2 Kings 23:4

Then 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.

Translation for Translators

In The King James Version

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.

In Context

3Then the king stood next to the pillar where the kings stood when they made important announcements, and while Yahweh was listening, he repeated his promise to sincerely obey [DOU] all of Yahweh’s commands and regulations [DOU]. He also promised to ◄fulfill the conditions of/do what was written in► the agreement he made with Yahweh. And all the people also promised to obey the agreement.

5There were many pagan priests that the previous kings of Judah had appointed to burn incense on the altars on the tops of hills in Judah. They had been offering sacrifices to Baal, to the sun, the moon, the planets, and the stars. The king stopped them from doing those things.

Read all of 2 Kings 23

Cross References

1 Kings 12:29He told his workers to place one of the statues in Bethel city in the south and one in Dan city in the north.

1 Kings 16:31He committed the same kind of sins that Jeroboam did, but he did things that were worse than the things that Jeroboam did. He married a woman named Jezebel, the daughter of Ethbaal, the king of Sidon city. Then Ahab started to worship Baal, the god that the Canaan people-group worshiped.

1 Kings 18:26So they killed one of the bulls and cut it up and placed the pieces on the altar. Then they called out to Baal all morning. They shouted, “Baal, answer us!” But no one answered. There was no reply at all [DOU]. Then they danced wildly around the altar that they had made.

1 Kings 19:18But you need to know that there are still 7,000 people in Israel who have never bowed to worship Baal or kissed his idol.”

2 Kings 12:10Whenever they saw that there was a lot of money in the chest, the king’s secretary and the Supreme Priest would come and count the money. Then they would put it in bags and tie the bags shut.

Matthew Henry on 2 Kings 23:2-4

Josiah Destroys Idolatry. ( b. c. 623.) 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… Read the whole commentary →

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Study 2 Kings 23:4