2 Kings 23:14
◄  2 Kings 23:14  ►
New International Version (©2011)
Josiah smashed the sacred stones and cut down the Asherah poles and covered the sites with human bones.

New Living Translation (©2007)
He smashed the sacred pillars and cut down the Asherah poles. Then he desecrated these places by scattering human bones over them.

English Standard Version (©2001)
And he broke in pieces the pillars and cut down the Asherim and filled their places with the bones of men.

New American Standard Bible (©1995)
He broke in pieces the sacred pillars and cut down the Asherim and filled their places with human bones.

King James Bible (Cambridge Ed.)
And he brake in pieces the images, and cut down the groves, and filled their places with the bones of men.

Holman Christian Standard Bible (©2009)
He broke the sacred pillars into pieces, cut down the Asherah poles, then filled their places with human bones.

International Standard Version (©2012)
He broke the pillars to pieces, cut down the Asherim, and filled their locations with human bones.

NET Bible (©2006)
He smashed the sacred pillars to bits, cut down the Asherah pole, and filled those shrines with human bones.

GOD'S WORD® Translation (©1995)
Josiah crushed the sacred stones, cut down the poles dedicated to Asherah, and filled their places with human bones.

King James 2000 Bible (©2003)
And he broke in pieces the images, and cut down the idol poles, and filled their places with the bones of men.

American King James Version
And he broke in pieces the images, and cut down the groves, and filled their places with the bones of men.

American Standard Version
And he brake in pieces the pillars, and cut down the Asherim, and filled their places with the bones of men.

Douay-Rheims Bible
And he broke in pieces the statues, and cut down the groves: and he filled their places with the bones of dead men.

Darby Bible Translation
And he broke in pieces the columns, and cut down the Asherahs, and filled their place with the bones of men.

English Revised Version
And he brake in pieces the pillars, and cut down the Asherim, and filled their places with the bones of men.

Webster's Bible Translation
And he broke in pieces the images, and cut down the groves, and filled their places with the bones of men.

World English Bible
He broke in pieces the pillars, and cut down the Asherim, and filled their places with the bones of men.

Young's Literal Translation
And he hath broken in pieces the standing-pillars, and cutteth down the shrines, and filleth their place with bones of men;

Matthew Henry's Concise Commentary

23:4-14 What abundance of wickedness in Judah and Jerusalem! One would not have believed it possible, that in Judah, where God was known, in Israel, where his name was great, in Salem, in Zion, where his dwelling-place was, such abominations should be found. Josiah had reigned eighteen years, and had himself set the people a good example, and kept up religion according to the Divine law; yet, when he came to search for idolatry, the depth and extent were very great. Both common history, and the records of God's word, teach, that all the real godliness or goodness ever found on earth, is derived from the new-creating Spirit of Jesus Christ.

Pulpit Commentary

Verse 14. - And he brake in pieces the images - or, pillars (see the comment on 1 Kings 14:23) - and out down the groves - i.e. the asherirn, or "sacred trees" - and filled their places with the bones of men. Whatever spoke of death and dissolution was a special defilement to shrines where the gods worshipped were deities of productivity and generation. Bones of men had also the actual taint of corruption about them. The "uncleanness" of dead bodies arose first out of man's natural shrinking from death, and was then further confirmed by the horrors accompanying decay. The notion was probably coeval with death itself. It received a sanction from the Law, which made it a legal defilement to touch a corpse (Numbers 19:11, 16), and placed under a sentence of uncleanness all that was in the tent where a man died (Numbers 19:14, 15).

Gill's Exposition of the Entire Bible

And he brake in pieces the images,.... Of Ashtoreth, Chemosh, and Milcom, in the above high places; which as these high places had been rebuilt by Manasseh or Amon, so new images of these deities were placed there:

and cut down the groves; in which they were set:

and filled their places with the bones of men; of idolatrous priests and worshippers, buried in parts adjacent; these he dug up and scattered in the high places and groves to defile them, bones of the dead being by law unclean, Numbers 19:15.

Jamieson-Fausset-Brown Bible Commentary

14. filled their places with the bones of men—Every monument of idolatry in his dominion he in like manner destroyed, and the places where they stood he defiled by strewing them with dead men's bones. The presence of a dead carcass rendered both persons and places unclean in the eyes both of Jews and heathens.

2 Kings 23:14 Parallel Commentaries

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Josiah Destroys Idolatry
…13And the high places that were before Jerusalem, which were on the right hand of the mount of corruption, which Solomon the king of Israel had built for Ashtoreth the abomination of the Zidonians, and for Chemosh the abomination of the Moabites, and for Milcom the abomination of the children of Ammon, did the king defile. 14And he broke in pieces the images, and cut down the groves, and filled their places with the bones of men. 15Moreover the altar that was at Bethel, and the high place which Jeroboam the son of Nebat, who made Israel to sin, had made, both that altar and the high place he broke down, and burned the high place, and stamped it small to powder, and burned the grove. …

Exodus 34:13 Break down their altars, smash their sacred stones and cut down their Asherah poles.
Deuteronomy 7:5 This is what you are to do to them: Break down their altars, smash their sacred stones, cut down their Asherah poles and burn their idols in the fire.
Deuteronomy 7:25 The images of their gods you are to burn in the fire. Do not covet the silver and gold on them, and do not take it for yourselves, or you will be ensnared by it, for it is detestable to the LORD your God.
2 Kings 23:16 Then Josiah looked around, and when he saw the tombs that were there on the hillside, he had the bones removed from them and burned on the altar to defile it, in accordance with the word of the LORD proclaimed by the man of God who foretold these things.
Isaiah 44:19 No one stops to think, no one has the knowledge or understanding to say, "Half of it I used for fuel; I even baked bread over its coals, I roasted meat and I ate. Shall I make a detestable thing from what is left? Shall I bow down to a block of wood?"
Ezekiel 6:5 I will lay the dead bodies of the Israelites in front of their idols, and I will scatter your bones around your altars.