Useful Bible Studies > 2 Kings Commentary > chapter 23
Josiah had begun to destroy wrong places of religion and the images of false gods in the 12th year of his rule (2 Chronicles 34:3). Judah’s people made their covenant, their serious promise to obey God, in the 18th year of his rule (22:3). So, the author now describes all his work to destroy false religions during his rule. Probably, his efforts became stronger after the people had made their covenant. Now that they had promised to serve only the true God, they allowed Josiah to act against all their wrong religions.
Those efforts had to begin in the temple, the sacred house of God in Jerusalem. Although that place was very holy, previous kings had allowed and encouraged its use for wrong religions. Josiah’s grandfather Manasseh was an especially wicked king, but he later turned back to God. At that time, Manasseh removed the images of false gods that he had placed in the temple (2 Chronicles 33:15). So, it seems that Amon, Josiah’s father, had put these images back into the temple. Josiah had to order the chief priest to remove all the objects that belonged to false religions. It seems that there were very many such objects.
Josiah showed complete disgust for these objects. He did not care whether those objects were beautiful or precious. While those objects still existed, they gave the people an excuse not to be loyal to the true God. So, Josiah told the priests to burn them up. As these were unholy objects, Josiah would not even allow them to burn these objects inside Jerusalem. Instead, they had to burn the objects in an unholy place, away from the city where God’s people lived. They took the ashes to Bethel, where Jeroboam had established his wrong religion (23:15). There, they scattered the ashes, in order to show that Jeroboam’s religion also was unholy.
Next part: The priests of false gods at the high places (2 Kings 23:5)
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