2 Kings 23:4 - Joseph Benson’s Commentary on the Old and New Testaments

The king commanded Hilkiah and the priests of the second order Either those two who were next in degree to the high-priest, and in case of sickness were to manage his work; or the heads of the twenty-four courses which David had appointed. To bring forth out of the temple Or to take care they should be brought forth. All the vessels made for Baal So that, even in the house of the Lord, the sacred temple built by Solomon, and dedicated to the honour and worship of the God of Israel, were found vessels, and all manner of utensils, for the worship of Baal, for the grove, and all the host of heaven It appears, therefore, that although Josiah had suppressed the worship of idols, yet the provisions made for that worship were carefully preserved by some persons in power, even in the temple itself, to be used again whenever the present restraint should be taken off: nay, even the image of the grove, probably Ashtaroth or Venus, was yet kept standing in the temple. How Josiah could suffer all this, till the eighteenth year of his reign, is difficult to say; perhaps it was done without his knowledge. He now, however, gives orders that all these instruments of idolatry should be burned, in the fields adjoining to the brook Kidron; and that the ashes of them should be carried out of his kingdom to Beth-el: in token of his abhorrence of every species of idolatry, and to pollute and disgrace that place which had been the chief seat and throne of it.