And he brake in pieces the images, and cut down the groves, and filled their places with the bones of men.
Parallel translations
- WEB He broke in pieces the pillars, cut down the Asherah poles, and filled their places with men’s bones.
- BSB He smashed the sacred pillars to pieces, cut down the Asherah poles, and covered the sites with human bones.
- NKJV And he broke in pieces the sacred pillars and cut down the wooden images, and filled their places with the bones of men.
- NASB He also smashed to pieces the memorial stones and cut down the Asherim, and filled their places with human bones.
- NLT He smashed the sacred pillars and cut down the Asherah poles. Then he desecrated these places by scattering human bones over them.
Scripture taken from the New King James Version®. Copyright © 1982 by Thomas Nelson. Used by permission. All rights reserved.
Scripture quotations taken from the (NASB®) New American Standard Bible®, Copyright © 1960, 1971, 1977, 1995, 2020 by The Lockman Foundation. Used by permission. All rights reserved. lockman.org
Scripture quotations are taken from the Holy Bible, New Living Translation, copyright © 1996, 2004, 2015 by Tyndale House Foundation. Used by permission of Tyndale House Publishers, Carol Stream, Illinois 60188. All rights reserved.
Quick answer
Josiah breaks the sacred pillars, cuts down the Asherah poles, and fills their sites with human bones. He renders the idolatrous places permanently unclean.
Overview
By filling the shrine sites with bones, Josiah makes them ceremonially defiled and unusable for worship. His comprehensive destruction of pillars and poles fulfills the command to obliterate Canaanite worship objects (Deut. 7:5). This zeal for the exclusive worship of God prefigures the thoroughness with which Christ cleanses His people from every idol.
Cross-references & the web
Cross-references · 12
- Deut 7:5But thus shall ye deal with them; ye shall destroy their altars, and break down their images, and cut down their groves, and burn their graven images with fire.
- Exod 23:24Thou shalt not bow down to their gods, nor serve them, nor do after their works: but thou shalt utterly overthrow them, and quite break down their images.
- 2 Kgs 23:16And as Josiah turned himself, he spied the sepulchres that were there in the mount, and sent, and took the bones out of the sepulchres, and burned them upon the altar, and polluted it, according to the word of the LORD which the man of God proclaimed, who proclaimed these words.
- Num 33:52Then ye shall drive out all the inhabitants of the land from before you, and destroy all their pictures, and destroy all their molten images, and quite pluck down all their high places:
- Deut 7:25–26The graven images of their gods shall ye burn with fire: thou shalt not desire the silver or gold that is on them, nor take it unto thee, lest thou be snared therein: for it is an abomination to the LORD thy God.
- 2 Chr 34:3–4For in the eighth year of his reign, while he was yet young, he began to seek after the God of David his father: and in the twelfth year he began to purge Judah and Jerusalem from the high places, and the groves, and the carved images, and the molten images.
- Num 19:18And a clean person shall take hyssop, and dip it in the water, and sprinkle it upon the tent, and upon all the vessels, and upon the persons that were there, and upon him that touched a bone, or one slain, or one dead, or a grave:
- Matt 23:27–28Woe unto you, scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites! for ye are like unto whited sepulchres, which indeed appear beautiful outward, but are within full of dead men’s bones, and of all uncleanness.
- Num 19:16And whosoever toucheth one that is slain with a sword in the open fields, or a dead body, or a bone of a man, or a grave, shall be unclean seven days.
- Ezek 39:12–16And seven months shall the house of Israel be burying of them, that they may cleanse the land.
- Jer 8:1–2At that time, saith the LORD, they shall bring out the bones of the kings of Judah, and the bones of his princes, and the bones of the priests, and the bones of the prophets, and the bones of the inhabitants of Jerusalem, out of their graves:
- Mic 1:7And all the graven images thereof shall be beaten to pieces, and all the hires thereof shall be burned with the fire, and all the idols thereof will I lay desolate: for she gathered it of the hire of an harlot, and they shall return to the hire of an harlot.
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Christ at the center
Amid the long decline toward exile, the promise to David's house refuses to die; the flickering lamp kept burning anticipates the coming King who will not fail or be cut off.
How 2 Kings 23:14 points to him is part of the one story that runs through all Scripture — meet Jesus at the heart of the web, or follow a trail that traces him from Genesis to Revelation.
Original language
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