2nd Kings Chapter 23 verse 19 Holy Bible

Pulpit Commentary

Pulpit CommentaryVerse 19. - And all the houses also of the high places that were in the cities of Samaria. The writer of Chronicles enters into more detail. Josiah, he says, carried out his destruction of the high places, the groves, and the images "in the cities of Manasseh, and Ephraim, and Simeon, even unto Naphtali" (2 Chronicles 34:6) - i.e. to the northern limit of the Holy Land, which was occupied by Naphtali and Asher. By what right Josiah exercised sovereign authority in the old kingdom of Samaria, which the Assyrians had conquered and attached to their empire, can only be conjectured. Some have supposed that the Assyrians had enlarged his sovereignty, and placed Samaria under his rule; others regard him as having transferred his allegiance to Nabopolassar, and having been made by him viceroy over Palestine. But it is, perhaps, most probable that he merely took advantage of the political commotions of the time to extend his dominion so far as it seemed safe to do so. Asshur-bani-pal, the last energetic King of Assyria, appears to have ceased to reign in Josiah's fourteenth year, when he was succeeded by a weak monarch, Asshur-ebil-ili. Great troubles now broke out. The Scythians ravaged Western Asia far and wide. Assyria was attacked by the Medea and Babylonians in combination. Under these circumstances, Josiah found himself practically independent, and began to entertain ambitious projects. He "extended his dominion from Jerusalem over Samaria" (Ewald). Assyria was too much occupied to take any notice. Baby-Ionia was in the thick of the struggle. Josiah found himself able to reunite under his own headship all the scattered portions of the old Israelite kingdom, except, perhaps, the trans-Jordanic district. He levied taxes in Samaria as freely as in Judaea (2 Chronicles 33:9). He reformed on the same model the religions of both countries. When finally he had to fight for his throne, he marched his army into the northern portion of Samaria, and there fought the battle which cost him his life. Which the kings of Israel had made to provoke the Lord to anger. The earlier kings of Israel had simply allowed the "high places" to continue, without actively increasing or multiplying them; but Manasseh had re-established them after their destruction by Hezekiah (2 Kings 21:3), and Amen had probably done the same after Manasseh's tardy reformation. Jonah took away, and did to them according to all the acts that he done in Bethel (see above, ver. 15).

Ellicott's Commentary

Ellicott's Commentary for English Readers(19) The houses also of the high places--i.e., temples or chapels attached to the high places.Josiah took away.--Comp. 2Chronicles 34:6, from which it appears that the king's zeal carried him as far as Naphtali. The question has been asked, how it was that Josiah was able to proceed thus beyond the limits of his own territory. It is possible that, as a vassal of Assyria, he enjoyed a certain amount of authority over the old domains of the ten tribes. We have no record of either fact, but his opposition to Necho favours the idea that he recognised the Assyrian sovereign as his suzerain. Moreover, it is in itself likely that the remnant of Israel would be drawn towards Judah and its king as the surviving representatives of the past glories of their race, and would sympathise in his reformation, just as the Samaritans, in the times of the return, were eager to participate in the rebuilding of the Temple. (Comp. 2Chronicles 34:9.) Another supposition is that, as the fall of the Assyrian empire was imminent, no notice was taken of Josiah's proceedings in the west.