Exegetical and Hermeneutical Commentary of 2 Kings 17:31
And the Avites made Nibhaz and Tartak, and the Sepharvites burnt their children in fire to Adrammelech and Anammelech, the gods of Sepharvaim.
31. And the Avites [R.V. Avvites ] made Nibhaz ] Of Nibhaz (for which the LXX. gives a very different word, ) nothing is known with certainty. The Jewish commentators explain the word as connected with a root signifying ‘to bark’, and say that the idol was a human figure with a dog’s head. The dog was worshipped, or rather some divinity represented with a dog’s head, by the Egyptians. And the want of any better information forces us to be content with supposing that the explanation of the Rabbis may be correct. The varied form of the name in the LXX. seems however to throw doubt on the form Nibhaz.
and Tartak ] The same Jewish tradition represents Tartak as worshipped under the form of an ass. But there is very little evidence that such a form was used anywhere as a representation of a divinity. The ass in hieroglyphics is the symbol of the Egyptian Typho, but there is no proof that Typho was worshipped under this form. Others suggest that the word is of Persian origin and signifies ‘intense darkness’. Thus they arrive at the idea that Tartak represents the planet of ill-luck.
the Sepharvites burnt their children in fire ] This was a species of Moloch-worship, and the names given to the divinities indicate this. Adrammelech is explained as the male power of the Sun, and Anammelech as the female power. So that the worship of the Sepharvites would be that of the Sun-god. This agrees with what Berosus ( Frag. 7) says in explanation of the name Sippara, which is identified with Sepharvaim. He calls it , the city of the Sun.
Fuente: The Cambridge Bible for Schools and Colleges
Nibhaz and Tartak are either gods of whom no other notice has come down to us, or intentional corruptions of the Babylonian names Nebo and Tir, the great god of Borsippa, who was the tutelar deity of so many Babylonian kings. The Jews, in their scorn and contempt of polytheism, occasionally and purposely altered, by way of derision, the names of the pagan deities. Anammelech is possibly an instance of the same contemptuous play upon words.
Adrammelech, the glorious king, signifies the sun. The Assyrian inscriptions commonly designate Tsipar, or Sepharvaim 2Ki 17:24, Sippara of the Sun. The title Adrammelech has not yet been found in the inscriptions hitherto; but it would plainly be a fitting epithet of the great luminary.
The sun-god of the Babylonians, Shamas, was united at Sippara and elsewhere with a sun-goddess, Anunit, whose name may be represented in the Anammelech of the text. The Hebrews, taking enough of this name to show what they meant, assimilated the termination to that of the male deity, thus producing a ridiculous effect, regarded as insulting to the gods in question.
Fuente: Albert Barnes’ Notes on the Bible
Verse 31. The Avites made Nibhaz] This was supposed to be the same as the Anubis of the Egyptians; and was in form partly of a dog, and partly of a man. A very ancient image of this kind now lies before me: it is cut out of stone, about seven inches high; has the body, legs, and arms, of a man; the head and feet of a dog; the thighs and legs covered with scales; the head crowned with a tiara; the arms crossed upon the breasts, with the fingers clenched. The figure stands upright, and the belly is very protuberant. See below. 2Kg 17:41.
And Tartak] This is supposed by some to be another name of the same idol; Jarchi says it was in the shape of an ass. Some think these were the representations of the sun in his chariot; Nibhaz representing the solar orb, and Tartak the chariot. See below. 2Kg 17:41.
Adrammelech] From adar, glorious, and melech, king. Probably the sun.
Anammelech] From anah, to return, and melech, king. Probably, the Moloch of the Ammonites. Jarchi says, the first was in the form of a mule, the second in the form of a horse; this was probably the moon.
Fuente: Adam Clarke’s Commentary and Critical Notes on the Bible
31. Nibhazunder that of adogthat Egyptian form of animal-worship having prevailed inancient Syria, as is evident from the image of a large dog at themouth of the Nahr-el-Kelb, or Dog river.
TartakAccording to therabbis, it was in the form of an ass, but others understand it as aplanet of ill-omen, probably Saturn.
