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Selected Verse: 2 Kings 23:1 - Strong Concordance

Verse	Translation	Text
2Ki 23:1	Strong Concordance	And the king [04428] sent [07971], and they gathered [0622] unto him all the elders [02205] of Judah [03063] and of Jerusalem [03389].
	King James	And the king sent, and they gathered unto him all the elders of Judah and of Jerusalem.

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A Commentary, Critical, Practical, and Explanatory on the Old and New Testaments, by Robert Jamieson, A.R. Fausset and David Brown [1882]
JOSIAH CAUSES THE LAW TO BE READ. (Kg2 23:1-3) the king sent, and they gathered unto him all the elders--This pious and patriotic king, not content with the promise of his own security, felt, after Huldah's response, an increased desire to avert the threatened calamities from his kingdom and people. Knowing the richness of the divine clemency and grace to the penitent, he convened the elders of the people, and placing himself at their head, accompanied by the collective body of the inhabitants, went in solemn procession to the temple, where he ordered the book of the law to be read to the assembled audience, and covenanted, with the unanimous concurrence of his subjects, to adhere steadfastly to all the commandments of the Lord. It was an occasion of solemn interest, closely connected with a great national crisis, and the beautiful example of piety in the highest quarter would exert a salutary influence over all classes of the people in animating their devotions and encouraging their return to the faith of their fathers.

A Commentary, Critical, Practical, and Explanatory on the Old and New Testaments, by Robert Jamieson, A.R. Fausset and David Brown [1882]

JOSIAH CAUSES THE LAW TO BE READ. (Kg2 23:1-3)

the king sent, and they gathered unto him all the elders--This pious and patriotic king, not content with the promise of his own security, felt, after Huldah's response, an increased desire to avert the threatened calamities from his kingdom and people. Knowing the richness of the divine clemency and grace to the penitent, he convened the elders of the people, and placing himself at their head, accompanied by the collective body of the inhabitants, went in solemn procession to the temple, where he ordered the book of the law to be read to the assembled audience, and covenanted, with the unanimous concurrence of his subjects, to adhere steadfastly to all the commandments of the Lord. It was an occasion of solemn interest, closely connected with a great national crisis, and the beautiful example of piety in the highest quarter would exert a salutary influence over all classes of the people in animating their devotions and encouraging their return to the faith of their fathers.

