48443 matching verse commentaries
John Gill - Exposition - John Gill
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,...
John Gill - Exposition - John Gill
Moreover, the altar that was at Bethel, and the high place which Jeroboam the son of Nebat, who made Israel to sin, had made. For the worship of the calf there: both that altar, and the high place, he brake down; according to an ancient prophecy of the man of God, 1 Kings 13:3 and of Amos in later times, Amos 9:1 and burnt the high place, and...
John Gill - Exposition - John Gill
And as Josiah turned himself,.... From the high place, and the altar at Bethel; for he not only gave orders for the destroying of idolatrous places and idols, but he saw them executed himself: he spied the sepulchres that were there in the mount; the graves of idolatrous priests and worshippers, who chose to be buried near those places of...
John Gill - Exposition - John Gill
Then he said, what title is that that I see?.... A high and large monument over a grave, with an inscription on it, more remarkable than any of the rest, which made Josiah take notice of it; and the Jews have a tradition, as Kimchi observes, that on one side of the grave grew nettles and thistles, and on the other side odoriferous herbs; which is...
John Gill - Exposition - John Gill
And he said, let him alone, let no man move his bones,.... Not take them out of the grave, as they had done the rest: so they let his bones alone, with the bones of the prophet that came out of Samaria; the old prophet, whereby his end was answered in being buried with him, 1 Kings 13:31.
John Gill - Exposition - John Gill
And all the houses also of the high places,.... The temples of the idols there, and the houses for the priests to dwell in: that were in the cities of Samaria, which the kings of Israel had made to provoke the Lord to anger, Josiah took away; particularly in the cities of Manasseh, Ephraim, and Simeon, unto Naphtali, 2 Chronicles 34:6 the...
John Gill - Exposition - John Gill
And he slew all the priests of the high places that were there,.... The idolatrous priests who sacrificed to Baal, and other Heathen deities; for as for others that burnt incense in high places, yet to the true God, those he spared, though they were not suffered to officiate at the altar of God: the others he slew upon the altars; where they...
John Gill - Exposition - John Gill
And the king commanded all the people,.... Not at Jerusalem only, but throughout the whole kingdom: saying, keep the passover unto the Lord your God, as it is written in this book of the covenant; which had been lately found and read, and they had agreed to observe, and in which this ordinance was strictly enjoined, and was a commemoration of...
John Gill - Exposition - John Gill
Surely there was not holden such a passover from the days of the judges that judged Israel,.... As the king commanded; the people obeyed and kept the passover, according to the law of the Lord; the manner of its being kept is not here recorded, but is at large in 2 Chronicles 35:1 where it is observed there had not been such an one from the days...
John Gill - Exposition - John Gill
But in the eighteenth year of king Josiah, wherein this passover was holden to the Lord in Jerusalem. This shows that Josiah must begin the reformation very early that year, since he did all that is before recorded in this and the preceding chapter by the fourteenth of Nisan, the day on which the passover was kept, which month answers to part of...
John Gill - Exposition - John Gill
Moreover, the workers with familiar spirits, and the wizards,.... Who were not to be allowed among the Israelites, Deuteronomy 18:10 and the images; or teraphim: and the idols, and all the abominations; which were worshipped by the Heathens, and introduced among the Jews, and forbidden by the word of God: that were spied in the land of Judah, and...
John Gill - Exposition - John Gill
And like unto him was there no king before him,.... The same is said of Hezekiah, 2 Kings 18:5, Hezekiah might excel him in some things, as Josiah might excel Hezekiah in others: that turned to the Lord with all his heart, and with all his soul, and with all his might; with such sincerity, heartiness, zeal, and constancy: according to all the law...
John Gill - Exposition - John Gill
Notwithstanding, the Lord turned not from the fierceness of his great wrath, wherewith his anger was kindled against Judah,.... Notwithstanding the great reformation wrought among them; for though Josiah was a sincere reformer, and did what he did heartily, as to the Lord, according to his will, and for his glory; yet the people were not sincere...
John Gill - Exposition - John Gill
And the Lord said, I will remove Judah also out of my sight, as I have removed Israel. Not from his all seeing eye, but from being the object of his special care and protection; the meaning is, that he would suffer them to he carried out of their land into captivity as Israel was; this he had said in his heart, was determined upon; the decree was...
John Gill - Exposition - John Gill
Now the rest of the acts of Josiah, and all that he did,.... For abolishing idolatry, and restoring the true worship of God: are they not written in the book of the chronicles of the kings of Judah? and also of Israel, in which an account was kept of the transactions of their reign; many other of the acts of Josiah are recorded in the canonical...
John Gill - Exposition - John Gill
In his days Pharaohnechoh king of Egypt,.... Who is called in the Targum Pharaoh the lame, because he was lame in his feet, perhaps gouty; Herodotus (x) also calls him Necos the son of Psammiticus; now it was in the last days of Josiah this king reigned in Egypt, or however that the following event was: [that] he went up against the king of...
John Gill - Exposition - John Gill
And his servants carried him in a chariot dead from Megiddo,.... They took him out of the chariot in which he was wounded, and put him into another, where he died of his wounds by the way; being mortally wounded, he is said to be dead, or a dead man, see 2 Chronicles 35:24 and brought him to Jerusalem; which, according to Bunting (b), was forty...
John Gill - Exposition - John Gill
Jehoahaz was twenty three years old when he began to reign,.... Who seems to be the same with Shallum, Jeremiah 22:11 and he reigned three months in Jerusalem; a short reign, being deposed by the king of Egypt, as after related: and his mother's name was Hamutal, the daughter of Jeremiah of Libnah; a city in the tribe of Judah, Joshua 10:29.
John Gill - Exposition - John Gill
And he did that which was evil in the sight of the Lord,.... Committed idolatry: according to all that his fathers had done; his grand father and great grandfather, Amon and Manasseh; so soon after Josiah's death was the revolt to idolatry.
John Gill - Exposition - John Gill
And Pharaohnechoh put him in bands at Riblah in the land of Hamath,.... Places in Syria; Hamath was formerly a kingdom in Syria, and Riblah is said by Jerom (c) to be Antioch of Syria, near to which was the fountain of Daphne; and in the Targums of Jonathan and Jerusalem on Numbers 34:11. Daphne is put for Riblah; and Josephus (d) says Antioch was...