Adrammelechsupposed bysome to be the same as Molech, and in Assyrian mythology to stand forthe sun. It was worshipped in the form of a muleothers maintain inthat of a peacock.
Anammelechworshippedin the form of a hare; others say in that of a goat.
Fuente: Jamieson, Fausset and Brown’s Commentary Critical and Explanatory on the Whole Bible
And the Avites made Nibhaz and Tartak,…. The former of which is represented by the Jews in the shape of a dog, deriving the word from “nabach”, to bark, as if it was the same with the Anubis Latrator of Virgil b, an Egyptian deity; though that is said c to have its name from NOeb, which in the Egyptian language signifies “gold”, the statutes of it being made of gold; and the latter in the form of an ass, for what reason I cannot say; but the first word, according to Hillerus d, signifies, “the remote one seeth”, that is, the sun, which beholds all things; and Tartak is a chain, and may denote the fixed stars chained as it were in their places; or the satellites of the planets, chained to their orbs:
and the Sepharvites burnt their children in fire to Adrammelech and to Anammelech the gods of Sepharvaim; which were the same with Moloch; which may be concluded, partly from the worship paid them, and partly from the signification of their names; both end with “melech”, king, which Moloch also signifies; the first may be interpreted the mighty king, and the latter the king that answers in an oracular way; from the first, one of the sons of Sennacherib king of Assyria had his name, Isa 37:36, though the Jews, according to their fancy, represent the one in the likeness of a mule, and the other in the likeness of a horse; and some make the one to be a peacock, and the other a pheasant e; the Septuagint version puts the article before them in the feminine gender, excepting the two last, taking them for she deities, or leaving the word , “images”, to be understood.
b Aeneid. l. 6. So Ovid. Metamorph. l. 9. Fab. 12. ver. 689. c Jablonski apud Michael. Obs. Sacr. Exercit. 4. p. 66, 67. d Ut supra, (Onomast. Sacr.) p. 859. e Vid. Kimchium in loc.
Fuente: John Gill’s Exposition of the Entire Bible
(31) Nibhaz and Tartak are unknown, but the forms have an Assyrio-Babylonian cast. (Comp. Nimrod, Nergal with the former, and Ishtar, Namtar, Merodach, Shadrach, with the latter.) Before Nibhaz the LXX. have another name, Abaazar, or Eblazer (? abal Assr the Son of Assur).
Adrammelech.Comp. 2Ki. 19:37. Identified by Schrader with the Assyrian Adar-mlik, Adar is prince (? Adrum).
Anammelechi.e., Anum-mlik, Anu is prince. Adar and Anu are well-known Assyrian gods.
Fuente: Ellicott’s Commentary for English Readers (Old and New Testaments)
31. Nibhaz and Tartak, idols of the Avites, are also unknown, save that rabbinical conjecture assigns to Nibhaz the form of a dog, and to Tartak the form of an ass. Of the character of the gods of Sepharvaim more can be said. The sacrifice of children as burnt offerings to them clearly indicate that they were fire-gods, akin to Molech. Hence Adrammelech and Anammelech would obviously seem to be respectively the male and female deities of fire. “The male and female powers of the sun,” says Rawlinson, “whose worship at Sippara was celebrated throughout the East, were with more than their usual accuracy identified by the Greeks with the Apollo and Diana of their own mythology; and they are, of course, represented in Scripture by the Adrammelech and Anammelech to whom the Sepharvites burnt their children in the fire. The meaning of these Hebrew names is not very certain. Adrammelech may be ‘the fire-king,’ or it may be ‘the royal arranger,’ ediru and gamilu, ‘the arranger’ and ‘ benefactor,’ being epithets which, together, are frequently applied to the gods, and which are sufficiently applicable to the sun. Anammelech, for the female sun, cannot be explained, unless it be connected with the name Anunit. The female power of the sun is named Gula or Anunit; but her primitive Babylonian name seems to have been Ai, and it is under that form that she is found in most Babylonian documents to be associated as an object of worship with the sun. It is possible that Ai, Gula, and Anunit may represent the female power of the sun in his three different phases of rising, culminating, and setting, for the names do not appear to be interchangeable, and yet they are equally associated with the sun-god.” Herodotus, vol. i, p. 497.
