2 Chronicles 34:3
When he had been ruling for almost eight years, while he was still a young man, he began to worship God like his ancestor King David had done. Four years later, he began to get rid of all the pagan shrines on hilltops in Jerusalem and in other places in Judah, and the poles to honor the goddess Asherah, and the carved idols and statues of gods.
Translation for Translators
In The King James Version
In Context
Cross References
1 Kings 13:2Saying what Yahweh told him to say, the prophet shouted, “This is what Yahweh says about this altar [APO]: ‘I want you to know that some day a descendant [MTY] of King David will be born. His name will be Josiah, and he will come here. He will slaughter at this altar the priests who are burning incense for sacrifices on the hills in this area, and he will burn the bones of dead people on this altar.’” [APO]
2 Kings 18:4He destroyed the places where people worshiped Yahweh on the tops of hills, and he broke into pieces the stone pillars for worshiping the goddess Asherah. He also broke into pieces the bronze replica/statue of a snake that Moses had made. He did that because the people had named it Nehushtan, and they were burning incense in front of it to honor it.
2 Kings 23:4Then the king commanded Hilkiah the Supreme Priest and all the other priests who assisted him and the men who guarded the entrance to the temple to bring out from the temple all the items that people had been using to worship Baal, the goddess Asherah, and the stars. After they carried them out, they burned all those things outside the city near the Kidron Valley. Then they took all the ashes to Bethel, because that city was already considered to be desecrated/unholy.
1 Chronicles 22:5David provided all those things because he thought, “My son Solomon is still young and he does not know what he needs to know about building, and the temple of Yahweh must be ◄magnificent/very beautiful►. It must be a glorious building that will become famous, and people throughout the world must consider it to be glorious/splendid. So now I will begin to prepare for it to be built, and Solomon will be responsible for building it.” So David collected a great amount of building materials before he died.
1 Chronicles 29:1Then King David said to all the people who had gathered there, “My son Solomon, the one whom God has chosen to be the next king, is young and does not have much experience. This work of building the temple is great/important, because this glorious building will not be to honor people, but to honor Yahweh our God.
2 Chronicles 15:2Azariah went to talk with Asa, and said to him, “Asa and all you men of the tribes of Judah and Benjamin, listen to me. Yahweh is with you whenever you are trusting in him. If you request him to help you, he will help you, but if you abandon him, he will abandon you.
Matthew Henry on 2 Chronicles 34:2-8
The Reign of Josiah. ( b. c. 623.) 1 Josiah was eight years old when he began to reign, and he reigned in Jerusalem one and thirty years. 2 And he did that which was right in the sight of the Lord , and walked in the ways of David his father, and declined neither to the right hand, nor to the left. 3 For 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… Read the whole commentary →