2 Kings 23:18

Complete Jewish Bible

He replied, "Let him be; no one is to move his bones." So they left his bones undisturbed, along with the bones of the prophet who had come from Shomron.

Parallel Translations

Christian Standard Bible®
So he said, “Let him rest. Don’t let anyone disturb his bones.” So they left his bones undisturbed with the bones of the prophet who came from Samaria.

Hebrew Names Version
He said, Let him be; let no man move his bones. So they let his bones alone, with the bones of the prophet who came out of Shomron.

King James Version
And he said, Let him alone; let no man move his bones. So they let his bones alone, with the bones of the prophet that came out of Samaria.

English Standard Version
And he said, "Let him be; let no man move his bones." So they let his bones alone, with the bones of the prophet who came out of Samaria.

New Century Version
Josiah said, "Leave the grave alone. No one may move this man's bones." So they left his bones and the bones of the prophet who had come from Samaria.

New English Translation
The king said, "Leave it alone! No one must touch his bones." So they left his bones undisturbed, as well as the bones of the Israelite prophet buried beside him.

Amplified Bible
He said, "Let him alone; let no one disturb his bones." So they left his bones undisturbed, with the bones of the prophet who came from Samaria.

New American Standard Bible
And he said, "Leave him alone; no one is to disturb his bones." So they left his bones undisturbed with the bones of the prophet who came from Samaria.

World English Bible
He said, Let him be; let no man move his bones. So they let his bones alone, with the bones of the prophet who came out of Samaria.

Geneva Bible (1587)
Then sayde he, Let him alone: let none remooue his bones. So his bones were saued wt the bones of the Prophet that came from Samaria.

Legacy Standard Bible
And he said, "Let him alone; let no one move his bones." So they left his bones undisturbed with the bones of the prophet who came from Samaria.

Berean Standard Bible
"Let him rest," said Josiah. "Do not let anyone disturb his bones." So they left his bones undisturbed, along with those of the prophet who had come from Samaria.

Contemporary English Version
Josiah replied, "Then leave it alone. Don't dig up his bones." So they did not disturb his bones or the bones of the old prophet from Israel who had also been buried there.

Darby Translation
And he said, Let him alone; let no man move his bones. And they saved his bones, with the bones of the prophet that came out of Samaria.

Easy-to-Read Version
Josiah said, "Leave the man of God alone. Don't move his bones." So they left his bones and the bones of the man of God from Samaria.

George Lamsa Translation
And he said, Let him alone; let no man touch his sepulchre, and let no man move his bones, so the bones of the prophet of God spared the bones of the prophet who came from Samaria from being burned.

Good News Translation
"Leave it as it is," Josiah ordered. "His bones are not to be moved." So his bones were not moved, neither were those of the prophet who had come from Samaria.

Lexham English Bible
So Josiah said, "Let him rest and let no man move his bones." So they left his bones undisturbed with the bones of the prophet who had come from Samaria.

Literal Translation
And he said, Let him alone, let no one touch his bones. And they let his bones escape with the bones of the prophet that came out of Samaria.

Miles Coverdale Bible (1535)
And he sayde: Let him lye, no man touche his bones. Thus were his bones delyuered with the bones of the prophet that came from Samaria.

American Standard Version
And he said, Let him be; let no man move his bones. So they let his bones alone, with the bones of the prophet that came out of Samaria.

Bible in Basic English
So he said, Let him be; let not his bones be moved. So they let his bones be with the bones of the prophet who came from Samaria.

Bishop's Bible (1568)
And he saide, let him be: see that no man moue his bones. And so his bones were saued, with the bones of a prophete that came out of Samaria.

JPS Old Testament (1917)
And he said: 'Let him be; let no man move his bones.' So they let his bones alone, with the bones of the prophet that came out of Samaria.

King James Version (1611)
And he said, Let him alone: let no man moue his bones: so they let his bones alone, with the bones of the Prophet that came out of Samaria.

Brenton's Septuagint (LXX)
And he said, Let him alone; let no one disturb his bones. So his bones were spared, together with the bones of the prophet that came out of Samaria.

English Revised Version
And he said, Let him be; let no man move his bones. So they let his bones alone, with the bones of the prophet that came out of Samaria.

Wycliffe Bible (1395)
And the kyng seide, Suffre ye hym; no man moue hise boonys. And hise boonys dwelliden vntouchid with the boones of the prophete, that cam fro Samarie.

Update Bible Version
And he said, Let him be; let no man move his bones. So they let his bones alone, with the bones of the prophet that came out of Samaria.

Webster's Bible Translation
And he said, Let him alone; let no man move his bones. So they let his bones alone, with the bones of the prophet that came out of Samaria.

New King James Version
And he said, "Let him alone; let no one move his bones." So they let his bones alone, with the bones of the prophet who came from Samaria.

