2 Kings 23:1-15 - Arthur Peake's Commentary on the Bible

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Bible Comments

2 Kings 23:3. by the pillar. covenant: for the word pillar see 2 Kings 11:14 and 1 Kings 7:21. In the latter passage it is used for the two great brazen pillars set up by Solomon before the porch of the Temple. In making the covenant the king takes the lead. The ceremony was accompanied by a sacrifice; hence the phrase in Heb. is to cut a covenant (Genesis 15:17 *, Jeremiah 34:18) or divide the victims. The newly discovered volume is called (2 Kings 23:2) the book of the covenant; cf. Exodus 24:7, where the book was sprinkled with sacrificial blood. In a covenant there was not necessarily an implication that there were two parties. The king made this before Yahweh. Skinner (Cent.B) says, The effect of the covenant was to give to the Deuteronomic Code the force of statute law.

Josiah's reformation (2 Kings 23:6-16) may be classified under the following heads:

A. 2 Kings 23:4; 2 Kings 23:6 f., 2 Kings 23:10-12. Reformation of the Temple. (i.) 2 Kings 23:4; 2 Kings 23:6. Hilkiah and the second priest (? for priests of the second order; cf. 2 Kings 25:18; Jeremiah 52:24) were ordered to bring all idolatrous objects and vessels out of the Temple, which were burned by the Kidron. (ii.) 2 Kings 23:7 : All the votaries of impure rites were ejected. (iii.) 2 Kings 23:10. The Moloch worship was abolished, and Tophet (Jeremiah 7:31 *) in the valley of the children of Hinnom (Gehinnom, Gehenna, Matthew 5:22) was defiled. (iv.) 2 Kings 23:11 f: The cult of the heavenly bodies (2 Kings 21:3 *) was put down by the destruction of the horses of the sun and the altars on the roofs.

B. 2 Kings 23:5; 2 Kings 23:8 f., 2 Kings 23:13 f. Reformation in Jerusalem and Judah. (i) 2 Kings 23:5. The idolatrous priests, Kemarim (Hosea 10:15; Zephaniah 1:4), were put down, together with their high places. (ii.) 2 Kings 23:8 f. The priests of the ordinary high places where Yahweh was worshipped were removed to Jerusalem and recognised as priests, for, though not allowed to sacrifice, they were permitted to eat the unleavened bread provided for priests. (iii.) 2 Kings 23:8; 2 Kings 23:13 f; The high places of the gates (or perhaps of satyrs or demons) and the idolatrous shrines erected by Solomon on the mount of offence, S. of the Mt. of Olives, were defiled by the king.

C. 2 Kings 23:15. Josiah's Destruction of the Altar of Bethel. This showed that the misfortunes predicted in the law book which had already befallen Israel were due to the sin of Jeroboam.

Related Commentaries of 2 Kings 23:1

2 Kings 23:1-15

1 And the king sent, and they gathered unto him all the elders of Judah and of Jerusalem.

2 And the king went up into the house of the LORD, and all the men of Judah and all the inhabitants of Jerusalem with him, and the priests, and the prophets, and all the people, both small and great: and he read in their ears all the words of the book of the covenant which was found in the house of the LORD.

3 And the king stood by a pillar, and made a covenant before the LORD, to walk after the LORD, and to keep his commandments and his testimonies and his statutes with all their heart and all their soul, to perform the words of this covenant that were written in this book. And all the people stood to the covenant.

4 And the king commanded Hilkiah the high priest, and the priests of the second order, and the keepers of the door, to bring forth out of the temple of the LORD all the vessels that were made for Baal, and for the grove, and for all the host of heaven: and he burned them without Jerusalem in the fields of Kidron, and carried the ashes of them unto Bethel.

5 And he put down the idolatrous priests, whom the kings of Judah had ordained to burn incense in the high places in the cities of Judah, and in the places round about Jerusalem; them also that burned incense unto Baal, to the sun, and to the moon, and to the planets, and to all the host of heaven.

6 And he brought out the grove from the house of the LORD, without Jerusalem, unto the brook Kidron, and burned it at the brook Kidron, and stamped it small to powder, and cast the powder thereof upon the graves of the children of the people.

7 And he brake down the houses of the sodomites, that were by the house of the LORD, where the women wove hangingsa for the grove.

8 And he brought all the priests out of the cities of Judah, and defiled the high places where the priests had burned incense, from Geba to Beersheba, and brake down the high places of the gates that were in the entering in of the gate of Joshua the governor of the city, which were on a man's left hand at the gate of the city.

9 Nevertheless the priests of the high places came not up to the altar of the LORD in Jerusalem, but they did eat of the unleavened bread among their brethren.

10 And he defiled Topheth, which is in the valley of the children of Hinnom, that no man might make his son or his daughter to pass through the fire to Molech.

11 And he took away the horses that the kings of Judah had given to the sun, at the entering in of the house of the LORD, by the chamber of Nathanmelech the chamberlain,b which was in the suburbs, and burned the chariots of the sun with fire.

12 And the altars that were on the top of the upper chamber of Ahaz, which the kings of Judah had made, and the altars which Manasseh had made in the two courts of the house of the LORD, did the king beat down, and brake them downc from thence, and cast the dust of them into the brook Kidron.

13 And the high places that were before Jerusalem, which were on the right hand of the mountd of corruption, which Solomon the king of Israel had builded for Ashtoreth the abomination of the Zidonians, and for Chemosh the abomination of the Moabites, and for Milcom the abomination of the children of Ammon, did the king defile.

14 And he brake in pieces the images,e and cut down the groves, and filled their places with the bones of men.

15 Moreover the altar that was at Bethel, and the high place which Jeroboam the son of Nebat, who made Israel to sin, had made, both that altar and the high place he brake down, and burned the high place, and stamped it small to powder, and burned the grove.