards,” is uncertain. The relative clause may indicate where the room was located or explain who Nathan Melech was, “the eunuch who was in the courtyards.” See M. Cogan and H. Tadmor, II Kings (AB), 288-89, who translate “the officer of the precincts.”
- 2 Kings 23:11 tn Heb “and the chariots of the sun he burned with fire.”
New English Translation (NET)
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