Fuente: Whedon’s Commentary on the Old and New Testaments
2Ki 17:31. The Avites made Nibhaz and Tartak It is uncertain who these Avites were. The most probable opinion seems to be that which Grotius has suggested, by observing that there are a people in Bactriana mentioned by Ptolemy under the name of Avadia, who possibly might be those transported at this time into Palestine by Shalmaneser. Nibhaz according to the Rabbis had the shape of a dog, much like the Anubis of the Egyptians. In Pierius’s Hieroglyphics, p. 53 is the figure of a cynocephalus, a kind of ape, with a head like a dog, standing upon his hinder feet, and looking earnestly at the moon. Pierius there teaches us, that the cynocephalus was an animal eminently sacred among the Egyptians, hieroglyphical of the moon. See Johnston. Nat. Hist. de Quadruped. p. 100. This being observed, the nibchaz, (which may well be derived from nabach, to bark, and chazah, to see,) gives us reason to conclude that this idol was in the shape of a cynocephalus, or a dog looking, barking, or howling at the moon. It is obvious to common observation, that dogs in general have this property; and an idol of the form just mentioned, seems to have been originally designed to represent the power or influence of the moon, on all sublunary bodies, with which the cynocephaluses and dogs are so eminently affected. So, as we have observed upon Nergal, the influence of the returning solar light was reprerented by a cock, and the generative power of the heavens by Dagon, a fishy idol. See Parkhurst on , who is of opinion that Tartak is compounded of tor, to turn, go round, and ratak, to chain, tether, and plainly denotes the heavens, considered as confining the planets in their respective orbits, as if they were tethered. The Jews have a tradition, that the emblem of this idol was an ass; which, considering the propriety of that animal when tethered to represent this idol, is not improbable; and from this idolatrous worship of the Samaritans, joined perhaps with some confused account of the cherubim, seems to have sprung that stupid story of the heathens, that the Jews had an ass’s head in their Holy of Holies, to which they paid religious worship. See Bochart, vol. 2: p. 221. Jurieu is of opinion, that as the word Nibhaz, both in the Hebrew and Chaldee, with a small variation, denotes quick, swift, rapid, and tartak in the same languages signifies a chariot, these two idols may both together denominate the sun mounted on his car, as the fictions of the poets and the notions of the mythologists were wont to represent that luminary.
The Sepharvites burned their childrento Adrammelech, and Anammelech As the Sepharvites, probably, came from the cities of the Medes, whither the Israelites were carried captive, and as Herodotus tells us that between Colchis and Media are found a people called Saspires; in all likelihood they were the same with those here named Sepharvites. Moloch, Milcom, and Melech, in the language of different nations, all signify a king, and imply the sun, which was called the king of heaven; and therefore the addition of adar, which signifies powerful, illustrious, to the one, and of anem, which implies to return, to answer, to the other, means no more than the mighty, or the oracular Moloch. And as the children were offered to him, it appears that he was the same with the Moloch of the Ammonites. See Univ. Hist. and Calmet.
Fuente: Commentary on the Holy Bible by Thomas Coke
2Ki 17:31 And the Avites made Nibhaz and Tartak, and the Sepharvites burnt their children in fire to Adrammelech and Anammelech, the gods of Sepharvaim.
Ver. 31. Made Nibhaz and Tartak. ] A dog and an ass, as 2Ki 17:30 . So the Africans worshipped a dog; the Persians, a cock; the Mendesians, a goat, &c. The people of the East Indies, in the isle Ceylon, having an ape’s tooth got from them which they had consecrated, offered an incredible mass of treasure to recover it.
Fuente: John Trapp’s Complete Commentary (Old and New Testaments)
burnt = burnt up. See App-43.
Fuente: Companion Bible Notes, Appendices and Graphics
the Avites: 2Ki 17:24, Ezr 4:9
Nibhaz: Supposed to be the same as the Anubis of the Egyptians; and was in form partly a dog and partly a man.
burnt their children: 2Ki 17:17, Lev 18:21, Deu 12:28, Deu 12:31
Reciprocal: Deu 13:6 – which thou 2Ki 18:34 – have they delivered Isa 37:13 – Ivah Jer 2:28 – to the number