Useful Bible Studies > 2 Kings Commentary > chapter 23
God’s law commanded Israel’s people to serve him at his house, the temple in Jerusalem. They must not use for their religion the high places, in the hills. At those places the former inhabitants of their land had prayed to their false gods. If Israel’s people prayed at those high places, they would soon start to serve those false gods (Deuteronomy 12:1-14).
Several of Judah’s kings decided, like Josiah, to destroy those high places where people served false gods (23:5). However, few kings were bold enough to act against those high places where the priests were serving the true God. It was clearly against God’s command for them to carry out public acts of religion in such places.
The priests who were doing this, were from the family of Aaron. So, by God’s law, they had a proper right to act as priests. Josiah saw that he must stop this wrong behaviour. So, he ordered the priests to leave the high places. He destroyed their altars, the stone platforms where they offered gifts to God by fire. He carried out ceremonies to declare that these places were unholy. He did this in the hills and also at other places, for example by the city gates of Jerusalem. There too, the priests had served God in places that he (God) had not chosen.
Josiah realised that the priests of such places had acted wrongly. So, he would not allow them to join in the public ceremonies at the temple, God’s house in Jerusalem. Instead, he would only permit them privately to eat the food that God had provided for the priests and their families. So, Josiah declared them to be like the priests who could not serve God in public because of a physical illness (Leviticus 21:16-23).
Next part: Actions against Molech and the sun god (2 Kings 23:10-11)
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