SEV Biblia, Chapter 23:11
Asimismo quitó los caballos que los reyes de Judá habían dedicado al sol a la entrada del templo del SEÑOR, junto a la cámara de Natán-melec eunuco, el cual tenía cargo de los ejidos; y quemó al fuego los carros del sol.
Clarke's Bible Commentary - 2 Kings 23:11
Verse 11. The horses that the kings of Judah had given to the sun.] Jarchi says that those who adored the sun had horses which they mounted every morning to go out to meet the sun at his rising. Throughout the East the horse, because of his swiftness and utility, was dedicated to the sun; and the Greeks and Romans feigned that the chariot of the sun was drawn by four horses-Pyroeis, Eous, AEthon, and Phlegon. See the note on chap. ii. 11. Whether these were living or sculptured horses, we cannot tell; the latter is the more reasonable supposition.
John Gill's Bible Commentary
Ver. 11. And he took away the horses that the kings of Judah had given to the sun , etc.] 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 f271 : 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 f272 , Xenophon f273 , Strabo f274 , Pausanias f275 , Philostratus f276 , and other writers f277 ; and so the Indians of India 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 f279 , 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 makes mention as of sacred horses, so of a sacred chariot. Xenophon 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 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).
Matthew Henry Commentary
Verses 4-14 - What abundance of wickedness in Judah and Jerusalem! One would not have believed it possible, that in Judah, where God was known, in Israel where his name was great, in Salem, in Zion, where his dwelling-plac was, such abominations should be found. Josiah had reigned eightee years, and had himself set the people a good example, and kept u religion according to the Divine law; yet, when he came to search for idolatry, the depth and extent were very great. Both common history and the records of God's word, teach, that all the real godliness of goodness ever found on earth, is derived from the new-creating Spiri of Jesus Christ.
Original Hebrew
וישׁבת 7673 את 853 הסוסים 5483 אשׁר 834 נתנו 5414 מלכי 4428 יהודה 3063 לשׁמשׁ 8121 מבא 935 בית 1004 יהוה 3068 אל 413 לשׁכת 3957 נתן מלך 5419 הסריס 5631 אשׁר 834 בפרורים 6503 ואת 853 מרכבות 4818 השׁמשׁ 8121 שׂרף 8313 באשׁ׃ 784
