Nathan-Melech

Nathan-melech is named once, as "the chamberlain" whose chamber stood at the entrance of the house of Yahweh during the reign of Josiah. He appears not as an actor but as a landmark in the description of Josiah's reform.

A Chamber by the Sun-Worship Apparatus

The notice falls in the middle of the king's purge of foreign and forbidden worship from the temple precinct: "And he took away the horses that the kings of Judah had given to the sun, at the entrance of the house of Yahweh, by the chamber of Nathan-melech the chamberlain, which was in the precincts; and he burned the chariots of the sun with fire" (2 Ki 23:11). His chamber locates the place where Judah's kings had stationed horses dedicated to the sun, and where Josiah burned the sun-worship chariots.

The surrounding verses set the action: Topheth has just been defiled so that no son or daughter would pass through fire to Molech (2 Ki 23:10), and the rooftop altars of Ahaz and the courtyard altars of Manasseh are next to be broken down and their dust thrown into the Kidron (2 Ki 23:12). Nathan-melech's chamber sits in this single-verse middle, marking the precinct where the sun-worship horses were stabled.