2 Kings 3:2 - Exposition

And he wrought evil in the sight of the Lord —as did every other king of Israel both before him ( 1 Kings 14:16 ; 1 Kings 15:25 , 1 Kings 15:34 ; 1 Kings 16:13 , 1 Kings 16:19 , 1 Kings 16:25 , 1 Kings 16:30 ; 1 Kings 22:52 ) and after him ( 2 Kings 8:27 ; 2 Kings 10:31 ; 2 Kings 13:2 , 2 Kings 13:11 ; 2 Kings 14:24 ; 2 Kings 15:9 , 2 Kings 15:18 , 2 Kings 15:24 , 2 Kings 15:28 ; 2 Kings 17:2 )— but not like his father, and like his mother — i.e. Ahab and Jezebel, the introducers of the Baal-worship into Israel— for he put away the image of Baal that his father had made. It had not been said previously that Ahab had actually set up an image of Baal, but only that he had "built him a house in Samaria, and reared him up an altar," and that he "served him and worshipped him" ( 1 Kings 16:31 , 1 Kings 16:32 ). But an image of the god for whom a "house" was built was so much a matter of course in the idolatrous systems of the East, that it might have seemed superfluous to mention it. The actual existence of the image appears later, when its destruction is recorded ( 2 Kings 10:27 ). It seems that Jehoram, at the commencement of his reign, took warning by the fates of his father and brother, so far as to abolish the state worship of Baal, which his father had introduced, and to remove the image of Baal from the temple where it had been set up. The image, however, was not destroyed—it was only "put away."