Commentary on the Old Testament, by Carl Friedrich Keil and Franz Delitzsch [1857-78]
Instead of resting content with the fact that he was promised deliverance from the approaching judgment, Josiah did everything that was in his power to lead the whole nation to true conversion to the Lord, and thereby avert as far as possible the threatened curse of rejection, since the Lord in His word had promised forgiveness and mercy to the penitent. He therefore gathered together the elders of the nation, and went with them, with the priests and prophets and the assembled people, into the temple, and there had the book of the law read to those who were assembled, and concluded a covenant with the Lord, into which the people also entered. After this he had all the remnants of idolatry eradicated, not only in Jerusalem and Judah, but also in Bethel and the other cities of Samaria, and directed the people to strengthen themselves in their covenant fidelity towards the Lord by the celebration of a solemn passover. Kg2 23:1-2 Reading of the law in the temple, and renewal of the covenant (cf. Ch2 34:29-32). Beside the priests, Josiah also gathered together the prophets, including perhaps Jeremiah and Zedekiah, that he might carry out the solemn conclusion of the covenant with their co-operation, and, as is evident from Jer 1-11, that they might then undertake the task, by their impressive preaching in Jerusalem and the cities of Judah, of making the people conscious of the earnestness of the covenant duties which they had so recently undertaken (see Oehler in Herzog's Cycl.). Instead of the prophets, the Levites are mentioned in the Chronicles, probably only because the Levites are mentioned along with the priests in other cases of a similar kind. ויּקרא, he read, i.e., had it read; for the duty of reading the law in the temple devolved upon the priests as the keepers of the law (Deu 31:9.). Kg2 23:3 The king stood העמּוּד על, as in Kg2 11:14. For וגו ויּכרת see Kg2 11:17. ללכת, i.e., he bound himself solemnly to walk after the Lord, that is to say, in his walk to follow the Lord and keep His commandments (see at Kg1 2:3). - בּבּרית...ויּעמוד, all the people entered into the covenant (Luther and others); not perstitit, stood firm, continued in the covenant (Maurer, Ges.), which would be at variance with Jer 11:9-10; Jer 25:3., and other utterances of the prophets. 2 Kings 23:4-20 The eradication of idolatry. - According to Ch2 34:3-7, this had already begun, and was simply continued and carried to completion after the renewal of the covenant. Kg2 23:4-14 In Jerusalem and Judah. Kg2 23:4. The king commanded the high priest and the other priests, and the Levites who kept the door, to remove from the temple everything that had been made for Baal and Asherah, and to burn it in the valley of Kidron. המּשׁנה כּהני, sacerdotes secundi ordinis (Vulg., Luth., etc.), are the common priests as distinguished from הגּדול הכּהן, the high priest. The Rabbins are wrong in their explanation vicarii summi sacerdotis, according to which Thenius would alter the text and read כּהן for כּהני. הסּף שׁמרי, the keepers of the threshold, are the Levites whose duty it was to watch the temple, as in Kg2 22:4 (cf. Ch1 23:5). כּל־הכּלים (alles Zeug, Luth.), i.e., all the apparatus, consisting of altars, idols, and other things, that had been provided for the worship of Baal and Astarte. Josiah had these things burned, according to the law in Deu 7:25, and that outside Jerusalem in the fields of the Kidron valley. The קדרון שׁדמות (fields of Kidron) are probably to be sought for to the north-east of Jerusalem, where the Kidron valley is broader than between the city and the Mount of Olives, and spreads out into a basin of considerable size, which is now cultivated and contains plantations of olive and other fruit-trees (Rob. Pal. i. p. 405). "And he had their dust carried to Bethel," i.e., the ashes of the wooden objects which were burned, and the dust of those of stone and metal which were ground to powder, to defile the idolatrous place of worship at Bethel as the chief seat of idolatry and false worship. Kg2 23:5 "He abolished the high priests." כּמרים are also mentioned in Hos 10:5 and Zac 1:4 : they were not idolatrous priests or prophets of Baal, but priests whom the kings of Judah had appointed to offer incense upon the altars of the high places; for they are distinguished from the idolatrous priests, or those who burnt incense to Baal, the sun, etc. In Hos 10:5 the priests appointed in connection with the golden calf at Bethel are called כמרים; and in Zep 1:4 the כמרים are not exclusively idolatrous priests, but such as did service sometimes for Jehovah, who had been degraded into a Baal, and sometimes to actual idols. Now as כּהנים who burnt incense upon high places are also mentioned in Kg2 23:8, we must understand by the כמרים non-Levitical priests, and by the כהנים in Kg2 23:8 Levitical priests who were devoted to the worship on the high places. The primary signification of כּמר is disputed. In Syriac the word signifies the priest, in Hebrew spurious priests, probably from כּמר in the sense of to bring together, or complete, as the performers of sacrifice, like ἕρδων, the sacrificer (Dietr.); whereas the connection suggested by Hitzig (on Zeph.) with (Arabic) kfr, to be unbelieving, in the opposite sense of the religious, is very far-fetched, and does not answer either to the Hebrew or the Syriac use of the word. (Note: In any case the derivation from כמר, to be black (Ges. Thes. p. 693), and the explanation given by Frst from vi occultandi magicasque, h. e. arcanas et reconditas artes exercendi, and others given in Iden's Dissertatt. theol. philol. i. diss. 12, are quite untenable.) The singular ויקטּר is striking, inasmuch as if the imperf. c. Vav rel. were a continuation of נתנוּ, we should expect the plural, "and who had burnt incense," as it is given in the Chaldee. The lxx, Vulg., and Syr. have rendered לקטּר, from which ויקטּר has probably arisen by a mistake in copying. In the following clause, "and those who had burnt incense to Baal, to the sun and to the moon," etc., Baal is mentioned as the deity worshipped in the sun, the moon, and the stars (see at Kg2 21:3). מזּלות, synonymous with מזּרות in Job 38:32, does not mean the twenty-eight naxatra, or Indian stations of the moon, (Note: According to A. Weber, Die vedischen Nachrichten von den naxatra, in the Abhandlungen der Berl. Acad. d. Wiss. 1860 and 1861. Compare, on the other hand, Steinschneider, Hebr. Bibliographie, 1861, No. 22, pp. 93, 94, his article in the Deutsch. morgld. Zeitschrift, 1864, p. 118ff.) but the twelve signs or constellations of the zodiac, which were regarded by the Arabs as menâzil, i.e., station-houses, in which the sun took up its abode in succession when describing the circuit of the year (cf. Ges. Thes. p. 869, and Delitzsch on Job 38:32). Kg2 23:6 The image of Asherah (האשׁרה = הא פּסל, Kg2 21:3, Kg2 21:7), which Manasseh placed in the temple and then removed after his return from Babylon (Ch2 33:15), but which Amon had replaced, Josiah ordered to be burned and ground to powder in the valley of Kidron, and the dust to be thrown upon the graves of the common people. ויּדק, from דקק, to make fine, to crush, refers to the metal covering of the image (see at Exo 32:10). Asa had already had an idol burned in the Kidron valley (Kg1 15:13), and Hezekiah had ordered the idolatrous abominations to be taken out of the city and carried thither (Ch2 29:16); so that the valley had already been defiled. There was a burial-place there for העם בּני, i.e., the common people (cf. Jer 26:23), who had no graves of their own, just as at the present day the burial-ground of the Jews there lies to the north of Kefr Silwn. Josiah ordered the ashes to be cast upon these graves, probably in order to defile them as the graves of idolaters. Kg2 23:7 הקּדשׁים בּתּי, the houses (places of abode) of the paramours (for הקדשים see at Kg1 14:24), were probably only tents or huts, which were erected in the court of the temple for the paramours to dwell in, and in which there were also women who wove tent-temples (בּתּים) for Asherah (see at Kg2 17:30). (Note: On this worship Movers has the following among other remarks (Phn. i. p. 686): "The mutilated Gallus (קדש) fancies that he is a woman: negant se viros esse ... muleires se volunt credi (Firmic.). He lives in close intimacy with the women, and they again are drawn towards the Galli by peculiar affection." He also expresses a conjecture "that the women of Jerusalem gave themselves up in honour of the goddess in the tents of the Galli which were pitched in the temple circle, on which account the כלב מחיר went to the temple treasury.") Kg2 23:8 All the (Levitical) priests he sent for from the cities of Judah to Jerusalem, and defiled the altars of the high places, upon which they had offered incense, from Geba to Beersheba, i.e., throughout the whole kingdom. Geba, the present Jeba, about three hours to the north of Jerusalem (see at Jos 18:24), was the northern frontier of the kingdom of Judah, and Beersheba (Bir-seba: see the Comm. on Gen 21:31) the southern frontier of Canaan. It is evident from Kg2 23:9 that כּהנים are Levitical priests. He ordered them to come to Jerusalem, that they might not carry on illegal worship any longer in the cities of Judah. He then commanded that the unlawful high places should be defiled throughout the whole land, for the purpose of suppressing this worship altogether. He also destroyed "the altars of the high places at the gates, (both that) which was at the entrance of the gate of Joshua the governor of the city, (and also that) which was at the left of every one (entering) by the city gate." The two clauses beginning with אשׁר contain a more precise description of השּׁערים בּמות. The gate of Joshua the governor of the city is not mentioned anywhere else, but it was probably near to his home, i.e., near the citadel of the city; but whether it was the future gate of Gennath, as Thenius supposes, or some other, it is impossible to determine. This also applies to the opinion that העיר שׁער is the valley gate or Joppa gate (Thenius) as being the gate of greatest traffic; for the traffic through the northern or Ephraim gate was certainly not less. אישׁ על־שׂמאול, at the left of every one, sc. going into the city. Kg2 23:9 "Only the priests of the high places did not sacrifice, ... but ate unleavened bread in the midst of their brethren." The אך is connected with Kg2 23:8 : Josiah did not allow the priests, whom he had brought out of the cities of Judah to Jerusalem, to offer sacrifice upon the altar of Jehovah in the temple, i.e., to perform the sacrificial service of the law, though he did allow them "to eat that which was unleavened," i.e., to eat of the sacred altar-gifts intended for the priests (Lev 6:9-10 and Lev 6:22); only they were not allowed to consume this at a holy place, but simply in the midst of their brethren, i.e., at home in the family. They were thus placed on a par with the priests who were rendered incapable of service on account of a bodily defect (Lev 21:17-22). Kg2 23:10 He also defiled the place of sacrifice in the valley of Benhinnom, for the purpose of exterminating the worship of Moloch. Moloch's place of sacrifice is called התּפת, as an object of abhorrence, or one to be spat at (תּפת: Job 17:6), from תּוּף, to spit, or spit out (cf. Roediger in Ges. thes. p. 1497, where the other explanations are exploded). (Note: Jerome (on Jer 7:31) says: Thophet, quae est in valle filiorum Enom, illum locum significat, qui Silo fontibus irrigatur et est amoenus atque nemorosus, hodieque hortorum praebet delicias. From the name Gehinnom the Rabbins formed the name Γέεννα, Gehenna (Mat 5:22, Mat 5:29, etc.), with special reference to the children burnt here to Moloch, to signify hell and hell-fire.) On the valley Bne or Ben-hinnom, at the south side of Mount Zion, see at Jos 15:8. Kg2 23:11 He cleared away the horses dedicated to the sun, and burned up the chariots of the sun. As the horses were only cleared away (ויּשׁבּת), whereas the chariots were burned, we have not to think of images of horses (Selden, de Diis Syr. ii. 8), but of living horses, which were given to the sun, i.e., kept for the worship of the sun. Horses were regarded as sacred to the sun by many nations, viz., the Armenians, Persians, Massagetae, Ethiopians, and Greeks, and were sacrificed to it (for proofs see Bochart, Hieroz. i. lib. ii. c. 10); and there is no doubt that the Israelites received this worship first of all from Upper Asia, along with the actual sun-worship, possibly through the Assyrians. "The kings of Judah" are Ahaz, Manasseh, and Amon. These horses were hardly kept to be offered to the sun in sacrifice (Bochart and others), but, as we must infer from the "chariots of the sun," were used for processions in connection with the worship of the sun, probably, according to the unanimous opinion of the Rabbins, to drive and meet the rising sun. The definition יי בּית מבּא, "from the coming into the house of Jehovah," i.e., near the entrance into the temple, is dependent upon נתנוּ, "they had given (placed) the horses of the sun near the temple entrance," אל־לשׁכּת, "in the cell of Nethanmelech." אל does not mean at the cell, i.e., in the stable by the cell (Thenius), because the ellipsis is too harsh, and the cells built in the court of the temple were intended not merely as dwelling-places for the priests and persons engaged in the service, but also as a dept for the provisions and vessels belonging to the temple (Neh 10:38.; Ch1 9:26). One of these depts was arranged and used as a stable for the sacred horses. This cell, which derived its name from Nethanmelech, a chamberlain (סריס), of whom nothing further is known, possibly the builder or founder of it, was בּפּרורים, in the Pharvars. פּרורים, the plural of פּרור, is no doubt identical with פּרבּר in Ch1 26:18. This was the name given to a building at the western or hinder side of the outer temple-court by the gate Shalleket at the ascending road, i.e., the road which led up from the city standing in the west into the court of the temple (Ch1 26:16 and Ch1 26:18). The meaning of the word פרור is uncertain. Gesenius (thes. p. 1123) explains it by porticus, after the Persian frwâr, summer-house, an open kiosk. Bttcher (Proben, p. 347), on the other hand, supposes it to be "a separate spot resembling a suburb," because in the Talmud פרורין signifies suburbia, loca urbi vicinia. Kg2 23:12 The altars built upon the roof of the aliyah of Ahaz were dedicated to the host of heaven (Zep 1:5; Jer 19:13; Jer 32:29), and certainly built by Ahaz; and inasmuch as Hezekiah had undoubtedly removed them when he reformed the worship, they had been restored by Manasseh and Amon, so that by "the kings of Judah" we are to understand these three kings as in Kg2 23:11. We are unable to determine where the עליּה, the upper chamber, of Ahaz really was. But since the things spoken of both before and afterwards are the objects of idolatry found in the temple, this aliyah was probably also an upper room of one of the buildings in the court of the temple (Thenius), possibly at the gate, which Ahaz had built when he removed the outer entrance of the king into the temple (Kg2 16:18), since, according to Jer 35:4, the buildings at the gate had upper stories. The altars built by Manasseh in the two courts of the temple (see Kg2 21:5) Josiah destroyed, משּׁם ויּרץ, "and crushed them to powder from thence," and cast their dust into the Kidron valley. yaarots, not from רוּץ, to run, but from רצץ, to pound or crush to pieces. The alteration proposed by Thenius into ויּרץ, he caused to run and threw = he had them removed with all speed, is not only arbitrary, but unsuitable, because it is impossible to see why Josiah should merely have hurried the clearing away of the dust of these altars, whereas רצץ, to pound or grind to powder, was not superfluous after נתץ, to destroy, but really necessary, if the dust was to be thrown into the Kidron. ויּרץ is substantially equivalent to ויּדק in Kg2 23:6. Kg2 23:13-14 The places of sacrifice built by Solomon upon the southern height of the Mount of Olives (see at Kg1 11:7) Josiah defiled, reducing to ruins the monuments, cutting down the Asherah idols, and filling their places with human bones, which polluted a place, according to Num 19:16. Kg2 23:14 gives a more precise definition of טמּא in Kg2 23:13 in the form of a simple addition (with Vav cop.). הר־המּשׁחית, mountain of destruction (not unctionis = המּשׁחה, Rashi and Cler.), is the southern peak of the Mount of Olives, called in the tradition of the Church mons offensionis or scandali (see at Kg1 11:7). For מצּבוה and אשׁרים see at Kg1 14:23. מקומם are the places where the Mazzeboth and Asherim stood by the altars that were dedicated to Baal and Astarte, so that by defiling them the altar-places were also defiled. Kg2 23:15-20 Extermination of idolatry in Bethel and the cities of Samaria. - In order to suppress idolatry as far as possible, Josiah did not rest satisfied with the extermination of it in his own kingdom Judah, but also destroyed the temples of the high places and altars and idols in the land of the former kingdom of the ten tribes, slew all the priests of the high places that were there, and burned their bones upon the high places destroyed, in order to defile the ground. The warrant for this is not to be found, as Hess supposes, in the fact that Josiah, as vassal of the king of Assyria, had a certain limited power over these districts, and may have looked upon them as being in a certain sense his own territory, a power which the Assyrians may have allowed him the more readily, because they were sure of his fidelity in relation to Egypt. For we cannot infer that Josiah was a vassal of the Assyrians from the imprisonment and release of Manasseh by the king of Assyria, nor is there any historical evidence whatever to prove it. The only reason that can have induced Josiah to do this, must have been that after the dissolution of the kingdom of the ten tribes he regarded himself as the king of the whole of the covenant-nation, and availed himself of the approaching or existing dissolution of the Assyrian empire to secure the friendship of the Israelites who were left behind in the kingdom of the ten tribes, to reconcile them to his government, and to win them over to his attempt to reform; and there is no necessity whatever to assume, as Thenius does, that he asked permission to do so of the newly arisen ruler Nabopolassar. For against this assumption may be adduced not only the improbability that Nabopolassar would give him any such permission, but still more the circumstance that at a still earlier period, even before Nabopolassar became king of Babylon, Josiah had had taxes collected of the inhabitants of the kingdom of Israel for the repairing of the temple (Ch2 34:9), from which we may see that the Israelites who were left behind in the land were favourably disposed towards his reforms, and were inclined to attach themselves in religious matters to Judah (just as, indeed, even the Samaritans were willing after the captivity to take part in the building of the temple, Ezr 4:2.), which the Assyrians at that time were no longer in a condition to prevent. Kg2 23:15 "Also the altar at Bethel, the high place which Jeroboam had made-this altar also and the high place he destroyed." It is grammatically impossible to take הבּמה as an accusative of place (Thenius); it is in apposition to המּזבּח, serving to define it more precisely: the altar at Bethel, namely the high place; for which we have afterwards the altar and the high place. By the appositional הבּמה the altar at Bethel is described as an illegal place of worship. "He burned the בּמה," i.e., the buildings of this sanctuary, ground to powder everything that was made of stone or metal, i.e., both the altar and the idol there. This is implied in what follows: "and burned Asherah," i.e., a wooden idol of Astarte found there, according to which there would no doubt be also an idol of Baal, a מצּבה of stone. The golden calf, which had formerly been set up at Bethel, may, as Hos 10:5-6 seems to imply, have been removed by the Assyrians, and, after the settlement of heathen colonists in the land, have been supplanted by idols of Baal and Astarte (cf. Kg2 17:29). Kg2 23:16-18 In order to desecrate this idolatrous site for all time, Josiah had human bones taken out of the graves that were to be found upon the mountain, and burned upon the altar, whereby the prophecy uttered in the reign of Jeroboam by the prophet who came out of Judah concerning this idolatrous place of worship was fulfilled; but he spared the tomb of that prophet himself (cf. Kg1 13:26-32). The mountain upon which Josiah saw the graves was a mountain at Bethel, which was visible from the bamah destroyed. ציּוּן, a sepulchral monument, probably a stone erected upon the grave. וימלּטוּ: "so they rescued (from burning) his bones (the bones of the prophet who had come from Judah), together with the bones of the prophet who had come from Samaria," i.e., of the old prophet who sprang from the kingdom of the ten tribes and had come to Bethel (Kg1 13:11). משּׁמרון בּא in antithesis to מיהוּדה ot sisehtit בּא denotes simply descent from the land of Samaria. (Note: Kg2 23:16-18 are neither an interpolation of the editor, i.e., of the author of our books of Kings (Staehelin), nor an interpolation from a supplement to the account in 1 Kings 13:1-32 (Thenius). The correspondence between the וגם in Kg2 23:15 and the וגם in Kg2 23:18 does not require this assumption; and the pretended discrepancy, that after Josiah had already reduced the altar to ruins (Kg2 23:15) he could not possibly defile it by burning human bones upon it (Kg2 23:16), is removed by the very natural solution, that המזבח in Kg2 23:16 does not mean the altar itself, but the site of the altar that had been destroyed.) Kg2 23:19-20 All the houses of the high places that were in the (other) cities of Samaria Josiah also destroyed in the same way as that at Bethel, and offered up the priests of the high places upon the altars, i.e., slew them upon the altars on which they had offered sacrifice, and burned men's bones upon them (the altars) to defile them. The severity of the procedure towards these priests of the high places, as contrasted with the manner in which the priests of the high places in Judah were treated (Kg2 23:8 and Kg2 23:9), may be explained partly from the fact that the Israelitish priests of the high places were not Levitical priests, but chiefly from the fact that they were really idolatrous priests. Kg2 23:21-23 The passover is very briefly noticed in our account, and is described as such an one as had not taken place since the days of the judges. Kg2 23:21 simply mentions the appointment of this festival on the part of the king, and the execution of the king's command has to be supplied. Kg2 23:22 contains a remark concerning the character of the passover. In 2 Chron 35:1-19 we have a very elaborate description of it. What distinguished this passover above every other was, (1) that "all the nation," not merely Judah and Benjamin, but also the remnant of the ten tribes, took part in it, or, as it is expressed in Ch2 35:18, "all Judah and Israel;" (2) that it was kept in strict accordance with the precepts of the Mosaic book of the law, whereas in the passover instituted by Hezekiah there were necessarily many points of deviation from the precepts of the law, more especially in the fact that the feast had to be transferred from the first month, which was the legal time, to the second month, because the priests had not yet purified themselves in sufficient numbers and the people had not yet gathered together at Jerusalem, and also that even then a number of the people had inevitably been allowed to eat the passover without the previous purification required by the law (Ch2 30:2-3, Ch2 30:17-20). This is implied in the words, "for there was not holden such a passover since the days of the judges and all the kings of Israel and Judah." That this remark does not preclude the holding of earlier passovers, as Thenius follows De Wette in supposing, without taking any notice of the refutations of this opinion, was correctly maintained by the earlier commentators. Thus Clericus observes: "I should have supposed that what the sacred writer meant to say was, that during the times of the kings no passover had ever been kept so strictly by every one, according to all the Mosaic laws. Before this, even under the pious kings, they seem to have followed custom rather than the very words of the law; and since this was the case, many things were necessarily changed and neglected." Instead of "since the days of the judges who judged Israel," we find in Ch2 35:18, "since the days of Samuel the prophet," who is well known to have closed the period of the judges. Kg2 23:24-25 Conclusion of Josiah's reign. - Kg2 23:24. As Josiah had the passover kept in perfect accordance with the precepts of the law, so did he also exterminate the necromancers, the teraphim and all the abominations of idolatry, throughout all Judah and Jerusalem, to set up the words of the law in the book of the law that had been found, i.e., to carry them out and bring them into force. For האבות and היּדּענים see at Kg2 21:6. תּרפים, penates, domestic gods, which were worshipped as the authors of earthly prosperity and as oracular deities (see at Gen 31:19). גּלּלים and שׁקּצים, connected together, as in Deu 29:16, as a contemptuous description of idols in general. - In Kg2 23:25 the account of the efforts made by Josiah to restore the true worship of Jehovah closes with a general verdict concerning his true piety. See the remarks on this point at Kg2 18:5. He turned to Jehovah with all his heart, etc.: there is an evident allusion here to Deu 6:5. Compare with this the sentence of the prophet Jeremiah concerning his reign (Jer 22:15-16). Kg2 23:26 Nevertheless the Lord turned not from the great fierceness of His wrath, wherewith He had burned against Judah on account of all the provocations "with which Manasseh had provoked Him." With this sentence, in which שבּ לא אך forms an unmistakeable word-play upon יי אל שבּ אשׁר, the historian introduces the account not merely of the end of Josiah's reign, but also of the destruction of the kingdom of Judah. Manasseh is mentioned here and at Kg2 24:3 and Jer 15:4 as the person who, by his idolatry and his unrighteousness, with which he provoked God to anger, had brought upon Judah and Jerusalem the unavoidable judgment of rejection. It is true that Josiah had exterminated outward and gross idolatry throughout the land by his sincere conversion to the Lord, and by his zeal for the restoration of the lawful worship of Jehovah, and had persuaded the people to enter into covenant with its God once more; but a thorough conversion of the people to the Lord he had not been able to effect. For, as Clericus has correctly observed, "although the king was most religious, and the people obeyed him through fear, yet for all that the mind of the people was not changed, as is evident enough from the reproaches of Jeremiah, Zephaniah, and other prophets, who prophesied about that time and a little after." With regard to this point compare especially the first ten chapters of Jeremiah, which contain a resum of his labours in the reign of Josiah, and bear witness to the deep inward apostasy of the people from the Lord, not only before and during Josiah's reform of worship, but also afterwards. As the Holy One of Israel, therefore, God could not forgive any more, but was obliged to bring upon the people and kingdom, after the death of Josiah, the judgment already foretold to Manasseh himself (Kg2 21:12.). Kg2 23:27-28 The Lord said: I will also put away Judah (in the same manner as Israel: cf. Kg2 17:20, Kg2 17:23) from my face, etc. ויּאמר expresses the divine decree, which was announced to the people by the prophets, especially Jeremiah and Zephaniah. Kg2 23:29-30 Compare Ch2 35:20-24. The predicted catastrophe was brought to pass by the expedition of Necho the king of Egypt against Assyria. "In his days (i.e., towards the end of Josiah's reign) Pharaoh Necho the king of Egypt went up against the king of Asshur to the river Euphrates." Necho (נכה or נכו, Ch2 35:20; Jer 46:2; called Νεχαώ by Josephus, Manetho in Jul. Afric., and Euseb., after the lxx; and Νεκώς by Herod. ii. 158,159, iv. 42, and Diod. Sic. i. 33; according to Brugsch, hist. d'Eg. i. p. 252, Nekou) was, according to Man., the sixth king of the twenty-sixth (Saitic) dynasty, the second Pharaoh of that name, the son of Psammetichus I and grandson of Necho I; and, according to Herodotus, he was celebrated for a canal which he proposed to have cut in order to connect the Nile with the Red Sea, as well as for the circumnavigation of Africa (compare Brugsch, l.c., according to whom he reigned from 611 to 595 b.c.). Whether "the king of Asshur" against whom Necho marched was the last ruler of the Assyrian empire, Asardanpal (Sardanapal), Saracus according to the monuments (see Brandis, Ueber den Gewinn, p. 55; M. v. Niebuhr, Gesch. Assurs, pp. 110ff. and 192), or the existing ruler of the Assyrian empire which had already fallen, Nabopolassar the king of Babylon, who put an end to the Assyrian monarchy in alliance with the Medes by the conquest and destruction of Nineveh, and founded the Chaldaean or Babylonian empire, it is impossible to determine, because the year in which Nineveh was taken cannot be exactly decided, and all that is certain is that Nineveh had fallen before the battle of Carchemish in the year 606 b.c. Compare M. v. Niebuhr, Gesch. Assurs, pp. 109ff. and 203, 204. - King Josiah went against the Egyptian, and "he (Necho) slew him at Megiddo when he saw him," i.e., caught sight of him. This extremely brief notice of the death of Josiah is explained thus in the Chronicles: that Necho sent ambassadors to Josiah, when he was taking the field against him, with an appeal that he would not fight against him, because his only intention was to make war upon Asshur, but that Josiah did not allow himself to be diverted from his purpose, and fought a battle with Necho in the valley of Megiddo, in which he was mortally wounded by the archers. What induced Josiah to oppose with force of arms the advance of the Egyptian to the Euphrates, notwithstanding the assurance of Necho that he had no wish to fight against Judah, is neither to be sought for in the fact that Josiah was dependent upon Babylon, which is at variance with history, nor in the fact that the kingdom of Judah had taken possession of all the territory of the ancient inheritance of Israel, and Josiah was endeavouring to restore all the ancient glory of the house of David over the surrounding nations (Ewald, Gesch. iii. p. 707), but solely in Josiah's conviction that Judah could not remain neutral in the war which had broken out between Egypt and Babylon, and in the hope that by attacking Necho, and frustrating his expedition to the Euphrates, he might be able to avert great distress from his own land and kingdom. (Note: M. v. Niebuhr (Gesch. Ass. p. 364) also calls Josiah's enterprise "a perfectly correct policy. Nineveh was falling (if not already fallen), and the Syrian princes, both those who had remained independent, like Josiah, and also the vassals of Asshur, might hope that, after the fall of Nineveh, they would succeed in releasing Syria from every foreign yoke. Now well-founded this hope was, is evident from the strenuous exertions which Nabukudrussur was afterwards obliged to make, in order to effect the complete subjugation of Syria. It was therefore necessary to hinder at any price the settlement of the Egyptians now. Even though Necho assured Josiah that he was not marching against him (Ch2 35:21), Josiah knew that if once the Egyptians were lords of Coele-Syria, his independence would be gone.") This battle is also mentioned by Herodotus (ii. 159); but he calls the place where it was fought Μάγδολον, i.e., neither Migdol, which was twelve Roman miles to the south of Pelusium (Forbiger, Hdb. d. alten Geogr. ii. p. 695), nor the perfectly apocryphal Magdala or Migdal Zebaiah mentioned by the Talmudists (Reland, Pal. p. 898,899), as Movers supposes. We might rather think with Ewald (Gesch. iii. p. 708) of the present Mejdel, to the south-east of Acca, at a northern source of the Kishon, and regard this as the place where the Egyptian camp was pitched, whereas Israel stood to the east of it, at the place still called Rummane, at Hadad-Rimmon in the valley of Megiddo, as Ewald assumes (Gesch. iii. p. 708). But even this combination is overthrown by the face that Rummane, which lies to the east of el Mejdel at the distance of a mile and three-quarters (geogr.), on the southern edge of the plain of Buttauf, cannot possibly be the Hadad-Rimmon mentioned in Zac 12:11, where king Josiah died after he had been wounded in the battle. For since Megiddo is identical with the Roman Legio, the present Lejun, as Robinson has proved (see at Jos 12:21), and as is generally admitted even by C. v. Raumer (Pal. p. 447, note, ed. 4), Hadad-Rimmon must be the same as the village of Rmmuni (Rummane), which is three-quarters of an hour to the south of Lejun, where the Scottish missionaries in the year 1839 found many ancient wells and other traces of Israelitish times (V. de Velde, R. i. p. 267; Memoir, pp. 333, 334). But this Rummane is four geographical miles distant from el Mejdel, and Mediggo three and a half, so that the battle fought at Megiddo cannot take its name from el Mejdel, which is more than three miles off. The Magdolon of Herodotus can only arise from some confusion between it and Megiddo, which was a very easy thing with the Greek pronunciation Μαγεδδώ, without there being any necessity to assume that Herodotus was thinking of the Egyptian Migdol, which is called Magdolo in the Itin. Ant. p. 171 (cf. Brugsch, Geogr. Inschriften altgypt. Denkmler, i. pp. 261,262). If, then, Josiah went to Megiddo in the plain of Esdrelom to meet the king of Egypt, and fell in with him there, there can be no doubt that Necho came by sea to Palestine and landed at Acco, as des Vignoles (Chronol. ii. p. 427) assumed. (Note: This is favoured by the account in Herodotus (ii. 159), that Necho built ships: τριήρεες αἱ μὲν ἐπὶ τῇ βορηΐ́η θαλάσσῃ ... αἱ δὲ ἐν τῷ Ἀραβίῳ κόλπῳ (triremes in septentrionale et australe mare mittendas. Bhr) - καὶ ταυτῃσί τε ἐχρᾶτο ἐν τῷ δέοντι· καὶ Σύροισι πεζῇ ὁ Νεκὼς συμβαλὼν ἐν Μαγδόλῳ ἐνίκησε; from which we may infer that Necho carried his troops by sea to Palestine, and then fought the battle on the land. M. v. Niebuhr (Gesch. p. 365) also finds it very improbable that Necho used his fleet in this war; but he does not think it very credible "that he embarked his whole army, instead of marching them by the land route so often taken by the Egyptian army, the key of which, viz., the land of the Philistines, was at least partially subject to him," because the ὅλκαδες (ships of burden) required for the transport of a large army were hardly to be obtained in sufficient numbers in Egypt. But this difficulty, which rests upon mere conjecture, is neutralized by the fact, which M. Duncker (Gesch. i. p. 618) also adduces in support of the voyage by sea, namely, that the decisive battle with the Jews was fought to the north-west of Jerusalem, and when the Jews were defeated, the way to Jerusalem stood open for their retreat. Movers (Phniz. ii. 1, p. 420), who also imagines that Necho advanced with a large land-army towards the frontier of Palestine, has therefore transferred the battle to Magdolo on the Egyptian frontier; but he does this by means of the most arbitrary interpretation of the account given by Herodotus.) For if the Egyptian army had marched by land through the plain of Philistia, Josiah would certainly have gone thither to meet it, and not have allowed it to advance into the plain of Megiddo without fighting a battle. Kg2 23:30 The brief statement, "his servants carried him dead from Megiddo and brought him to Jerusalem," is given with more minuteness in the Chronicles: his servants took him, the severely wounded king, by his own command, from his chariot to his second chariot, and drove him to Jerusalem, and he died and was buried, etc. Where he died the Chronicles do not affirm; the occurrence of ויּמת after the words "they brought him to Jerusalem," does not prove that he did not die till he reached Jerusalem. If we compare Zac 12:11, where the prophet draws a parallel between the lamentation at the death of the Messiah and the lamentation of Hadad-Rimmon in the valley of Megiddo, as the deepest lamentation of the people in the olden time, with the account given in Ch2 35:25 of the lamentation of the whole nation at the death of Josiah, there can hardly be any doubt that Josiah died on the way to Jerusalem at Hadad-Rimmon, the present Rummane, to the south of Lejun (see above), and was taken to Jerusalem dead. - He was followed on the throne by his younger son Jehoahaz, whom the people (הארץ עם, as in Kg2 21:24) anointed king, passing over the elder, Eliakim, probably because they regarded him as the more able man.

