2 Kings 16:4

Ahaz offered sacrifices and burned incense to honor Yahweh on the tops of many hills and under many [HYP] big trees, instead of in Jerusalem as Yahweh had commanded.

Translation for Translators

In The King James Version

And he sacrificed and burnt incense in the high places, and on the hills, and under every green tree.

In Context

3Instead, he was as sinful as the kings of Israel had been. He even sacrificed his son as an offering to idols. That was worse than the disgusting things that the people who previously lived there had done, people whom Yahweh had expelled as the Israelis were advancing through the land.

5While he was the king of Judah, King Rezin of Assyria and King Pekah of Israel came with their armies and attacked Jerusalem. They surrounded the city, but they could not conquer it.

Read all of 2 Kings 16

Cross References

1 Kings 14:23They built places to worship those gods; on high hills, and under big trees they set up stone pillars to worship the goddess Asherah.

2 Kings 14:4But, like his father, he did not tear down the places for worshipping Yahweh at pagan shrines. The people continued to burn incense to honor Yahweh on those hills instead of in Jerusalem, the place that Yahweh had appointed.

Isaiah 65:4They secretly remain awake at night in burial caves, talking with the spirits of ◄ dead people/their ancestors►. They eat the meat of pigs, and their pots are full of other meat that is also unacceptable to me.

Jeremiah 17:2Even their children are happy to go to the altars to worship their gods, and to the poles that represent the goddess Asherah at which their parents worshiped, shrines that are underneath all the big trees and on all the high hills.

Ezekiel 43:7He said, “You human, this is my temple, the place where I sit on my throne and where I rest my feet. This is where I will live with the Israeli people forever. The Israeli people and their kings will never again disgrace me [SYN] by worshiping other gods [MET] at the shrines on their hilltops, or by building monuments to honor their kings who have died.

Matthew Henry on 2 Kings 16:2-5

The Reign of Ahaz. ( b. c. 726.) 1 In the seventeenth year of Pekah the son of Remaliah Ahaz the son of Jotham king of Judah began to reign. 2 Twenty years old was Ahaz when he began to reign, and reigned sixteen years in Jerusalem, and did not that which was right in the sight of the Lord his God, like David his father. 3 But he walked in the way of the kings of Israel, yea, and made his son to pass through the fire, according to the abominations of the heathen, whom the Lord cast out from before the children of… Read the whole commentary →

This Verse In Other Editions

Study 2 Kings 16:4