2 Kings 23:11

11 He also removed the horses that the kings of Judah had dedicated to the worship of the sun, and he burned the chariots used in this worship. (These were kept in the temple courtyard, near the gate and not far from the living quarters of Nathan Melech, a high official.)

2 Kings 23:11 Meaning and Commentary

2 Kings 23:11

And he took away the horses that the kings of Judah had
given to the sun
Consecrated to it; these were not images of horses, as some have thought, but real living ones; and the kings that gave them for the service of the sun, and for sacrifice to it, very probably were Manasseh and Amon: that horses were sacred to the sun with many Heathen nations, as the Massagetae, a people in Scythia, and the Persians, and Babylonians, and Ethiopians, is affirmed by various writers ^F3: and from them the Jews received this notion. According to the Jewish commentators, these were horses provided for the worshippers of the sun to ride upon, and meet the sun in the morning at its rising, and pay their homage to it; but certain it is that the Heathen nations before mentioned slew the horses, and sacrificed them as burnt offerings to the sun, as is asserted by Herodotus ^F4, Xenophon ^F5, Strabo ^F6, Pausanias ^F7, Philostratus ^F8, and other writers ^F9; and so the Indians of India

---

FOOTNOTES:

F11 sacrificed them to Apollo, the same with the sun; these being the swiftest of creatures, they offered them to the swiftest of their gods, as Herodotus and Heliodorus observe, in the places before referred to. The stables in which these horses were kept were

at the entering of the house of the Lord, by the chamber of
Nathanmelech the chamberlain, which was in the suburbs;
so that they reached from the temple to the suburbs of Jerusalem, to that part of them where this officer had a chamber, or lodgings, being in some place of power and authority there; though, according to L'Empereur ^F12, it is the same with Parbar, ( 1 Chronicles 26:18 ) and should not be rendered "suburbs", it being between the compass or wall of the temple, and the court:

and burnt the chariots of the sun with fire;
these were either chariots, in which the king and his nobles rode, when they went to meet and worship the rising sun; or rather such as were sacred to the sun, as well as the horses, or Josiah would not have burnt them; they seem to be such in which the images of the sun were carried. Herodotus ^F13 makes mention as of sacred horses, so of a sacred chariot. Xenophon ^F14 speaks of the chariot of the sun as being of a white colour, and drawn in procession at the worship of the sun; as does also Pausanias ^F15 of a chariot, in which were the sun, Jupiter, and Juno, and near them other deities; which notion of sacred chariots the Heathens might take from the chariot of the cherubim Jehovah sat and rode in, ( 1 Chronicles 28:18 ) .

F3 Justin e Trogo, l. 1. c. 10. Curt. Hist. l. 3. c. 3. Ovid. Fast. l. 1. Alex. ab Alex. Genial. Dier. l. 6. c. 26. Heliodor. Ethiop. l. 10. c. 6. 28.
F4 Clio, sive, l. 1. c. 216.
F5 Cyropaed. l. 8. c. 23, 24.
F6 Geograph. l. 11. p. 353.
F7 Laconica, sive, l. 3. p. 201.
F8 Vit. Apollon. l. 1. c. 20.
F9 Vid. Lactant. de fals. Relig. l. 1. c. 21.
F11 Laon. Chalcondyl. de Rebus Turc. l. 3. p. 108.
F12 Not. in Misn. Middot, c. 2. sect. 3. No. 3. So Boehart. Hierozoic. par. 1. l. 2. c. 10. col. 177.
F13 Polymnia, sive, l. 7. c. 55.
F14 Ut supra, (Cyropaed. l. 8.) c. 23.
F15 Eliac. 1. sive, l. 5. p, 307.

2 Kings 23:11 In-Context

9 Those priests were not allowed to serve in the Temple, but they could eat the unleavened bread provided for their fellow priests.

10 King Josiah also desecrated Topheth, the pagan place of worship in Hinnom Valley, so that no one could sacrifice his son or daughter as a burnt offering to the god Molech.

11 He also removed the horses that the kings of Judah had dedicated to the worship of the sun, and he burned the chariots used in this worship. (These were kept in the temple courtyard, near the gate and not far from the living quarters of Nathan Melech, a high official.)

12 The altars which the kings of Judah had built on the palace roof above King Ahaz' quarters, King Josiah tore down, along with the altars put up by King Manasseh in the two courtyards of the Temple; he smashed the altars to bits and threw them into Kidron Valley.

13 Josiah desecrated the altars that King Solomon had built east of Jerusalem, south of the Mount of Olives, for the worship of disgusting idols - Astarte the goddess of Sidon, Chemosh the god of Moab, and Molech the god of Ammon.