Commentary on the Old Testament, by Carl Friedrich Keil and Franz Delitzsch [1857-78]

Instead of resting content with the fact that he was promised deliverance from the approaching judgment, Josiah did everything that was in his power to lead the whole nation to true conversion to the Lord, and thereby avert as far as possible the threatened curse of rejection, since the Lord in His word had promised forgiveness and mercy to the penitent. He therefore gathered together the elders of the nation, and went with them, with the priests and prophets and the assembled people, into the temple, and there had the book of the law read to those who were assembled, and concluded a covenant with the Lord, into which the people also entered. After this he had all the remnants of idolatry eradicated, not only in Jerusalem and Judah, but also in Bethel and the other cities of Samaria, and directed the people to strengthen themselves in their covenant fidelity towards the Lord by the celebration of a solemn passover.

Kg2 23:1-2

Reading of the law in the temple, and renewal of the covenant (cf. Ch2 34:29-32). Beside the priests, Josiah also gathered together the prophets, including perhaps Jeremiah and Zedekiah, that he might carry out the solemn conclusion of the covenant with their co-operation, and, as is evident from Jer 1-11, that they might then undertake the task, by their impressive preaching in Jerusalem and the cities of Judah, of making the people conscious of the earnestness of the covenant duties which they had so recently undertaken (see Oehler in Herzog's Cycl.). Instead of the prophets, the Levites are mentioned in the Chronicles, probably only because the Levites are mentioned along with the priests in other cases of a similar kind. ויּקרא, he read, i.e., had it read; for the duty of reading the law in the temple devolved upon the priests as the keepers of the law (Deu 31:9.).

Kg2 23:3

The king stood העמּוּד על, as in Kg2 11:14. For וגו ויּכרת see Kg2 11:17. ללכת, i.e., he bound himself solemnly to walk after the Lord, that is to say, in his walk to follow the Lord and keep His commandments (see at Kg1 2:3). - בּבּרית...ויּעמוד, all the people entered into the covenant (Luther and others); not perstitit, stood firm, continued in the covenant (Maurer, Ges.), which would be at variance with Jer 11:9-10; Jer 25:3., and other utterances of the prophets.

2 Kings 23:4-20

The eradication of idolatry. - According to Ch2 34:3-7, this had already begun, and was simply continued and carried to completion after the renewal of the covenant.

Kg2 23:4-14

In Jerusalem and Judah. Kg2 23:4. The king commanded the high priest and the other priests, and the Levites who kept the door, to remove from the temple everything that had been made for Baal and Asherah, and to burn it in the valley of Kidron. המּשׁנה כּהני, sacerdotes secundi ordinis (Vulg., Luth., etc.), are the common priests as distinguished from הגּדול הכּהן, the high priest. The Rabbins are wrong in their explanation vicarii summi sacerdotis, according to which Thenius would alter the text and read כּהן for כּהני. הסּף שׁמרי, the keepers of the threshold, are the Levites whose duty it was to watch the temple, as in Kg2 22:4 (cf. Ch1 23:5). כּל־הכּלים (alles Zeug, Luth.), i.e., all the apparatus, consisting of altars, idols, and other things, that had been provided for the worship of Baal and Astarte. Josiah had these things burned, according to the law in Deu 7:25, and that outside Jerusalem in the fields of the Kidron valley. The קדרון שׁדמות (fields of Kidron) are probably to be sought for to the north-east of Jerusalem, where the Kidron valley is broader than between the city and the Mount of Olives, and spreads out into a basin of considerable size, which is now cultivated and contains plantations of olive and other fruit-trees (Rob. Pal. i. p. 405). "And he had their dust carried to Bethel," i.e., the ashes of the wooden objects which were burned, and the dust of those of stone and metal which were ground to powder, to defile the idolatrous place of worship at Bethel as the chief seat of idolatry and false worship.

Kg2 23:5

"He abolished the high priests." כּמרים are also mentioned in Hos 10:5 and Zac 1:4 : they were not idolatrous priests or prophets of Baal, but priests whom the kings of Judah had appointed to offer incense upon the altars of the high places; for they are distinguished from the idolatrous priests, or those who burnt incense to Baal, the sun, etc. In Hos 10:5 the priests appointed in connection with the golden calf at Bethel are called כמרים; and in Zep 1:4 the כמרים are not exclusively idolatrous priests, but such as did service sometimes for Jehovah, who had been degraded into a Baal, and sometimes to actual idols. Now as כּהנים who burnt incense upon high places are also mentioned in Kg2 23:8, we must understand by the כמרים non-Levitical priests, and by the כהנים in Kg2 23:8 Levitical priests who were devoted to the worship on the high places. The primary signification of כּמר is disputed. In Syriac the word signifies the priest, in Hebrew spurious priests, probably from כּמר in the sense of to bring together, or complete, as the performers of sacrifice, like ἕρδων, the sacrificer (Dietr.); whereas the connection suggested by Hitzig (on Zeph.) with (Arabic) kfr, to be unbelieving, in the opposite sense of the religious, is very far-fetched, and does not answer either to the Hebrew or the Syriac use of the word.

(Note: In any case the derivation from כמר, to be black (Ges. Thes. p. 693), and the explanation given by Frst from vi occultandi magicasque, h. e. arcanas et reconditas artes exercendi, and others given in Iden's Dissertatt. theol. philol. i. diss. 12, are quite untenable.)

The singular ויקטּר is striking, inasmuch as if the imperf. c. Vav rel. were a continuation of נתנוּ, we should expect the plural, "and who had burnt incense," as it is given in the Chaldee. The lxx, Vulg., and Syr. have rendered לקטּר, from which ויקטּר has probably arisen by a mistake in copying. In the following clause, "and those who had burnt incense to Baal, to the sun and to the moon," etc., Baal is mentioned as the deity worshipped in the sun, the moon, and the stars (see at Kg2 21:3). מזּלות, synonymous with מזּרות in Job 38:32, does not mean the twenty-eight naxatra, or Indian stations of the moon,

(Note: According to A. Weber, Die vedischen Nachrichten von den naxatra, in the Abhandlungen der Berl. Acad. d. Wiss. 1860 and 1861. Compare, on the other hand, Steinschneider, Hebr. Bibliographie, 1861, No. 22, pp. 93, 94, his article in the Deutsch. morgld. Zeitschrift, 1864, p. 118ff.)

but the twelve signs or constellations of the zodiac, which were regarded by the Arabs as menâzil, i.e., station-houses, in which the sun took up its abode in succession when describing the circuit of the year (cf. Ges. Thes. p. 869, and Delitzsch on Job 38:32).

