2 Kings 16:17 — meaning, Hebrew and Greek word study, commentary
2 Kings 16:17
And king Ahaz cut off the borders of the bases, and removed the laver from off them; and took down the sea from off the brasen oxen that were under it, and put it upon the pavement of stones.
a pedestal · definite article + noun, common feminine plural absolute
removed
וַיָּ֤סַרvai.Ya.sar
H5493
to turn off (literal or figurative) · conjunction + verb, hiphil sequential imperfect, 3rd person masculine singular
laver
הַכִּיֹּ֔רha.ki.Yor
H3595
properly · definite article + noun, common masculine singular absolute
down
הוֹרִ֔דho.Rid
H3381
to descend (literally · verb, hiphil perfect, 3rd person masculine singular
sea
הַיָּ֣םhai.Yam
H3220
a sea (as breaking in noisy surf) or large body of water · definite article + noun, common masculine singular absolute
brasen
הַנְּחֹ֖שֶׁתha.ne.Cho.shet
H5178
copper · definite article + noun, common feminine singular absolute
oxen
הַבָּקָ֥רha.ba.Kar
H1241
beef cattle or an animal of the ox family of either gen… · definite article + noun, common both genders singular absolute
put
וַיִּתֵּ֣ןvai.yi.Ten
H5414
to give · conjunction + verb, qal sequential imperfect, 3rd person masculine singular
pavement
מַרְצֶ֥פֶתmar.Tze.fet
H4837
a pavement · noun, common feminine singular construct
stones
אֲבָנִֽים'a.va.Nim
H68
a stone · noun, common feminine plural absolute
Strong's Exhaustive Concordance (James Strong, 1890/1894), public domain; digitized by Open Scriptures (CC BY-SA). KJV word tagging: eBible.org (public domain). Original-language text, parsing and brief lexicon: STEPBible.org data from Tyndale House, Cambridge (CC BY 4.0).
Cross-references
1 Kings 7:23-39 And he made a molten sea, ten cubits from the one brim to the other: it was round all about, and his height was five cubits: and a line of t…
2 Kings 25:13-16 And the pillars of brass that were in the house of the LORD, and the bases, and the brasen sea that was in the house of the LORD, did the Ch…
2 Chronicles 28:24 And Ahaz gathered together the vessels of the house of God, and cut in pieces the vessels of the house of God, and shut up the doors of the…
2 Chronicles 29:19 Moreover all the vessels, which king Ahaz in his reign did cast away in his transgression, have we prepared and sanctified, and, behold, the…
Jeremiah 52:20 The two pillars, one sea, and twelve brasen bulls that were under the bases, which king Solomon had made in the house of the LORD: the brass…
Cross-references from OpenBible.info (CC BY), in the lineage of the Treasury of Scripture Knowledge (public domain).
Commentary
Matthew Henry on 2 Kings 16:17–end
Here is, I. Ahaz abusing the temple, not the building itself, but some of the furniture of it. 1. He defaced the bases on which the lavers were set (Kg1 7:28, Kg1 7:29) and took down the molten sea, Kg2 16:17. These the priests used for washing; against them therefore he seems to have had a particular spite. It is one of the greatest prejudices that can be done to religion to obstruct the purifying of the priests, the Lord's ministers. 2. He removed the covert for the sabbath, erected either in honour of the sabbath or for the conveniency of the priests, when, on the sabbath, they officiated in greater numbers than on other days. Whatever it was, it should seem that in removing it he intende…
HE SPOILS THE TEMPLE. (Kg2 16:17-19)
cut off the borders of the bases, &c.--It is thought that he did this to use the elaborate sculpture in adorning his palace.
Adam Clarke on 2 Kings 16:14
Put it on the north side - He seems to have intended to conform every thing in the Lord's house as much as possible to the idolatrous temples which he saw at Damascus, and to model the Divine worship in the same way: in a word to honor and worship the gods of Syria, and not the God of heaven. All the alterations specified here were in contempt of the true God. Thus he provoked to anger the Lord God of his fathers, Ch2 28:25.
