2 Kings 21 - NIV Cultural Backgrounds Study Bible
21:3 starry hosts. In the ancient Near East generally, the stars and the planets were identified with specific gods and goddesses and worshiped as such, and their movements were carefully studied for astrological reasons. The sun was worshiped in Mesopotamia as Shamash, the moon as Sin and the planet Venus as Ishtar (the goddess of love and sexuality). At Ugarit in Syria the sun was worshiped as the goddess Shapash, the moon as Yarikh and Venus as Astarte.
Israel encountered astral worship of this kind as soon as it entered Canaan (Israel “served Baal and the Ashtoreths” [Jdg 2:13]). Ashtoreth is the Biblical name for Astarte, and the plural refers to various local manifestations of the goddess (see note on Jdg 2:13). The cult was revived during the monarchic period by Solomon (1Ki 11:5, 33) and may well have been promoted, along with other aspects of astral worship (2Ki 23:11), under Manasseh, in part to display his loyalty to the Assyrian king.
Certainly we find no lack in the archaeological record in Palestine of religious art that reflects this indigenous worship of heavenly powers. A bulla from Jerusalem dating from the seventh century BC displays the crescent moon standard of the god Sin, while a seventh-century BC scaraboid from Shechem shows the moon-god in anthropomorphic form, enthroned on a low stool and with his arms raised in blessing.
21:6 All the terms in this verse appear in Dt 18:10–11 (see notes there). sacrificed his own son in the fire. See notes on 3:27; 16:3; 1Ki 11:5; Lev 20:2; Jer 7:31). divination. See notes on Ge 30:27; Dt 18:10; see also the article “Balaam.” sought omens. See notes on 16:15; 17:17; see also the article “Extispicy.” mediums and spiritists. Practiced not divination in general but necromancy specifically (divination by inquiring of the dead). The best narrative example of necromancy in the Bible is found in 1Sa 28:8–25, where the spirit of the prophet Samuel is apparently summoned from the world of the dead (see note on 1Sa 28:7; see also the article “Consulting a ‘Spirit’ ”). Necromancy was a popular form of divination in the ancient Near East.
21:18 his palace garden, the garden of Uzza. This burial site is of uncertain location, but the implication may be that it lay outside the “City of David” (i.e., the original settled area on the southern hill), which is noted as the resting place of preceding kings (e.g., Ahaz in 16:20). It is tempting, in view of Manasseh’s worship of astral deities (v. 3), to associate Uzza with the Arabian goddess al-‘Uzza, who was identified with Venus, and to speculate that the garden of Uzza was an enclosure dedicated to her on the temple mount. An equally plausible suggestion is that this enclosure was at the southern end of the Kidron Valley, just outside the city walls, where we know that there was a “king’s garden” (25:4; Ne 3:15).
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