2 Kings 23:6 - Joseph Benson’s Commentary on the Old and New Testaments

And cast the powder thereof upon the graves By the law, a ceremonial uncleanness was contracted by the touch of a grave, so that by casting these ashes here, he declared them most impure, and that none could touch them without making themselves unclean thereby. The Chaldee renders it, He cast it into the graves, to signify that he would have all idolatry buried out of his sight, as a loathsome thing. Of the children of the people The common people, whose graves were made together in some common place, which was generally accounted very impure and contemptible, and therefore a fit place for this filth to be thrown into. But the Hebrew here is more properly rendered, Of that people; that is, those idolatrous people, as it is expressed 2 Chronicles 34:4.