Kg2 23:6

The image of Asherah (האשׁרה = הא פּסל, Kg2 21:3, Kg2 21:7), which Manasseh placed in the temple and then removed after his return from Babylon (Ch2 33:15), but which Amon had replaced, Josiah ordered to be burned and ground to powder in the valley of Kidron, and the dust to be thrown upon the graves of the common people. ויּדק, from דקק, to make fine, to crush, refers to the metal covering of the image (see at Exo 32:10). Asa had already had an idol burned in the Kidron valley (Kg1 15:13), and Hezekiah had ordered the idolatrous abominations to be taken out of the city and carried thither (Ch2 29:16); so that the valley had already been defiled. There was a burial-place there for העם בּני, i.e., the common people (cf. Jer 26:23), who had no graves of their own, just as at the present day the burial-ground of the Jews there lies to the north of Kefr Silwn. Josiah ordered the ashes to be cast upon these graves, probably in order to defile them as the graves of idolaters.

Kg2 23:7

הקּדשׁים בּתּי, the houses (places of abode) of the paramours (for הקדשים see at Kg1 14:24), were probably only tents or huts, which were erected in the court of the temple for the paramours to dwell in, and in which there were also women who wove tent-temples (בּתּים) for Asherah (see at Kg2 17:30).

(Note: On this worship Movers has the following among other remarks (Phn. i. p. 686): "The mutilated Gallus (קדש) fancies that he is a woman: negant se viros esse ... muleires se volunt credi (Firmic.). He lives in close intimacy with the women, and they again are drawn towards the Galli by peculiar affection." He also expresses a conjecture "that the women of Jerusalem gave themselves up in honour of the goddess in the tents of the Galli which were pitched in the temple circle, on which account the כלב מחיר went to the temple treasury.")

Kg2 23:8

All the (Levitical) priests he sent for from the cities of Judah to Jerusalem, and defiled the altars of the high places, upon which they had offered incense, from Geba to Beersheba, i.e., throughout the whole kingdom. Geba, the present Jeba, about three hours to the north of Jerusalem (see at Jos 18:24), was the northern frontier of the kingdom of Judah, and Beersheba (Bir-seba: see the Comm. on Gen 21:31) the southern frontier of Canaan. It is evident from Kg2 23:9 that כּהנים are Levitical priests. He ordered them to come to Jerusalem, that they might not carry on illegal worship any longer in the cities of Judah. He then commanded that the unlawful high places should be defiled throughout the whole land, for the purpose of suppressing this worship altogether. He also destroyed "the altars of the high places at the gates, (both that) which was at the entrance of the gate of Joshua the governor of the city, (and also that) which was at the left of every one (entering) by the city gate." The two clauses beginning with אשׁר contain a more precise description of השּׁערים בּמות. The gate of Joshua the governor of the city is not mentioned anywhere else, but it was probably near to his home, i.e., near the citadel of the city; but whether it was the future gate of Gennath, as Thenius supposes, or some other, it is impossible to determine. This also applies to the opinion that העיר שׁער is the valley gate or Joppa gate (Thenius) as being the gate of greatest traffic; for the traffic through the northern or Ephraim gate was certainly not less. אישׁ על־שׂמאול, at the left of every one, sc. going into the city.

Kg2 23:9

"Only the priests of the high places did not sacrifice, ... but ate unleavened bread in the midst of their brethren." The אך is connected with Kg2 23:8 : Josiah did not allow the priests, whom he had brought out of the cities of Judah to Jerusalem, to offer sacrifice upon the altar of Jehovah in the temple, i.e., to perform the sacrificial service of the law, though he did allow them "to eat that which was unleavened," i.e., to eat of the sacred altar-gifts intended for the priests (Lev 6:9-10 and Lev 6:22); only they were not allowed to consume this at a holy place, but simply in the midst of their brethren, i.e., at home in the family. They were thus placed on a par with the priests who were rendered incapable of service on account of a bodily defect (Lev 21:17-22).

Kg2 23:10

He also defiled the place of sacrifice in the valley of Benhinnom, for the purpose of exterminating the worship of Moloch. Moloch's place of sacrifice is called התּפת, as an object of abhorrence, or one to be spat at (תּפת: Job 17:6), from תּוּף, to spit, or spit out (cf. Roediger in Ges. thes. p. 1497, where the other explanations are exploded).

(Note: Jerome (on Jer 7:31) says: Thophet, quae est in valle filiorum Enom, illum locum significat, qui Silo fontibus irrigatur et est amoenus atque nemorosus, hodieque hortorum praebet delicias. From the name Gehinnom the Rabbins formed the name Γέεννα, Gehenna (Mat 5:22, Mat 5:29, etc.), with special reference to the children burnt here to Moloch, to signify hell and hell-fire.)

On the valley Bne or Ben-hinnom, at the south side of Mount Zion, see at Jos 15:8.

Kg2 23:11

He cleared away the horses dedicated to the sun, and burned up the chariots of the sun. As the horses were only cleared away (ויּשׁבּת), whereas the chariots were burned, we have not to think of images of horses (Selden, de Diis Syr. ii. 8), but of living horses, which were given to the sun, i.e., kept for the worship of the sun. Horses were regarded as sacred to the sun by many nations, viz., the Armenians, Persians, Massagetae, Ethiopians, and Greeks, and were sacrificed to it (for proofs see Bochart, Hieroz. i. lib. ii. c. 10); and there is no doubt that the Israelites received this worship first of all from Upper Asia, along with the actual sun-worship, possibly through the Assyrians. "The kings of Judah" are Ahaz, Manasseh, and Amon. These horses were hardly kept to be offered to the sun in sacrifice (Bochart and others), but, as we must infer from the "chariots of the sun," were used for processions in connection with the worship of the sun, probably, according to the unanimous opinion of the Rabbins, to drive and meet the rising sun. The definition יי בּית מבּא, "from the coming into the house of Jehovah," i.e., near the entrance into the temple, is dependent upon נתנוּ, "they had given (placed) the horses of the sun near the temple entrance," אל־לשׁכּת, "in the cell of Nethanmelech." אל does not mean at the cell, i.e., in the stable by the cell (Thenius), because the ellipsis is too harsh, and the cells built in the court of the temple were intended not merely as dwelling-places for the priests and persons engaged in the service, but also as a dept for the provisions and vessels belonging to the temple (Neh 10:38.; Ch1 9:26). One of these depts was arranged and used as a stable for the sacred horses. This cell, which derived its name from Nethanmelech, a chamberlain (סריס), of whom nothing further is known, possibly the builder or founder of it, was בּפּרורים, in the Pharvars. פּרורים, the plural of פּרור, is no doubt identical with פּרבּר in Ch1 26:18. This was the name given to a building at the western or hinder side of the outer temple-court by the gate Shalleket at the ascending road, i.e., the road which led up from the city standing in the west into the court of the temple (Ch1 26:16 and Ch1 26:18). The meaning of the word פרור is uncertain. Gesenius (thes. p. 1123) explains it by porticus, after the Persian frwâr, summer-house, an open kiosk. Bttcher (Proben, p. 347), on the other hand, supposes it to be "a separate spot resembling a suburb," because in the Talmud פרורין signifies suburbia, loca urbi vicinia.

Kg2 23:12

The altars built upon the roof of the aliyah of Ahaz were dedicated to the host of heaven (Zep 1:5; Jer 19:13; Jer 32:29), and certainly built by Ahaz; and inasmuch as Hezekiah had undoubtedly removed them when he reformed the worship, they had been restored by Manasseh and Amon, so that by "the kings of Judah" we are to understand these three kings as in Kg2 23:11. We are unable to determine where the עליּה, the upper chamber, of Ahaz really was. But since the things spoken of both before and afterwards are the objects of idolatry found in the temple, this aliyah was probably also an upper room of one of the buildings in the court of the temple (Thenius), possibly at the gate, which Ahaz had built when he removed the outer entrance of the king into the temple (Kg2 16:18), since, according to Jer 35:4, the buildings at the gate had upper stories. The altars built by Manasseh in the two courts of the temple (see Kg2 21:5) Josiah destroyed, משּׁם ויּרץ, "and crushed them to powder from thence," and cast their dust into the Kidron valley. yaarots, not from רוּץ, to run, but from רצץ, to pound or crush to pieces. The alteration proposed by Thenius into ויּרץ, he caused to run and threw = he had them removed with all speed, is not only arbitrary, but unsuitable, because it is impossible to see why Josiah should merely have hurried the clearing away of the dust of these altars, whereas רצץ, to pound or grind to powder, was not superfluous after נתץ, to destroy, but really necessary, if the dust was to be thrown into the Kidron. ויּרץ is substantially equivalent to ויּדק in Kg2 23:6.

Kg2 23:13-14

The places of sacrifice built by Solomon upon the southern height of the Mount of Olives (see at Kg1 11:7) Josiah defiled, reducing to ruins the monuments, cutting down the Asherah idols, and filling their places with human bones, which polluted a place, according to Num 19:16. Kg2 23:14 gives a more precise definition of טמּא in Kg2 23:13 in the form of a simple addition (with Vav cop.). הר־המּשׁחית, mountain of destruction (not unctionis = המּשׁחה, Rashi and Cler.), is the southern peak of the Mount of Olives, called in the tradition of the Church mons offensionis or scandali (see at Kg1 11:7). For מצּבוה and אשׁרים see at Kg1 14:23. מקומם are the places where the Mazzeboth and Asherim stood by the altars that were dedicated to Baal and Astarte, so that by defiling them the altar-places were also defiled.

Kg2 23:15-20

Extermination of idolatry in Bethel and the cities of Samaria. - In order to suppress idolatry as far as possible, Josiah did not rest satisfied with the extermination of it in his own kingdom Judah, but also destroyed the temples of the high places and altars and idols in the land of the former kingdom of the ten tribes, slew all the priests of the high places that were there, and burned their bones upon the high places destroyed, in order to defile the ground. The warrant for this is not to be found, as Hess supposes, in the fact that Josiah, as vassal of the king of Assyria, had a certain limited power over these districts, and may have looked upon them as being in a certain sense his own territory, a power which the Assyrians may have allowed him the more readily, because they were sure of his fidelity in relation to Egypt. For we cannot infer that Josiah was a vassal of the Assyrians from the imprisonment and release of Manasseh by the king of Assyria, nor is there any historical evidence whatever to prove it. The only reason that can have induced Josiah to do this, must have been that after the dissolution of the kingdom of the ten tribes he regarded himself as the king of the whole of the covenant-nation, and availed himself of the approaching or existing dissolution of the Assyrian empire to secure the friendship of the Israelites who were left behind in the kingdom of the ten tribes, to reconcile them to his government, and to win them over to his attempt to reform; and there is no necessity whatever to assume, as Thenius does, that he asked permission to do so of the newly arisen ruler Nabopolassar. For against this assumption may be adduced not only the improbability that Nabopolassar would give him any such permission, but still more the circumstance that at a still earlier period, even before Nabopolassar became king of Babylon, Josiah had had taxes collected of the inhabitants of the kingdom of Israel for the repairing of the temple (Ch2 34:9), from which we may see that the Israelites who were left behind in the land were favourably disposed towards his reforms, and were inclined to attach themselves in religious matters to Judah (just as, indeed, even the Samaritans were willing after the captivity to take part in the building of the temple, Ezr 4:2.), which the Assyrians at that time were no longer in a condition to prevent.

Kg2 23:15

"Also the altar at Bethel, the high place which Jeroboam had made-this altar also and the high place he destroyed." It is grammatically impossible to take הבּמה as an accusative of place (Thenius); it is in apposition to המּזבּח, serving to define it more precisely: the altar at Bethel, namely the high place; for which we have afterwards the altar and the high place. By the appositional הבּמה the altar at Bethel is described as an illegal place of worship. "He burned the בּמה," i.e., the buildings of this sanctuary, ground to powder everything that was made of stone or metal, i.e., both the altar and the idol there. This is implied in what follows: "and burned Asherah," i.e., a wooden idol of Astarte found there, according to which there would no doubt be also an idol of Baal, a מצּבה of stone. The golden calf, which had formerly been set up at Bethel, may, as Hos 10:5-6 seems to imply, have been removed by the Assyrians, and, after the settlement of heathen colonists in the land, have been supplanted by idols of Baal and Astarte (cf. Kg2 17:29).

Kg2 23:16-18

In order to desecrate this idolatrous site for all time, Josiah had human bones taken out of the graves that were to be found upon the mountain, and burned upon the altar, whereby the prophecy uttered in the reign of Jeroboam by the prophet who came out of Judah concerning this idolatrous place of worship was fulfilled; but he spared the tomb of that prophet himself (cf. Kg1 13:26-32). The mountain upon which Josiah saw the graves was a mountain at Bethel, which was visible from the bamah destroyed. ציּוּן, a sepulchral monument, probably a stone erected upon the grave. וימלּטוּ: "so they rescued (from burning) his bones (the bones of the prophet who had come from Judah), together with the bones of the prophet who had come from Samaria," i.e., of the old prophet who sprang from the kingdom of the ten tribes and had come to Bethel (Kg1 13:11). משּׁמרון בּא in antithesis to מיהוּדה ot sisehtit בּא denotes simply descent from the land of Samaria.

(Note: Kg2 23:16-18 are neither an interpolation of the editor, i.e., of the author of our books of Kings (Staehelin), nor an interpolation from a supplement to the account in 1 Kings 13:1-32 (Thenius). The correspondence between the וגם in Kg2 23:15 and the וגם in Kg2 23:18 does not require this assumption; and the pretended discrepancy, that after Josiah had already reduced the altar to ruins (Kg2 23:15) he could not possibly defile it by burning human bones upon it (Kg2 23:16), is removed by the very natural solution, that המזבח in Kg2 23:16 does not mean the altar itself, but the site of the altar that had been destroyed.)

Kg2 23:19-20

All the houses of the high places that were in the (other) cities of Samaria Josiah also destroyed in the same way as that at Bethel, and offered up the priests of the high places upon the altars, i.e., slew them upon the altars on which they had offered sacrifice, and burned men's bones upon them (the altars) to defile them. The severity of the procedure towards these priests of the high places, as contrasted with the manner in which the priests of the high places in Judah were treated (Kg2 23:8 and Kg2 23:9), may be explained partly from the fact that the Israelitish priests of the high places were not Levitical priests, but chiefly from the fact that they were really idolatrous priests.