John Gill on 2 Kings 16:17
And King Ahaz cut off the borders of the bases, and removed the laver from off them,.... In the temple there were ten lavers for the priests to wash in, which are here meant, the singular being put for the plural; and these had bases of brass, on which they were set; and about these bases were borders, which had on them figures of various creatures, lions, oxen, and cherubim; and these Ahaz cut off, either to deface them, in contempt of them, or to convert the brass to other uses, as he might also the bases themselves, since he removed the lavers from off of them, see 1 Kings 7:27.
and took down the sea from off the brasen oxen that were under it; the molten sea Solomon made, which he set u…
The Church Fathers
I certainly do not think that he built [the altar] for the God of all things but just for certain of those who are falsely called gods. This is what the book of Chronicles points out. It reads, "In the time of his distress this king Ahaz became yet more faithless to the Lord. For he sacrificed to the gods of Damascus, which had defeated him, and said, "Because the gods of the kings of Aram helped them, I will sacrifice to them so that they may help me." But they were the ruin of him and of all Israel." And this is also signified by the next verse: "Ahaz gathered together the utensils of the house of God and cut in pieces the utensils of the house of God. He shut up the doors of the house of the Lord and made himself altars in every corner of Jerusalem." He did these and other similar things, as is also confirmed in the book of Chronicles: "When King Ahaz went to Damascus to meet King Tiglath-pileser of Assyria, he saw the altar that was at Damascus. King Ahaz sent to the priest Uriah a model of the altar, and its pattern, exact in all its details." He removed the genuine altar of bronze, which Solomon had built, and put in its place another one recently made. And what happened to the stands is revealed by what follows: "King Ahaz cut off the frames of the stands," the text says, "and removed the laver from them." And he even dared to commit another act of impiety: he moved the entrance of the royal house into the divine temple, transforming the sacred enclosure into a thoroughfare.
The Church Fathers: public-domain translations (Ante-Nicene and Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers), verse-indexed by SermonIndex (CC BY 4.0).
Dictionary and topics
Ahaz — Possessor. (1.) A grandson of Jonathan (1 Chr. 8:35; 9:42). (2.) The son and successor of Jotham, king of Judah (2 Kings 16; Isa. 7-9; 2 Chr. 28). He gave himself up to a life of wickedness and…
Sea, Molten — In the place of the laver of the tabernacle Solomon caused a laver to be cast for a similar purpose, which from its size was called a sea. It was made partly or wholly of the brass, or rather copper,…
Sea, The molten — The great laver made by Solomon for the use of the priests in the temple, described in 1 Kings 7:23-26; 2 Chr. 4:2-5. It stood in the south-eastern corner of the inner court. It was 5 cubits high, 10…
Temple, Solomon’s — Before his death David had “with all his might” provided materials in great abundance for the building of the temple on the summit of Mount Moriah (1 Chr. 22:14; 29:4; 2 Chr. 3:1), on the east of the…
Ahaz · .Robs the temple to purchase aid from the king of Asia — .Robs the temple to purchase aid from the king of Asia
Kings · Who reigned over Judah: Ahaz — Who reigned over Judah: Ahaz
Laver · Altered by Ahaz — Altered by Ahaz
Dictionary: Easton's (1897) and Smith's (1863), public domain. Topics: Nave's Topical Bible (1896) and Torrey's Topical Textbook (1897), public domain. Both as parsed by NEUU (CC BY 4.0).
Ahaz also laid his hand upon the other costly vessels of the court of the temple. He broke off the panels of the Solomonian stands, which were ornamented with artistic carving, and removed the basins from the stands, and took the brazen sea from the brazen oxen upon which they stood, and placed it upon a stone pavement. The ו before את־הכּיּר can only have crept into the text through a copyist's error, and the singular must be taken distributively: he removed from them (the stands) every single basin. אבנים מרצפת (without the article) is not the stone pavement of the court of the temple, but a pedestal made of stones (βάσις λιθίνη, lxx) for the brazen sea. The reason why, or the object wit…
Because the side panels and basins from the . . . water carts and the Sea were made of bronze (see 1 Kgs 7:25-40), Ahaz might have used them to pay tribute or for some other project. • In deference: Apparently at the request of the king of Assyria, Ahaz removed the canopy that led to the inner court as well as to the king’s private entrance to the Temple. Judah paid a heavy price in loss of freedom because of Ahaz’s trust in the Assyrian king’s military intervention on their behalf (2 Kgs 16:7-8, 10).
Rashi on 2 Kings 16:17
The frames of the bases. The rows upon which the bases were made,10He removed the bases from the ten basins, and out of contempt, he set the basins on a stone floor.—Radak as it is stated, ”The bases were made in the following manner: They had frames … ”11I Melochim 7:28. 12See I Melochim 7:23-27.
