He smashed the sacred pillars and cut down the Asherah poles. Then he desecrated these places by scattering human bones over them.
Parallel translations
- WEB He broke in pieces the pillars, cut down the Asherah poles, and filled their places with men’s bones.
- KJV And he brake in pieces the images, and cut down the groves, and filled their places with the bones of men.
- 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.
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 you shall deal with them like this. You shall break down their altars, dash their pillars in pieces, and cut down their Asherah poles, and burn their engraved images with fire.
- Exod 23:24You shall not bow down to their gods, nor serve them, nor follow their practices, but you shall utterly overthrow them and demolish their pillars.
- 2 Kgs 23:16As Josiah turned himself, he spied the tombs that were there in the mountain; and he sent, and took the bones out of the tombs, and burned them on the altar, and defiled it, according to Yahweh’s word which the man of God proclaimed, who proclaimed these things.
- Num 33:52then you shall drive out all the inhabitants of the land from before you, destroy all their stone idols, destroy all their molten images, and demolish all their high places.
- Deut 7:25–26You shall burn the engraved images of their gods with fire. You shall not covet the silver or the gold that is on them, nor take it for yourself, lest you be snared in it; for it is an abomination to Yahweh your 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, the Asherah poles, the engraved images, and the molten images.
- Num 19:18A clean person shall take hyssop, dip it in the water, and sprinkle it on the tent, on all the vessels, on the persons who were there, and on him who touched the bone, or the slain, or the dead, or the grave.
- Matt 23:27–28“Woe to you, scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites! For you are like whitened tombs, which outwardly appear beautiful, but inwardly are full of dead men’s bones, and of all uncleanness.
- Num 19:16“Whoever in the open field touches one who is slain with a sword, or a dead body, or a bone of a man, or a grave, shall be unclean seven days.
- Ezek 39:12–16Seven months shall the house of Israel be burying them, that they may cleanse the land.
- Jer 8:1–2“At that time,” says Yahweh, “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 1:7All her idols will be beaten to pieces, and all her temple gifts will be burned with fire, and all her images I will destroy; for of the hire of a prostitute has she gathered them, and to the hire of a prostitute shall they return.”
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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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