Kg2 23:21-23

The passover is very briefly noticed in our account, and is described as such an one as had not taken place since the days of the judges. Kg2 23:21 simply mentions the appointment of this festival on the part of the king, and the execution of the king's command has to be supplied. Kg2 23:22 contains a remark concerning the character of the passover. In 2 Chron 35:1-19 we have a very elaborate description of it. What distinguished this passover above every other was, (1) that "all the nation," not merely Judah and Benjamin, but also the remnant of the ten tribes, took part in it, or, as it is expressed in Ch2 35:18, "all Judah and Israel;" (2) that it was kept in strict accordance with the precepts of the Mosaic book of the law, whereas in the passover instituted by Hezekiah there were necessarily many points of deviation from the precepts of the law, more especially in the fact that the feast had to be transferred from the first month, which was the legal time, to the second month, because the priests had not yet purified themselves in sufficient numbers and the people had not yet gathered together at Jerusalem, and also that even then a number of the people had inevitably been allowed to eat the passover without the previous purification required by the law (Ch2 30:2-3, Ch2 30:17-20). This is implied in the words, "for there was not holden such a passover since the days of the judges and all the kings of Israel and Judah." That this remark does not preclude the holding of earlier passovers, as Thenius follows De Wette in supposing, without taking any notice of the refutations of this opinion, was correctly maintained by the earlier commentators. Thus Clericus observes: "I should have supposed that what the sacred writer meant to say was, that during the times of the kings no passover had ever been kept so strictly by every one, according to all the Mosaic laws. Before this, even under the pious kings, they seem to have followed custom rather than the very words of the law; and since this was the case, many things were necessarily changed and neglected." Instead of "since the days of the judges who judged Israel," we find in Ch2 35:18, "since the days of Samuel the prophet," who is well known to have closed the period of the judges.

Kg2 23:24-25

Conclusion of Josiah's reign. - Kg2 23:24. As Josiah had the passover kept in perfect accordance with the precepts of the law, so did he also exterminate the necromancers, the teraphim and all the abominations of idolatry, throughout all Judah and Jerusalem, to set up the words of the law in the book of the law that had been found, i.e., to carry them out and bring them into force. For האבות and היּדּענים see at Kg2 21:6. תּרפים, penates, domestic gods, which were worshipped as the authors of earthly prosperity and as oracular deities (see at Gen 31:19). גּלּלים and שׁקּצים, connected together, as in Deu 29:16, as a contemptuous description of idols in general. - In Kg2 23:25 the account of the efforts made by Josiah to restore the true worship of Jehovah closes with a general verdict concerning his true piety. See the remarks on this point at Kg2 18:5. He turned to Jehovah with all his heart, etc.: there is an evident allusion here to Deu 6:5. Compare with this the sentence of the prophet Jeremiah concerning his reign (Jer 22:15-16).

Kg2 23:26

Nevertheless the Lord turned not from the great fierceness of His wrath, wherewith He had burned against Judah on account of all the provocations "with which Manasseh had provoked Him." With this sentence, in which שבּ לא אך forms an unmistakeable word-play upon יי אל שבּ אשׁר, the historian introduces the account not merely of the end of Josiah's reign, but also of the destruction of the kingdom of Judah. Manasseh is mentioned here and at Kg2 24:3 and Jer 15:4 as the person who, by his idolatry and his unrighteousness, with which he provoked God to anger, had brought upon Judah and Jerusalem the unavoidable judgment of rejection. It is true that Josiah had exterminated outward and gross idolatry throughout the land by his sincere conversion to the Lord, and by his zeal for the restoration of the lawful worship of Jehovah, and had persuaded the people to enter into covenant with its God once more; but a thorough conversion of the people to the Lord he had not been able to effect. For, as Clericus has correctly observed, "although the king was most religious, and the people obeyed him through fear, yet for all that the mind of the people was not changed, as is evident enough from the reproaches of Jeremiah, Zephaniah, and other prophets, who prophesied about that time and a little after." With regard to this point compare especially the first ten chapters of Jeremiah, which contain a resum of his labours in the reign of Josiah, and bear witness to the deep inward apostasy of the people from the Lord, not only before and during Josiah's reform of worship, but also afterwards. As the Holy One of Israel, therefore, God could not forgive any more, but was obliged to bring upon the people and kingdom, after the death of Josiah, the judgment already foretold to Manasseh himself (Kg2 21:12.).

Kg2 23:27-28

The Lord said: I will also put away Judah (in the same manner as Israel: cf. Kg2 17:20, Kg2 17:23) from my face, etc. ויּאמר expresses the divine decree, which was announced to the people by the prophets, especially Jeremiah and Zephaniah.

Kg2 23:29-30

Compare Ch2 35:20-24. The predicted catastrophe was brought to pass by the expedition of Necho the king of Egypt against Assyria. "In his days (i.e., towards the end of Josiah's reign) Pharaoh Necho the king of Egypt went up against the king of Asshur to the river Euphrates." Necho (נכה or נכו, Ch2 35:20; Jer 46:2; called Νεχαώ by Josephus, Manetho in Jul. Afric., and Euseb., after the lxx; and Νεκώς by Herod. ii. 158,159, iv. 42, and Diod. Sic. i. 33; according to Brugsch, hist. d'Eg. i. p. 252, Nekou) was, according to Man., the sixth king of the twenty-sixth (Saitic) dynasty, the second Pharaoh of that name, the son of Psammetichus I and grandson of Necho I; and, according to Herodotus, he was celebrated for a canal which he proposed to have cut in order to connect the Nile with the Red Sea, as well as for the circumnavigation of Africa (compare Brugsch, l.c., according to whom he reigned from 611 to 595 b.c.). Whether "the king of Asshur" against whom Necho marched was the last ruler of the Assyrian empire, Asardanpal (Sardanapal), Saracus according to the monuments (see Brandis, Ueber den Gewinn, p. 55; M. v. Niebuhr, Gesch. Assurs, pp. 110ff. and 192), or the existing ruler of the Assyrian empire which had already fallen, Nabopolassar the king of Babylon, who put an end to the Assyrian monarchy in alliance with the Medes by the conquest and destruction of Nineveh, and founded the Chaldaean or Babylonian empire, it is impossible to determine, because the year in which Nineveh was taken cannot be exactly decided, and all that is certain is that Nineveh had fallen before the battle of Carchemish in the year 606 b.c. Compare M. v. Niebuhr, Gesch. Assurs, pp. 109ff. and 203, 204. - King Josiah went against the Egyptian, and "he (Necho) slew him at Megiddo when he saw him," i.e., caught sight of him. This extremely brief notice of the death of Josiah is explained thus in the Chronicles: that Necho sent ambassadors to Josiah, when he was taking the field against him, with an appeal that he would not fight against him, because his only intention was to make war upon Asshur, but that Josiah did not allow himself to be diverted from his purpose, and fought a battle with Necho in the valley of Megiddo, in which he was mortally wounded by the archers. What induced Josiah to oppose with force of arms the advance of the Egyptian to the Euphrates, notwithstanding the assurance of Necho that he had no wish to fight against Judah, is neither to be sought for in the fact that Josiah was dependent upon Babylon, which is at variance with history, nor in the fact that the kingdom of Judah had taken possession of all the territory of the ancient inheritance of Israel, and Josiah was endeavouring to restore all the ancient glory of the house of David over the surrounding nations (Ewald, Gesch. iii. p. 707), but solely in Josiah's conviction that Judah could not remain neutral in the war which had broken out between Egypt and Babylon, and in the hope that by attacking Necho, and frustrating his expedition to the Euphrates, he might be able to avert great distress from his own land and kingdom.

(Note: M. v. Niebuhr (Gesch. Ass. p. 364) also calls Josiah's enterprise "a perfectly correct policy. Nineveh was falling (if not already fallen), and the Syrian princes, both those who had remained independent, like Josiah, and also the vassals of Asshur, might hope that, after the fall of Nineveh, they would succeed in releasing Syria from every foreign yoke. Now well-founded this hope was, is evident from the strenuous exertions which Nabukudrussur was afterwards obliged to make, in order to effect the complete subjugation of Syria. It was therefore necessary to hinder at any price the settlement of the Egyptians now. Even though Necho assured Josiah that he was not marching against him (Ch2 35:21), Josiah knew that if once the Egyptians were lords of Coele-Syria, his independence would be gone.")

This battle is also mentioned by Herodotus (ii. 159); but he calls the place where it was fought Μάγδολον, i.e., neither Migdol, which was twelve Roman miles to the south of Pelusium (Forbiger, Hdb. d. alten Geogr. ii. p. 695), nor the perfectly apocryphal Magdala or Migdal Zebaiah mentioned by the Talmudists (Reland, Pal. p. 898,899), as Movers supposes. We might rather think with Ewald (Gesch. iii. p. 708) of the present Mejdel, to the south-east of Acca, at a northern source of the Kishon, and regard this as the place where the Egyptian camp was pitched, whereas Israel stood to the east of it, at the place still called Rummane, at Hadad-Rimmon in the valley of Megiddo, as Ewald assumes (Gesch. iii. p. 708). But even this combination is overthrown by the face that Rummane, which lies to the east of el Mejdel at the distance of a mile and three-quarters (geogr.), on the southern edge of the plain of Buttauf, cannot possibly be the Hadad-Rimmon mentioned in Zac 12:11, where king Josiah died after he had been wounded in the battle. For since Megiddo is identical with the Roman Legio, the present Lejun, as Robinson has proved (see at Jos 12:21), and as is generally admitted even by C. v. Raumer (Pal. p. 447, note, ed. 4), Hadad-Rimmon must be the same as the village of Rmmuni (Rummane), which is three-quarters of an hour to the south of Lejun, where the Scottish missionaries in the year 1839 found many ancient wells and other traces of Israelitish times (V. de Velde, R. i. p. 267; Memoir, pp. 333, 334). But this Rummane is four geographical miles distant from el Mejdel, and Mediggo three and a half, so that the battle fought at Megiddo cannot take its name from el Mejdel, which is more than three miles off. The Magdolon of Herodotus can only arise from some confusion between it and Megiddo, which was a very easy thing with the Greek pronunciation Μαγεδδώ, without there being any necessity to assume that Herodotus was thinking of the Egyptian Migdol, which is called Magdolo in the Itin. Ant. p. 171 (cf. Brugsch, Geogr. Inschriften altgypt. Denkmler, i. pp. 261,262). If, then, Josiah went to Megiddo in the plain of Esdrelom to meet the king of Egypt, and fell in with him there, there can be no doubt that Necho came by sea to Palestine and landed at Acco, as des Vignoles (Chronol. ii. p. 427) assumed.

(Note: This is favoured by the account in Herodotus (ii. 159), that Necho built ships: τριήρεες αἱ μὲν ἐπὶ τῇ βορηΐ́η θαλάσσῃ ... αἱ δὲ ἐν τῷ Ἀραβίῳ κόλπῳ (triremes in septentrionale et australe mare mittendas. Bhr) - καὶ ταυτῃσί τε ἐχρᾶτο ἐν τῷ δέοντι· καὶ Σύροισι πεζῇ ὁ Νεκὼς συμβαλὼν ἐν Μαγδόλῳ ἐνίκησε; from which we may infer that Necho carried his troops by sea to Palestine, and then fought the battle on the land. M. v. Niebuhr (Gesch. p. 365) also finds it very improbable that Necho used his fleet in this war; but he does not think it very credible "that he embarked his whole army, instead of marching them by the land route so often taken by the Egyptian army, the key of which, viz., the land of the Philistines, was at least partially subject to him," because the ὅλκαδες (ships of burden) required for the transport of a large army were hardly to be obtained in sufficient numbers in Egypt. But this difficulty, which rests upon mere conjecture, is neutralized by the fact, which M. Duncker (Gesch. i. p. 618) also adduces in support of the voyage by sea, namely, that the decisive battle with the Jews was fought to the north-west of Jerusalem, and when the Jews were defeated, the way to Jerusalem stood open for their retreat. Movers (Phniz. ii. 1, p. 420), who also imagines that Necho advanced with a large land-army towards the frontier of Palestine, has therefore transferred the battle to Magdolo on the Egyptian frontier; but he does this by means of the most arbitrary interpretation of the account given by Herodotus.)

For if the Egyptian army had marched by land through the plain of Philistia, Josiah would certainly have gone thither to meet it, and not have allowed it to advance into the plain of Megiddo without fighting a battle.

Kg2 23:30

The brief statement, "his servants carried him dead from Megiddo and brought him to Jerusalem," is given with more minuteness in the Chronicles: his servants took him, the severely wounded king, by his own command, from his chariot to his second chariot, and drove him to Jerusalem, and he died and was buried, etc. Where he died the Chronicles do not affirm; the occurrence of ויּמת after the words "they brought him to Jerusalem," does not prove that he did not die till he reached Jerusalem. If we compare Zac 12:11, where the prophet draws a parallel between the lamentation at the death of the Messiah and the lamentation of Hadad-Rimmon in the valley of Megiddo, as the deepest lamentation of the people in the olden time, with the account given in Ch2 35:25 of the lamentation of the whole nation at the death of Josiah, there can hardly be any doubt that Josiah died on the way to Jerusalem at Hadad-Rimmon, the present Rummane, to the south of Lejun (see above), and was taken to Jerusalem dead. - He was followed on the throne by his younger son Jehoahaz, whom the people (הארץ עם, as in Kg2 21:24) anointed king, passing over the elder, Eliakim, probably because they regarded him as the more able man.

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¹ And the king [04428] sent [07971], and they gathered [0622] unto him all the elders [02205] of Judah [03063] and of Jerusalem [03389].
² And the king [04428] went up [05927] into the house [01004] of the LORD [03068], and all the men [0376] of Judah [03063] and all the inhabitants [03427] of Jerusalem [03389] with him, and the priests [03548], and the prophets [05030], and all the people [05971], both small [06996] and great [01419]: and he read [07121] in their ears [0241] all the words [01697] of the book [05612] of the covenant [01285] which was found [04672] in the house [01004] of the LORD [03068].
³ And the king [04428] stood [05975] by a pillar [05982], and made [03772] a covenant [01285] before [06440] the LORD [03068], to walk [03212] after [0310] the LORD [03068], and to keep [08104] his commandments [04687] and his testimonies [05715] and his statutes [02708] with all their heart [03820] and all their soul [05315], to perform [06965] the words [01697] of this covenant [01285] that were written [03789] in this book [05612]. And all the people [05971] stood [05975] to the covenant [01285].