New Living Translation
Josiah replied, "Leave it alone. Don't disturb his bones." So they did not burn his bones or those of the old prophet from Samaria.

New Life Bible
Josiah said, "Let him alone. Let no one move his bones." So they let his bones alone, with the bones of the man of God who came from Samaria.

New Revised Standard
He said, "Let him rest; let no one move his bones." So they let his bones alone, with the bones of the prophet who came out of Samaria.

J.B. Rotherham Emphasized Bible
And he said - Let him rest, let, no man, disturb his bones. So they let his bones rest, with the bones of the prophet who came in out of Samaria.

Douay-Rheims Bible
And he said: Let him alone, let no man move his bones. So his bones were left untouched with the bones of the prophet, that came out of Samaria.

Revised Standard Version
And he said, "Let him be; let no man move his bones." So they let his bones alone, with the bones of the prophet who came out of Sama'ria.

Young's Literal Translation
And he saith, `Let him alone, let no man touch his bones;' and they let his bones escape, with the bones of the prophet who came out of Samaria.

THE MESSAGE
Josiah said, "Don't trouble his bones." So they left his bones undisturbed, along with the bones of the prophet from Samaria.

New American Standard Bible (1995)
He said, "Let him alone; let no one disturb his bones." So they left his bones undisturbed with the bones of the prophet who came from Samaria.

Contextual Overview

⁴ Then the king ordered Hilkiyahu the cohen hagadol, the cohanim of the second rank and the doorkeepers to remove from the sanctuary of Adonai all the articles that had been made for Ba‘al, for the asherah and for the entire army of heaven; and he burned them up outside Yerushalayim in the fields of Kidron and carried their ashes to Beit-El. ⁵ He deposed the idolatrous priests the kings of Y'hudah had ordained to offer on the high places by the cities of Y'hudah and in the places surrounding Yerushalayim; he also deposed those who offered to Ba‘al, the sun, the moon, the constellations and the whole army of heaven. ⁶ He took the asherah from the house of Adonai to Vadi Kidron outside Yerushalayim and burned it in Vadi Kidron, stamped the ashes to powder and threw the powder onto the burial-ground for the common people. ⁷ He smashed the houses of the cult prostitutes that were in the house of Adonai , where the women also wove garments for the asherah. ⁸ He removed the cohanim from the cities of Y'hudah; then, from Geva to Be'er-Sheva, he desecrated the high places where the cohanim had been making offerings. He also smashed the High Places of the Gates that were at the entrance of the Gate of Y'hoshua the governor of the city, on the left as one enters the city. ⁹ But although the cohanim who had been at the high places did not come up to the altar of Adonai in Yerushalayim, nevertheless they did share matzah with their kinsmen. ¹⁰ He desecrated the Tofet fire pit in the Ben-Hinnom Valley, so that no one could cause his son or daughter to pass through fire [as a sacrifice] to Molekh. ¹¹ He confiscated the horses which the kings of Y'hudah had given to the sun, at the entrance to the house of Adonai near the room of the officer N'tan-Melekh, in the side-courtyard; and he burned up the chariots of the sun. ¹² The king smashed the altars on the roof of the upper room of Achaz, which the kings of Y'hudah had made, and the altars which M'nasheh had made in the two courtyards of the house of Adonai . He broke them into pieces and threw the rubble into Vadi Kidron. ¹³ The king desecrated the high places facing Yerushalayim south of the Mount of Destruction, which Shlomo the king of Isra'el had built for ‘Ashtoret the abomination of the Tzidonim, K'mosh the abomination of Mo'av and Milkom the abomination of the people of ‘Amon.

Bible Verse Review
  from Treasury of Scripure Knowledge

alone: Heb. to escape

the bones of the prophet: 1 Kings 13:1-22, 1 Kings 13:31

Reciprocal: 1 Kings 13:11 - an old prophet

Cross-References

Genesis 34:20
Hamor and Sh'khem his son came to the entrance of their city and spoke with its leading men:

Ruth 4:1
Meanwhile, Bo‘az had gone up to the gate and had sat down there, when the redeemer of whom Bo‘az had spoken passed by. "Such-and-such," he said, "come over, and sit down"; so he came over and sat down.

Jeremiah 32:12
and gave the purchase contract to Barukh the son of Neriyah, the son of Machseyah, in the presence of my cousin Hanam'el, the witnesses who had signed the purchase contract and the people from Y'hudah sitting by the guards' quarters.

Gill's Notes on the Bible

And he said, let him alone, let no man move his bones,.... Not take them out of the grave, as they had done the rest:

so they let his bones alone, with the bones of the prophet that came out of Samaria; the old prophet, whereby his end was answered in being buried with him, 1 Kings 13:31.

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 23:18. The prophet that came out of Samaria — 1 Kings 13:32.