2Ch 28:23 | KD | STEP | He sacrificed to the gods of Damascus, which smote him, saying, i.e., thinking, The gods of the kings of Aram which helped them, to them will I sacrifice, and they will help me. כּי serves to introduce the saying, and both הם and להם are rhetorical. Berth. incorrectly translates the participle המּכּים by the pluperfect: who had smitten him. It was not after the Syrians had smitten him that Ahaz sought to gain by sacrifice the help of their gods, but while the Syrians were inflicting defeats upon him; not after the conclusion of the Syrian war, but during its course. The ungrammatical translation of the participle by the pluperfect arises from the view that the contents of our verse, the statement that Ahaz sacrificed to the Syrian gods, is an unhistorical misinterpretation of the statement in 2Ki 16:10., about the altar which Ahaz saw when he went to meet the Assyrian king in Damascus, and a copy of which he caused to be made in Jerusalem, and set up in the temple court, in the place of the copper altar of burnt-offering. But we have already rejected that view as unfounded, in the exposition of 2Ki 16:10. Since Ahaz had cast and erected statues to the Baals, and even sacrificed his son to Moloch, he naturally would not scruple to sacrifice to the Assyrian gods to secure their help. But they (these gods) brought ruin to him and to all Israel. לכל־ישׂ is in the accusative, and co-ordinate with the suffix in הכשׁילו.

‏ 2 Chronicles 28:23

He sacrificed to the gods of Damascus, which smote him, saying, i.e., thinking, The gods of the kings of Aram which helped them, to them will I sacrifice, and they will help me. כּי serves to introduce the saying, and both הם and להם are rhetorical. Berth. incorrectly translates the participle המּכּים by the pluperfect: who had smitten him. It was not after the Syrians had smitten him that Ahaz sought to gain by sacrifice the help of their gods, but while the Syrians were inflicting defeats upon him; not after the conclusion of the Syrian war, but during its course. The ungrammatical translation of the participle by the pluperfect arises from the view that the contents of our verse, the statement that Ahaz sacrificed to the Syrian gods, is an unhistorical misinterpretation of the statement in 2Ki 16:10., about the altar which Ahaz saw when he went to meet the Assyrian king in Damascus, and a copy of which he caused to be made in Jerusalem, and set up in the temple court, in the place of the copper altar of burnt-offering. But we have already rejected that view as unfounded, in the exposition of 2Ki 16:10. Since Ahaz had cast and erected statues to the Baals, and even sacrificed his son to Moloch, he naturally would not scruple to sacrifice to the Assyrian gods to secure their help. But they (these gods) brought ruin to him and to all Israel. לכל־ישׂ is in the accusative, and co-ordinate with the suffix in הכשׁילו.