²⁴ And the people [05971] of the land [0776] slew [05221] all them that had conspired [07194] against king [04428] Amon [0526]; and the people [05971] of the land [0776] made Josiah [02977] his son [01121] king [04427] in his stead.

²⁵ And Jeremiah [03414] lamented [06969] for Josiah [02977]: and all the singing men [07891] and the singing women [07891] spake [0559] of Josiah [02977] in their lamentations [07015] to this day [03117], and made [05414] them an ordinance [02706] in Israel [03478]: and, behold, they are written [03789] in the lamentations [07015].

¹¹ In that day [03117] shall there be a great [01431] mourning [04553] in Jerusalem [03389], as the mourning [04553] of Hadadrimmon [01910] in the valley [01237] of Megiddon [04023].

³⁰ And his servants [05650] carried him in a chariot [07392] dead [04191] from Megiddo [04023], and brought [0935] him to Jerusalem [03389], and buried [06912] him in his own sepulchre [06900]. And the people [05971] of the land [0776] took [03947] Jehoahaz [03059] the son [01121] of Josiah [02977], and anointed [04886] him, and made him king [04427] in his father's [01] stead.

²¹ The king [04428] of Taanach [08590], one [0259]; the king [04428] of Megiddo [04023], one [0259];

¹¹ In that day [03117] shall there be a great [01431] mourning [04553] in Jerusalem [03389], as the mourning [04553] of Hadadrimmon [01910] in the valley [01237] of Megiddon [04023].

²¹ But he sent [07971] ambassadors [04397] to him, saying [0559], What have I to do with thee, thou king [04428] of Judah [03063]? I come not against thee this day [03117], but against the house [01004] wherewith I have war [04421]: for God [0430] commanded [0559] me to make haste [0926]: forbear [02308] thee from meddling with God [0430], who is with me, that he destroy [07843] thee not.

² Against Egypt [04714], against the army [02428] of Pharaohnecho [06549] king [04428] of Egypt [04714], which was by the river [05104] Euphrates [06578] in Carchemish [03751], which Nebuchadrezzar [05019] king [04428] of Babylon [0894] smote [05221] in the fourth [07243] year [08141] of Jehoiakim [03079] the son [01121] of Josiah [02977] king [04428] of Judah [03063].

²⁰ After [0310] all this, when Josiah [02977] had prepared [03559] the temple [01004], Necho [05224] king [04428] of Egypt [04714] came up [05927] to fight [03898] against Carchemish [03751] by Euphrates [06578]: and Josiah [02977] went out [03318] against [07125] him.
²¹ But he sent [07971] ambassadors [04397] to him, saying [0559], What have I to do with thee, thou king [04428] of Judah [03063]? I come not against thee this day [03117], but against the house [01004] wherewith I have war [04421]: for God [0430] commanded [0559] me to make haste [0926]: forbear [02308] thee from meddling with God [0430], who is with me, that he destroy [07843] thee not.
²² Nevertheless Josiah [02977] would not turn [05437] his face [06440] from him, but disguised [02664] himself, that he might fight [03898] with him, and hearkened [08085] not unto the words [01697] of Necho [05224] from the mouth [06310] of God [0430], and came [0935] to fight [03898] in the valley [01237] of Megiddo [04023].
²³ And the archers [03384] shot [03384] at king [04428] Josiah [02977]; and the king [04428] said [0559] to his servants [05650], Have me away [05674]; for I am sore [03966] wounded [02470].
²⁴ His servants [05650] therefore took [05674] him out of that chariot [04818], and put [07392] him in the second [04932] chariot [07393] that he had; and they brought [03212] him to Jerusalem [03389], and he died [04191], and was buried [06912] in one of the sepulchres [06913] of his fathers [01]. And all Judah [03063] and Jerusalem [03389] mourned [056] for Josiah [02977].

²⁹ In his days [03117] Pharaohnechoh [06549] king [04428] of Egypt [04714] went up [05927] against the king [04428] of Assyria [0804] to the river [05104] Euphrates [06578]: and king [04428] Josiah [02977] went [03212] against [07125] him; and he slew [04191] him at Megiddo [04023], when he had seen [07200] him.
³⁰ And his servants [05650] carried him in a chariot [07392] dead [04191] from Megiddo [04023], and brought [0935] him to Jerusalem [03389], and buried [06912] him in his own sepulchre [06900]. And the people [05971] of the land [0776] took [03947] Jehoahaz [03059] the son [01121] of Josiah [02977], and anointed [04886] him, and made him king [04427] in his father's [01] stead.

²³ Until the LORD [03068] removed [05493] Israel [03478] out of his sight [06440], as he had said [01696] by [03027] all his servants [05650] the prophets [05030]. So was Israel [03478] carried away [01540] out of their own land [0127] to Assyria [0804] unto this day [03117].

²⁰ And the LORD [03068] rejected [03988] all the seed [02233] of Israel [03478], and afflicted [06031] them, and delivered [05414] them into the hand [03027] of spoilers [08154], until he had cast [07993] them out of his sight [06440].

²⁷ And the LORD [03068] said [0559], I will remove [05493] Judah [03063] also out of my sight [06440], as I have removed [05493] Israel [03478], and will cast off [03988] this city [05892] Jerusalem [03389] which I have chosen [0977], and the house [01004] of which I said [0559], My name [08034] shall be there.
²⁸ Now the rest [03499] of the acts [01697] of Josiah [02977], and all that he did [06213], are they not written [03789] in the book [05612] of the chronicles [01697] [03117] of the kings [04428] of Judah [03063]?

¹² Therefore thus saith [0559] the LORD [03068] God [0430] of Israel [03478], Behold, I am bringing [0935] such evil [07451] upon Jerusalem [03389] and Judah [03063], that whosoever heareth [08085] of it, both [08147] his ears [0241] shall tingle [06750].

⁴ And I will cause [05414] them to be removed [02189] [02113] into all kingdoms [04467] of the earth [0776], because [01558] of Manasseh [04519] the son [01121] of Hezekiah [03169] king [04428] of Judah [03063], for that which he did [06213] in Jerusalem [03389].

³ Surely at the commandment [06310] of the LORD [03068] came this upon Judah [03063], to remove [05493] them out of his sight [06440], for the sins [02403] of Manasseh [04519], according to all that he did [06213];

²⁶ Notwithstanding the LORD [03068] turned [07725] not from the fierceness [02740] of his great [01419] wrath [0639], wherewith his anger [0639] was kindled [02734] against Judah [03063], because of all the provocations [03708] that Manasseh [04519] had provoked [03707] him withal.

¹⁵ Shalt thou reign [04427], because thou closest [08474] thyself in cedar [0730]? did not thy father [01] eat [0398] and drink [08354], and do [06213] judgment [04941] and justice [06666], and then it was well [02896] with him?
¹⁶ He judged [01777] the cause [01779] of the poor [06041] and needy [034]; then it was well [02896] with him: was not this to know [01847] me? saith [05002] the LORD [03068].

⁵ And thou shalt love [0157] the LORD [03068] thy God [0430] with all thine heart [03824], and with all thy soul [05315], and with all thy might [03966].

⁵ He trusted [0982] in the LORD [03068] God [0430] of Israel [03478]; so that after [0310] him was none like him among all the kings [04428] of Judah [03063], nor any that were before [06440] him.

²⁵ And like unto him was there no king [04428] before [06440] him, that turned [07725] to the LORD [03068] with all his heart [03824], and with all his soul [05315], and with all his might [03966], according to all the law [08451] of Moses [04872]; neither after [0310] him arose [06965] there any like him.

¹⁶ (For ye know [03045] how we have dwelt [03427] in the land [0776] of Egypt [04714]; and how we came [05674] through [07130] the nations [01471] which ye passed by [05674];

¹⁹ And Laban [03837] went [01980] to shear [01494] his sheep [06629]: and Rachel [07354] had stolen [01589] the images [08655] that were her father's [01].

⁶ And he made his son [01121] pass [05674] through the fire [0784], and observed times [06049], and used enchantments [05172], and dealt [06213] with familiar spirits [0178] and wizards [03049]: he wrought [06213] much [07235] wickedness [07451] in the sight [05869] of the LORD [03068], to provoke him to anger [03707].

²⁴ Moreover the workers with familiar spirits [0178], and the wizards [03049], and the images [08655], and the idols [01544], and all the abominations [08251] that were spied [07200] in the land [0776] of Judah [03063] and in Jerusalem [03389], did Josiah [02977] put away [01197], that he might perform [06965] the words [01697] of the law [08451] which were written [03789] in the book [05612] that Hilkiah [02518] the priest [03548] found [04672] in the house [01004] of the LORD [03068].
²⁵ And like unto him was there no king [04428] before [06440] him, that turned [07725] to the LORD [03068] with all his heart [03824], and with all his soul [05315], and with all his might [03966], according to all the law [08451] of Moses [04872]; neither after [0310] him arose [06965] there any like him.

¹⁸ And there was no passover [06453] like [03644] to that kept [06213] in Israel [03478] from the days [03117] of Samuel [08050] the prophet [05030]; neither did [06213] all the kings [04428] of Israel [03478] keep [06213] such a passover [06453] as Josiah [02977] kept [06213], and the priests [03548], and the Levites [03881], and all Judah [03063] and Israel [03478] that were present [04672], and the inhabitants [03427] of Jerusalem [03389].

¹⁷ For there were many [07227] in the congregation [06951] that were not sanctified [06942]: therefore the Levites [03881] had the charge of the killing [07821] of the passovers [06453] for every one that was not clean [02889], to sanctify [06942] them unto the LORD [03068].
¹⁸ For a multitude [04768] of the people [05971], even many [07227] of Ephraim [0669], and Manasseh [04519], Issachar [03485], and Zebulun [02074], had not [03808] cleansed [02891] themselves, yet did they eat [0398] the passover [06453] otherwise than it was written [03789]. But Hezekiah [03169] prayed [06419] for them, saying [0559], The good [02896] LORD [03068] pardon [03722] every one
¹⁹ That prepareth [03559] his heart [03824] to seek [01875] God [0430], the LORD [03068] God [0430] of his fathers [01], though he be not cleansed according to the purification [02893] of the sanctuary [06944].
²⁰ And the LORD [03068] hearkened [08085] to Hezekiah [03169], and healed [07495] the people [05971].

² For the king [04428] had taken counsel [03289], and his princes [08269], and all the congregation [06951] in Jerusalem [03389], to keep [06213] the passover [06453] in the second [08145] month [02320].
³ For they could [03201] not keep [06213] it at that time [06256], because the priests [03548] had not sanctified [06942] themselves sufficiently [04078] [01767], neither had the people [05971] gathered themselves together [0622] to Jerusalem [03389].

²² Surely there was not holden [06213] such a passover [06453] from the days [03117] of the judges [08199] that judged [08199] Israel [03478], nor in all the days [03117] of the kings [04428] of Israel [03478], nor of the kings [04428] of Judah [03063];

²¹ And the king [04428] commanded [06680] all the people [05971], saying [0559], Keep [06213] the passover [06453] unto the LORD [03068] your God [0430], as it is written [03789] in the book [05612] of this covenant [01285].
²² Surely there was not holden [06213] such a passover [06453] from the days [03117] of the judges [08199] that judged [08199] Israel [03478], nor in all the days [03117] of the kings [04428] of Israel [03478], nor of the kings [04428] of Judah [03063];
²³ But in the eighteenth [08083] [06240] year [08141] of king [04428] Josiah [02977], wherein this passover [06453] was holden [06213] to the LORD [03068] in Jerusalem [03389].

⁹ Nevertheless the priests [03548] of the high places [01116] came not up [05927] to the altar [04196] of the LORD [03068] in Jerusalem [03389], but they did eat [0398] of the unleavened bread [04682] among [08432] their brethren [0251].

⁸ And he brought [0935] all the priests [03548] out of the cities [05892] of Judah [03063], and defiled [02930] the high places [01116] where the priests [03548] had burned incense [06999], from Geba [01387] to Beersheba [0884], and brake down [05422] the high places [01116] of the gates [08179] that were in the entering in [06607] of the gate [08179] of Joshua [03091] the governor [08269] of the city [05892], which were on a man's [0376] left hand [08040] at the gate [08179] of the city [05892].

¹⁹ And all the houses [01004] also of the high places [01116] that were in the cities [05892] of Samaria [08111], which the kings [04428] of Israel [03478] had made [06213] to provoke the LORD to anger [03707], Josiah [02977] took away [05493], and did [06213] to them according to all the acts [04639] that he had done [06213] in Bethel [01008].
²⁰ And he slew [02076] all the priests [03548] of the high places [01116] that were there upon the altars [04196], and burned [08313] men's [0120] bones [06106] upon them, and returned [07725] to Jerusalem [03389].

¹⁸ And he said [0559], Let him alone [03240]; let no man [0376] move [05128] his bones [06106]. So they let his bones [06106] alone [04422], with the bones [06106] of the prophet [05030] that came out [0935] of Samaria [08111].

¹⁶ And as Josiah [02977] turned [06437] himself, he spied [07200] the sepulchres [06913] that were there in the mount [02022], and sent [07971], and took [03947] the bones [06106] out of the sepulchres [06913], and burned [08313] them upon the altar [04196], and polluted [02930] it, according to the word [01697] of the LORD [03068] which the man [0376] of God [0430] proclaimed [07121], who proclaimed [07121] these words [01697].
¹⁷ Then he said [0559], What title [06725] is that [01975] that I see [07200]? And the men [0582] of the city [05892] told [0559] him, It is the sepulchre [06913] of the man [0376] of God [0430], which came [0935] from Judah [03063], and proclaimed [07121] these things [01697] that thou hast done [06213] against the altar [04196] of Bethel [01008].
¹⁸ And he said [0559], Let him alone [03240]; let no man [0376] move [05128] his bones [06106]. So they let his bones [06106] alone [04422], with the bones [06106] of the prophet [05030] that came out [0935] of Samaria [08111].

¹¹ Now there dwelt [03427] an [0259] old [02205] prophet [05030] in Bethel [01008]; and his sons [01121] came [0935] and told [05608] him all the works [04639] that the man [0376] of God [0430] had done [06213] that day [03117] in Bethel [01008]: the words [01697] which he had spoken [01696] unto the king [04428], them they told [05608] also to their father [01].

