2 Kings 3:2

And he wrought evil R.V. And he did that which was evil. The change made frequently that the same Hebrew phrase may be regularly rendered by the same English.

but not like his father, and like his mother Jehoram was not so far gone in evil as his brother Ahaziah had been. He kept indeed to the calf-worship of Jeroboam, but put down the Baal-worship which had been introduced by Jezebel from Phœnicia. The writer makes a difference, as might be expected, between the sin of Jeroboam, grievous though that was, and the grosser idolatry which had been practised in the two last reigns.

he put away the image[R.V. pillar] of Baal The Hebrew word [maççebah is first used of the stone (Genesis 28:18) which Jacob set up for a pillar at Bethel, and it seems likely, as it is used here and elsewhere in the accounts of Baal-worship, that these objects of worship were not figures, but of the nature of obelisks. They were probably for the most part of stone, though those mentioned as brought out of the house of Baal (2 Kings 10:26) and burned must have been of wood. Perhaps those under cover were made of wood, and overlaid with precious metals (cf. Hosea 2:8), while those out of doors were of stone.

that his father had made This was no doubt some special pillar which the king had erected near his palace for his own and Jezebel's worship. This open token of devotion to the idols of the nations Jehoram put away. But there remained pillars of Baal and a house of Baal still for Jehu to destroy. Jehoram found it difficult to go far in a reformation among persons given up as his subjects were to idolatry, and all the more difficult because his own father had been the founder and fosterer of the evil.