2 Kings 23:26 - Matthew Poole's English Annotations on the Holy Bible

The Lord turned not from the fierceness of his great, wrath; because though the king was most hearty in his repentance, and acceptable to God, as we said before, and therefore the judgment was delayed for his time; yet the people were generally corrupt, and secretly averse from Josiah's pious and excellent reformation, and inclined to their old lusts and idols; as appears from the complaints of the prophets, especially Jeremiah and Zephaniah, against them; and by the following history, wherein we see that as soon as ever Josiah was gone, his children, and the princes, and the people suddenly and greedily returned to their former abominations. Because of all the provocations that Manasseh had provoked him withal: the sins of Manasseh, and of the men of his generation, who complied and concurred with him in his idolatrous and cruel practices, 2 Kings 24:3,4, are justly punished in this generation; partly, because of God's sovereign right of punishing sinners (such as these unquestionably were) when and upon what occasion he sees fit; partly, because of that public warning and declaration of God, that he would visit the iniquity of the fathers upon the children; and principally, because these men had never sincerely repented of their own nor of their fathers sins, but their hearts still hankered after them; which, though not yet seen by men, was manifest to God, who therefore pronounced this terrible sentence against them.