²⁶ And when the prophet [05030] that brought him back [07725] from the way [01870] heard [08085] thereof, he said [0559], It is the man [0376] of God [0430], who was disobedient [04784] unto the word [06310] of the LORD [03068]: therefore the LORD [03068] hath delivered [05414] him unto the lion [0738], which hath torn [07665] him, and slain [04191] him, according to the word [01697] of the LORD [03068], which he spake [01696] unto him.
²⁷ And he spake [01696] to his sons [01121], saying [0559], Saddle [02280] me the ass [02543]. And they saddled [02280] him.
²⁸ And he went [03212] and found [04672] his carcase [05038] cast [07993] in the way [01870], and the ass [02543] and the lion [0738] standing [05975] by [0681] the carcase [05038]: the lion [0738] had not eaten [0398] the carcase [05038], nor torn [07665] the ass [02543].
²⁹ And the prophet [05030] took up [05375] the carcase [05038] of the man [0376] of God [0430], and laid [03240] it upon the ass [02543], and brought it back [07725]: and the old [02205] prophet [05030] came [0935] to the city [05892], to mourn [05594] and to bury [06912] him.
³⁰ And he laid [03240] his carcase [05038] in his own grave [06913]; and they mourned [05594] over him, saying, Alas [01945], my brother [0251]!
³¹ And it came to pass, after [0310] he had buried [06912] him, that he spake [0559] to his sons [01121], saying [0559], When I am dead [04191], then bury [06912] me in the sepulchre [06913] wherein the man [0376] of God [0430] is buried [06912]; lay [03240] my bones [06106] beside [0681] his bones [06106]:
³² For the saying [01697] which he cried [07121] by the word [01697] of the LORD [03068] against the altar [04196] in Bethel [01008], and against all the houses [01004] of the high places [01116] which are in the cities [05892] of Samaria [08111], shall surely come to pass.

²⁹ Howbeit every nation [01471] made [06213] gods [0430] of their own, and put [03240] them in the houses [01004] of the high places [01116] which the Samaritans [08118] had made [06213], every nation [01471] in their cities [05892] wherein they dwelt [03427].

⁵ The inhabitants [07934] of Samaria [08111] shall fear [01481] because of the calves [05697] of Bethaven [01007]: for the people [05971] thereof shall mourn [056] over it, and the priests [03649] thereof that rejoiced [01523] on it, for the glory [03519] thereof, because it is departed [01540] from it.
⁶ It shall be also carried [02986] unto Assyria [0804] for a present [04503] to king [04428] Jareb [03377]: Ephraim [0669] shall receive [03947] shame [01317], and Israel [03478] shall be ashamed [0954] of his own counsel [06098].

² Then they came [05066] to Zerubbabel [02216], and to the chief [07218] of the fathers [01], and said [0559] unto them, Let us build [01129] with you: for we seek [01875] your God [0430], as ye do; and we do sacrifice [02076] unto him since the days [03117] of Esarhaddon [0634] king [04428] of Assur [0804], which brought us up hither [05927].

⁹ And when they came [0935] to Hilkiah [02518] the high [01419] priest [03548], they delivered [05414] the money [03701] that was brought [0935] into the house [01004] of God [0430], which the Levites [03881] that kept [08104] the doors [05592] had gathered [0622] of the hand [03027] of Manasseh [04519] and Ephraim [0669], and of all the remnant [07611] of Israel [03478], and of all Judah [03063] and Benjamin [01144]; and they returned [07725] [03427] to Jerusalem [03389].

¹⁵ Moreover the altar [04196] that was at Bethel [01008], and the high place [01116] which Jeroboam [03379] the son [01121] of Nebat [05028], who made Israel [03478] to sin [02398], had made [06213], both that altar [04196] and the high place [01116] he brake down [05422], and burned [08313] the high place [01116], and stamped [01854] it small to powder [06083], and burned [08313] the grove [0842].
¹⁶ And as Josiah [02977] turned [06437] himself, he spied [07200] the sepulchres [06913] that were there in the mount [02022], and sent [07971], and took [03947] the bones [06106] out of the sepulchres [06913], and burned [08313] them upon the altar [04196], and polluted [02930] it, according to the word [01697] of the LORD [03068] which the man [0376] of God [0430] proclaimed [07121], who proclaimed [07121] these words [01697].
¹⁷ Then he said [0559], What title [06725] is that [01975] that I see [07200]? And the men [0582] of the city [05892] told [0559] him, It is the sepulchre [06913] of the man [0376] of God [0430], which came [0935] from Judah [03063], and proclaimed [07121] these things [01697] that thou hast done [06213] against the altar [04196] of Bethel [01008].
¹⁸ And he said [0559], Let him alone [03240]; let no man [0376] move [05128] his bones [06106]. So they let his bones [06106] alone [04422], with the bones [06106] of the prophet [05030] that came out [0935] of Samaria [08111].
¹⁹ And all the houses [01004] also of the high places [01116] that were in the cities [05892] of Samaria [08111], which the kings [04428] of Israel [03478] had made [06213] to provoke the LORD to anger [03707], Josiah [02977] took away [05493], and did [06213] to them according to all the acts [04639] that he had done [06213] in Bethel [01008].
²⁰ And he slew [02076] all the priests [03548] of the high places [01116] that were there upon the altars [04196], and burned [08313] men's [0120] bones [06106] upon them, and returned [07725] to Jerusalem [03389].

²³ For they also built [01129] them high places [01116], and images [04676], and groves [0842], on every high [01364] hill [01389], and under every green [07488] tree [06086].

⁷ Then did Solomon [08010] build [01129] an high place [01116] for Chemosh [03645], the abomination [08251] of Moab [04124], in the hill [02022] that is before [06440] Jerusalem [03389], and for Molech [04432], the abomination [08251] of the children [01121] of Ammon [05983].

¹³ And the high places [01116] that were before [06440] Jerusalem [03389], which were on the right hand [03225] of the mount [02022] of corruption [04889], which Solomon [08010] the king [04428] of Israel [03478] had builded [01129] for Ashtoreth [06253] the abomination [08251] of the Zidonians [06722], and for Chemosh [03645] the abomination [08251] of the Moabites [04124], and for Milcom [04445] the abomination [08441] of the children [01121] of Ammon [05983], did the king [04428] defile [02930].

¹⁴ And he brake in pieces [07665] the images [04676], and cut down [03772] the groves [0842], and filled [04390] their places [04725] with the bones [06106] of men [0120].

¹⁶ And whosoever toucheth [05060] one that is slain [02491] with a sword [02719] in the open [06440] fields [07704], or a dead body [04191], or a bone [06106] of a man [0120], or a grave [06913], shall be unclean [02930] seven [07651] days [03117].

⁶ And he brought out [03318] the grove [0842] from the house [01004] of the LORD [03068], without [02351] Jerusalem [03389], unto the brook [05158] Kidron [06939], and burned [08313] it at the brook [05158] Kidron [06939], and stamped it small [01854] to powder [06083], and cast [07993] the powder [06083] thereof upon the graves [06913] of the children [01121] of the people [05971].

⁵ And he built [01129] altars [04196] for all the host [06635] of heaven [08064] in the two [08147] courts [02691] of the house [01004] of the LORD [03068].

⁴ And I brought [0935] them into the house [01004] of the LORD [03068], into the chamber [03957] of the sons [01121] of Hanan [02605], the son [01121] of Igdaliah [03012], a man [0376] of God [0430], which was by [0681] the chamber [03957] of the princes [08269], which was above [04605] the chamber [03957] of Maaseiah [04641] the son [01121] of Shallum [07967], the keeper [08104] of the door [05592]:

¹⁸ And the covert [04329] [04329] for the sabbath [07676] that they had built [01129] in the house [01004], and the king's [04428] entry [03996] without [02435], turned [05437] he from the house [01004] of the LORD [03068] for [06440] the king [04428] of Assyria [0804].

¹¹ And he took away [07673] the horses [05483] that the kings [04428] of Judah [03063] had given [05414] to the sun [08121], at the entering in [0935] of the house [01004] of the LORD [03068], by the chamber [03957] of Nathanmelech [05419] the chamberlain [05631], which was in the suburbs [06503], and burned [08313] the chariots [04818] of the sun [08121] with fire [0784].

²⁹ And the Chaldeans [03778], that fight [03898] against this city [05892], shall come [0935] and set [03341] fire [0784] on this city [05892], and burn [08313] it with the houses [01004], upon whose roofs [01406] they have offered incense [06999] unto Baal [01168], and poured out [05258] drink offerings [05262] unto other [0312] gods [0430], to provoke me to anger [03707].

¹³ And the houses [01004] of Jerusalem [03389], and the houses [01004] of the kings [04428] of Judah [03063], shall be defiled [02931] as the place [04725] of Tophet [08612], because of all the houses [01004] upon whose roofs [01406] they have burned incense [06999] unto all the host [06635] of heaven [08064], and have poured out [05258] drink offerings [05262] unto other [0312] gods [0430].

⁵ And them that worship [07812] the host [06635] of heaven [08064] upon the housetops [01406]; and them that worship [07812] and that swear [07650] by the LORD [03068], and that swear [07650] by Malcham [04428];

¹² And the altars [04196] that were on the top [01406] of the upper chamber [05944] of Ahaz [0271], which the kings [04428] of Judah [03063] had made [06213], and the altars [04196] which Manasseh [04519] had made [06213] in the two [08147] courts [02691] of the house [01004] of the LORD [03068], did the king [04428] beat down [05422], and brake them down [07323] from thence, and cast [07993] the dust [06083] of them into the brook [05158] Kidron [06939].

¹⁸ At Parbar [06503] westward [04628], four [0702] at the causeway [04546], and two [08147] at Parbar [06503].

¹⁶ To Shuppim [08206] and Hosah [02621] the lot came forth westward [04628], with the gate [08179] Shallecheth [07996], by the causeway [04546] of the going up [05927], ward [04929] against [05980] ward [04929].

¹⁸ At Parbar [06503] westward [04628], four [0702] at the causeway [04546], and two [08147] at Parbar [06503].

²⁶ For these Levites [03881], the four [0702] chief [01368] porters [07778], were in their set office [0530], and were over the chambers [03957] and treasuries [0214] of the house [01004] of God [0430].

³⁸ And the priest [03548] the son [01121] of Aaron [0175] shall be with the Levites [03881], when the Levites [03881] take tithes [06237]: and the Levites [03881] shall bring up [05927] the tithe [04643] of the tithes [04643] unto the house [01004] of our God [0430], to the chambers [03957], into the treasure [0214] house [01004].

⁸ And the border [01366] went up [05927] by the valley [01516] of the son [01121] of Hinnom [02011] unto the south [05045] side [03802] of the Jebusite [02983]; the same is Jerusalem [03389]: and the border [01366] went up [05927] to the top [07218] of the mountain [02022] that lieth before [06440] the valley [01516] of Hinnom [02011] westward [03220], which is at the end [07097] of the valley [06010] of the giants [07497] northward [06828]:

²⁹ And [1161] if [1487] thy [4675] right [1188] eye [3788] offend [4624] thee [4571], pluck [1807] it [846] out [1807], and [2532] cast [906] it from [575] thee [4675]: for [1063] it is profitable [4851] for thee [4671] that [2443] one [1520] of thy [4675] members [3196] should perish [622], and [2532] not [3361] that thy [4675] whole [3650] body [4983] should be cast [906] into [1519] hell [1067].

²² But [1161] I [1473] say [3004] unto you [5213], That [3754] whosoever [3956] is angry [3710] with his [846] brother [80] without a cause [1500] shall be [2071] in danger [1777] of the judgment [2920]: and [1161] whosoever [3739] [302] shall say [2036] to his [846] brother [80], Raca [4469], shall be [2071] in danger [1777] of the council [4892]: but [1161] whosoever [3739] [302] shall say [2036], Thou fool [3474], shall be [2071] in danger [1777] of [1519] hell [1067] fire [4442].

³¹ And they have built [01129] the high places [01116] of Tophet [08612], which is in the valley [01516] of the son [01121] of Hinnom [02011], to burn [08313] their sons [01121] and their daughters [01323] in the fire [0784]; which I commanded [06680] them not, neither came [05927] it into my heart [03820].

⁶ He hath made [03322] me also a byword [04914] of the people [05971]; and aforetime [06440] I was as a tabret [08611].

¹⁰ And he defiled [02930] Topheth [08612], which is in the valley [01516] of the children [01121] [01121] of Hinnom [02011], that no man [0376] might make his son [01121] or his daughter [01323] to pass through [05674] the fire [0784] to Molech [04432].

¹⁷ Speak [01696] unto Aaron [0175], saying [0559], Whosoever [0376] he be of thy seed [02233] in their generations [01755] that hath any blemish [03971], let him not approach [07126] to offer [07126] the bread [03899] of his God [0430].
¹⁸ For whatsoever man [0376] he be that hath a blemish [03971], he shall not approach [07126]: a blind [05787] man [0376], or a lame [06455], or he that hath a flat nose [02763], or any thing superfluous [08311],
¹⁹ Or a man [0376] that is brokenfooted [07667] [07272], or brokenhanded [07667] [03027],
²⁰ Or crookbackt [01384], or a dwarf [01851], or that hath a blemish [08400] in his eye [05869], or be scurvy [01618], or scabbed [03217], or hath his stones [0810] broken [04790];
²¹ No man [0376] that hath a blemish [03971] of the seed [02233] of Aaron [0175] the priest [03548] shall come nigh [05066] to offer [07126] the offerings [0801] of the LORD [03068] made by fire [0801]: he hath a blemish [03971]; he shall not come nigh [05066] to offer [07126] the bread [03899] of his God [0430].
²² He shall eat [0398] the bread [03899] of his God [0430], both of the most [06944] holy [06944], and of the holy [06944].

²² And the priest [03548] of his sons [01121] that is anointed [04899] in his stead shall offer [06213] it: it is a statute [02706] for ever [05769] unto the LORD [03068]; it shall be wholly [03632] burnt [06999].

⁹ Command [06680] Aaron [0175] and his sons [01121], saying [0559], This is the law [08451] of the burnt offering [05930]: It is the burnt offering [05930], because of the burning [04169] upon the altar [04196] all night [03915] unto the morning [01242], and the fire [0784] of the altar [04196] shall be burning [03344] in it.
¹⁰ And the priest [03548] shall put [03847] on his linen [0906] garment [04055], and his linen [0906] breeches [04370] shall he put [03847] upon his flesh [01320], and take up [07311] the ashes [01880] which the fire [0784] hath consumed [0398] with the burnt offering [05930] on the altar [04196], and he shall put [07760] them beside [0681] the altar [04196].

