14 And he broke in pieces the columns, and cut down the Asherahs, and filled their place with the bones of men.
Thou shalt not bow down to their gods, nor serve them, nor do after their deeds; but thou shalt utterly destroy them, and utterly shatter their statues.
But thus shall ye deal with them: ye shall break down their altars, and shatter their statues, and hew down their Asherahs, and burn their graven images with fire.
And Josiah turned himself, and saw the sepulchres that were there on the mount; and he sent and took the bones out of the sepulchres, and burned [them] upon the altar, and defiled it, according to the word of Jehovah, that the man of God had proclaimed, who proclaimed these things.
And every one that toucheth one that is slain with a sword in the open fields, or a dead person, or the bone of a man, or a grave, shall be unclean seven days.
and a clean man shall take hyssop, and dip it in the water, and sprinkle it on the tent, and upon all the utensils, and upon the persons that were there, and upon him that hath touched the bone, or the one slain, or the dead person, or the grave;
The graven images of their gods shall ye burn with fire; thou shalt not covet the silver and gold [that is] on them and take it unto thee, lest thou be ensnared therein; for it is an abomination to Jehovah thy God. And thou shalt not bring an abomination into thy house, lest thou be a cursed thing like it: thou shalt utterly detest it, and thou shalt utterly abhor it; for it is a cursed thing.
And in the eighth year of his reign, while he was yet young, he began to seek after the God of David his father; and in the twelfth year he began to purge Judah and Jerusalem from the high places, and the Asherahs, and the graven images, and the molten images. And they broke down the altars of the Baals in his presence; and the sun-pillars that were on high above them he cut down; and the Asherahs and the graven images and the molten images he broke in pieces, and made dust [of them] and strewed it upon the graves of those that had sacrificed to them;
At that time, saith Jehovah, they shall bring forth the bones of the kings of Judah, and the bones of his princes, and the bones of the priests, and the bones of the prophets, and the bones of the inhabitants of Jerusalem, out of their graves; and they shall spread them out to the sun and to the moon and to all the host of the heavens, which they have loved, and which they have served, and after which they have walked, and which they have sought, and which they have worshipped: they shall not be gathered, nor be buried; they shall be for dung upon the face of the ground.
And seven months shall the house of Israel be burying them, that they may cleanse the land; and all the people of the land shall bury [them]; and it shall be to them for renown in the day that I shall be glorified, saith the Lord Jehovah. And they shall sever out men of continual employment to go through the land, who, with the passers-by, shall bury those that remain upon the face of the land, to cleanse it: at the end of seven months shall they make a search. And the passers-by shall pass through the land, and when [any] seeth a man's bone, he shall set up a sign by it, till the buriers have buried it in the Valley of Hamon-Gog. And also the name of the city shall be Hamonah. Thus shall they cleanse the land.
And all her graven images shall be beaten to pieces, and all her harlot-gifts shall be burned with fire, and all her idols will I make a desolation; for of the hire of a harlot hath she gathered [them], and to a harlot's hire shall they return.
Woe to you, scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites, for ye are like whited sepulchres, which appear beautiful outwardly, but within are full of dead men's bones and all uncleanness. Thus also *ye*, outwardly ye appear righteous to men, but within are full of hypocrisy and lawlessness.
Worthy.Bible » Commentaries » Matthew Henry Commentary » Commentary on 2 Kings 23
Commentary on 2 Kings 23 Matthew Henry Commentary
Chapter 23
We have here,
2Ki 23:1-3
Josiah had received a message from God that there was no preventing the ruin of Jerusalem, but that he should deliver only his own soul; yet he did not therefore sit down in despair, and resolve to do nothing for his country because he could not do all he would. No, he would do his duty, and then leave the event to God. A public reformation was the thing resolved on; if any thing could prevent the threatened ruin it must be that; and here we have the preparations for that reformation.
2Ki 23:4-24
We have here an account of such a reformation as we have not met with in all the history of the kings of Judah, such thorough riddance made of all the abominable things and such foundations laid of a glorious good work; and here I cannot but wonder at two things:-
2Ki 23:25-30
Upon the reading of these verses we must say, Lord, though thy righteousness be as the great mountains-evident, conspicuous, and past dispute, yet thy judgments are a great deep, unfathomable and past finding out, Ps. 36:6. What shall we say to this?
2Ki 23:31-37
Jerusalem saw not a good day after Josiah was laid in his grave, but one trouble came after another, till within twenty-two years it was quite destroyed. Of the reign of two of his sons here is a short account; the former we find here a prisoner and the latter a tributary to the king of Egypt, and both so in the very beginning of their reign. This king of Egypt having slain Josiah, though he had not had any design upon Judah, yet, being provoked by the opposition which Josiah gave him, now, it should seem, he bent all his force against his family and kingdom. If Josiah's sons had trodden in his steps, they would have fared the better for his piety; but, deviating from them, they fared the worse for his rashness.