³¹ Wherefore he called [07121] that place [04725] Beersheba [0884]; because there they sware [07650] both of them [08147].

²⁴ And Chepharhaammonai [03726], and Ophni [06078], and Gaba [01387]; twelve [08147] [06240] cities [05892] with their villages [02691]:

³⁰ And the men [0582] of Babylon [0894] made [06213] Succothbenoth [05524], and the men [0582] of Cuth [03575] made [06213] Nergal [05370], and the men [0582] of Hamath [02574] made [06213] Ashima [0807],

²⁴ And there were also sodomites [06945] in the land [0776]: and they did [06213] according to all the abominations [08441] of the nations [01471] which the LORD [03068] cast out [03423] before [06440] the children [01121] of Israel [03478].

⁷ And he brake down [05422] the houses [01004] of the sodomites [06945], that were by the house [01004] of the LORD [03068], where the women [0802] wove [0707] hangings [01004] for the grove [0842].

²³ And they fetched forth [03318] Urijah [0223] out of Egypt [04714], and brought [0935] him unto Jehoiakim [03079] the king [04428]; who slew [05221] him with the sword [02719], and cast [07993] his dead body [05038] into the graves [06913] of the common [01121] people [05971].

¹⁶ And the priests [03548] went [0935] into the inner part [06441] of the house [01004] of the LORD [03068], to cleanse [02891] it, and brought out [03318] all the uncleanness [02932] that they found [04672] in the temple [01964] of the LORD [03068] into the court [02691] of the house [01004] of the LORD [03068]. And the Levites [03881] took [06901] it, to carry it out [03318] abroad [02351] into the brook [05158] Kidron [06939].

¹³ And also Maachah [04601] his mother [0517], even her he removed [05493] from being queen [01377], because she had made [06213] an idol [04656] in a grove [0842]; and Asa [0609] destroyed [03772] her idol [04656], and burnt [08313] it by the brook [05158] Kidron [06939].

¹⁰ Now therefore let me alone [03240], that my wrath [0639] may wax hot [02734] against them, and that I may consume [03615] them: and I will make [06213] of thee a great [01419] nation [01471].

¹⁵ And he took away [05493] the strange [05236] gods [0430], and the idol [05566] out of the house [01004] of the LORD [03068], and all the altars [04196] that he had built [01129] in the mount [02022] of the house [01004] of the LORD [03068], and in Jerusalem [03389], and cast [07993] them out [02351] of the city [05892].

⁷ And he set [07760] a graven image [06459] of the grove [0842] that he had made [06213] in the house [01004], of which the LORD [03068] said [0559] to David [01732], and to Solomon [08010] his son [01121], In this house [01004], and in Jerusalem [03389], which I have chosen [0977] out of all tribes [07626] of Israel [03478], will I put [07760] my name [08034] for ever [05769]:

³ For he built up [01129] again [07725] the high places [01116] which Hezekiah [02396] his father [01] had destroyed [06]; and he reared up [06965] altars [04196] for Baal [01168], and made [06213] a grove [0842], as did [06213] Ahab [0256] king [04428] of Israel [03478]; and worshipped [07812] all the host [06635] of heaven [08064], and served [05647] them.

³² Canst thou bring forth [03318] Mazzaroth [04216] in his season [06256]? or canst thou guide [05148] Arcturus [05906] with his sons [01121]?

⁴ I will also stretch out [05186] mine hand [03027] upon Judah [03063], and upon all the inhabitants [03427] of Jerusalem [03389]; and I will cut off [03772] the remnant [07605] of Baal [01168] from this place [04725], and the name [08034] of the Chemarims [03649] with the priests [03548];

⁴ Be ye not as your fathers [01], unto whom the former [07223] prophets [05030] have cried [07121], saying [0559], Thus saith [0559] the LORD [03068] of hosts [06635]; Turn [07725] ye now from your evil [07451] ways [01870], and from your evil [07451] doings [04611]: but they did not hear [08085], nor hearken [07181] unto me, saith [05002] the LORD [03068].

⁵ And he put down [07673] the idolatrous priests [03649], whom the kings [04428] of Judah [03063] had ordained [05414] to burn incense [06999] in the high places [01116] in the cities [05892] of Judah [03063], and in the places round about [04524] Jerusalem [03389]; them also that burned incense [06999] unto Baal [01168], to the sun [08121], and to the moon [03394], and to the planets [04208], and to all the host [06635] of heaven [08064].

²⁵ The graven images [06456] of their gods [0430] shall ye burn [08313] with fire [0784]: thou shalt not desire [02530] the silver [03701] or gold [02091] that is on them, nor take [03947] it unto thee, lest thou be snared [03369] therein: for it is an abomination [08441] to the LORD [03068] thy God [0430].

⁵ Moreover four [0702] thousand [0505] were porters [07778]; and four [0702] thousand [0505] praised [01984] the LORD [03068] with the instruments [03627] which I made [06213], said David, to praise [01984] therewith.

⁴ Go up [05927] to Hilkiah [02518] the high [01419] priest [03548], that he may sum [08552] the silver [03701] which is brought [0935] into the house [01004] of the LORD [03068], which the keepers [08104] of the door [05592] have gathered [0622] of the people [05971]:

⁴ And the king [04428] commanded [06680] Hilkiah [02518] the high [01419] priest [03548], and the priests [03548] of the second order [04932], and the keepers [08104] of the door [05592], to bring forth [03318] out of the temple [01964] of the LORD [03068] all the vessels [03627] that were made [06213] for Baal [01168], and for the grove [0842], and for all the host [06635] of heaven [08064]: and he burned [08313] them without [02351] Jerusalem [03389] in the fields [07709] of Kidron [06939], and carried [05375] the ashes [06083] of them unto Bethel [01008].
⁵ And he put down [07673] the idolatrous priests [03649], whom the kings [04428] of Judah [03063] had ordained [05414] to burn incense [06999] in the high places [01116] in the cities [05892] of Judah [03063], and in the places round about [04524] Jerusalem [03389]; them also that burned incense [06999] unto Baal [01168], to the sun [08121], and to the moon [03394], and to the planets [04208], and to all the host [06635] of heaven [08064].
⁶ And he brought out [03318] the grove [0842] from the house [01004] of the LORD [03068], without [02351] Jerusalem [03389], unto the brook [05158] Kidron [06939], and burned [08313] it at the brook [05158] Kidron [06939], and stamped it small [01854] to powder [06083], and cast [07993] the powder [06083] thereof upon the graves [06913] of the children [01121] of the people [05971].
⁷ And he brake down [05422] the houses [01004] of the sodomites [06945], that were by the house [01004] of the LORD [03068], where the women [0802] wove [0707] hangings [01004] for the grove [0842].
⁸ And he brought [0935] all the priests [03548] out of the cities [05892] of Judah [03063], and defiled [02930] the high places [01116] where the priests [03548] had burned incense [06999], from Geba [01387] to Beersheba [0884], and brake down [05422] the high places [01116] of the gates [08179] that were in the entering in [06607] of the gate [08179] of Joshua [03091] the governor [08269] of the city [05892], which were on a man's [0376] left hand [08040] at the gate [08179] of the city [05892].
⁹ Nevertheless the priests [03548] of the high places [01116] came not up [05927] to the altar [04196] of the LORD [03068] in Jerusalem [03389], but they did eat [0398] of the unleavened bread [04682] among [08432] their brethren [0251].
¹⁰ And he defiled [02930] Topheth [08612], which is in the valley [01516] of the children [01121] [01121] of Hinnom [02011], that no man [0376] might make his son [01121] or his daughter [01323] to pass through [05674] the fire [0784] to Molech [04432].
¹¹ And he took away [07673] the horses [05483] that the kings [04428] of Judah [03063] had given [05414] to the sun [08121], at the entering in [0935] of the house [01004] of the LORD [03068], by the chamber [03957] of Nathanmelech [05419] the chamberlain [05631], which was in the suburbs [06503], and burned [08313] the chariots [04818] of the sun [08121] with fire [0784].
¹² And the altars [04196] that were on the top [01406] of the upper chamber [05944] of Ahaz [0271], which the kings [04428] of Judah [03063] had made [06213], and the altars [04196] which Manasseh [04519] had made [06213] in the two [08147] courts [02691] of the house [01004] of the LORD [03068], did the king [04428] beat down [05422], and brake them down [07323] from thence, and cast [07993] the dust [06083] of them into the brook [05158] Kidron [06939].
¹³ And the high places [01116] that were before [06440] Jerusalem [03389], which were on the right hand [03225] of the mount [02022] of corruption [04889], which Solomon [08010] the king [04428] of Israel [03478] had builded [01129] for Ashtoreth [06253] the abomination [08251] of the Zidonians [06722], and for Chemosh [03645] the abomination [08251] of the Moabites [04124], and for Milcom [04445] the abomination [08441] of the children [01121] of Ammon [05983], did the king [04428] defile [02930].
¹⁴ And he brake in pieces [07665] the images [04676], and cut down [03772] the groves [0842], and filled [04390] their places [04725] with the bones [06106] of men [0120].

³ For in the eighth [08083] year [08141] of his reign [04427], while he was yet young [05288], he began [02490] to seek [01875] after the God [0430] of David [01732] his father [01]: and in the twelfth [08147] [06240] year [08141] he began [02490] to purge [02891] Judah [03063] and Jerusalem [03389] from the high places [01116], and the groves [0842], and the carved images [06456], and the molten images [04541].
⁴ And they brake down [05422] the altars [04196] of Baalim [01168] in his presence [06440]; and the images [02553], that were on high above them [04605], he cut down [01438]; and the groves [0842], and the carved images [06456], and the molten images [04541], he brake in pieces [07665], and made dust [01854] of them, and strowed [02236] it upon [06440] the graves [06913] of them that had sacrificed [02076] unto them.
⁵ And he burnt [08313] the bones [06106] of the priests [03548] upon their altars [04196], and cleansed [02891] Judah [03063] and Jerusalem [03389].
⁶ And so did he in the cities [05892] of Manasseh [04519], and Ephraim [0669], and Simeon [08095], even unto Naphtali [05321], with their mattocks [02719] round about [05439].
⁷ And when he had broken down [05422] the altars [04196] and the groves [0842], and had beaten [03807] the graven images [06456] into powder [01854], and cut down [01438] all the idols [02553] throughout all the land [0776] of Israel [03478], he returned [07725] to Jerusalem [03389].

³ From the thirteenth [07969] [06240] year [08141] of Josiah [02977] the son [01121] of Amon [0526] king [04428] of Judah [03063], even unto this day [03117], that is the three [07969] and twentieth [06242] year [08141], the word [01697] of the LORD [03068] hath come unto me, and I have spoken [01696] unto you, rising early [07925] and speaking [01696]; but ye have not hearkened [08085].

⁹ And the LORD [03068] said [0559] unto me, A conspiracy [07195] is found [04672] among the men [0376] of Judah [03063], and among the inhabitants [03427] of Jerusalem [03389].
¹⁰ They are turned back [07725] to the iniquities [05771] of their forefathers [07223] [01], which refused [03985] to hear [08085] my words [01697]; and they went [01980] after [0310] other [0312] gods [0430] to serve [05647] them: the house [01004] of Israel [03478] and the house [01004] of Judah [03063] have broken [06565] my covenant [01285] which I made [03772] with their fathers [01].

³ And keep [08104] the charge [04931] of the LORD [03068] thy God [0430], to walk [03212] in his ways [01870], to keep [08104] his statutes [02708], and his commandments [04687], and his judgments [04941], and his testimonies [05715], as it is written [03789] in the law [08451] of Moses [04872], that thou mayest prosper [07919] in all that thou doest [06213], and whithersoever thou turnest [06437] thyself:

¹⁷ And Jehoiada [03077] made [03772] a covenant [01285] between the LORD [03068] and the king [04428] and the people [05971], that they should be the LORD'S [03068] people [05971]; between the king [04428] also and the people [05971].

¹⁴ And when she looked [07200], behold, the king [04428] stood [05975] by a pillar [05982], as the manner [04941] was, and the princes [08269] and the trumpeters [02689] by the king [04428], and all the people [05971] of the land [0776] rejoiced [08056], and blew [08628] with trumpets [02689]: and Athaliah [06271] rent [07167] her clothes [0899], and cried [07121], Treason [07195], Treason [07195].

³ And the king [04428] stood [05975] by a pillar [05982], and made [03772] a covenant [01285] before [06440] the LORD [03068], to walk [03212] after [0310] the LORD [03068], and to keep [08104] his commandments [04687] and his testimonies [05715] and his statutes [02708] with all their heart [03820] and all their soul [05315], to perform [06965] the words [01697] of this covenant [01285] that were written [03789] in this book [05612]. And all the people [05971] stood [05975] to the covenant [01285].

⁹ And Moses [04872] wrote [03789] this law [08451], and delivered [05414] it unto the priests [03548] the sons [01121] of Levi [03878], which bare [05375] the ark [0727] of the covenant [01285] of the LORD [03068], and unto all the elders [02205] of Israel [03478].

²⁹ Then the king [04428] sent [07971] and gathered together [0622] all the elders [02205] of Judah [03063] and Jerusalem [03389].
³⁰ And the king [04428] went up [05927] into the house [01004] of the LORD [03068], and all the men [0376] of Judah [03063], and the inhabitants [03427] of Jerusalem [03389], and the priests [03548], and the Levites [03881], and all the people [05971], great [01419] and small [06996]: and he read [07121] in their ears [0241] all the words [01697] of the book [05612] of the covenant [01285] that was found [04672] in the house [01004] of the LORD [03068].
³¹ And the king [04428] stood [05975] in his place [05977], and made [03772] a covenant [01285] before [06440] the LORD [03068], to walk [03212] after [0310] the LORD [03068], and to keep [08104] his commandments [04687], and his testimonies [05715], and his statutes [02706], with all his heart [03824], and with all his soul [05315], to perform [06213] the words [01697] of the covenant [01285] which are written [03789] in this book [05612].
³² And he caused all that were present [04672] in Jerusalem [03389] and Benjamin [01144] to stand [05975] to it. And the inhabitants [03427] of Jerusalem [03389] did [06213] according to the covenant [01285] of God [0430], the God [0430] of their fathers [01].