2 Chronicles 34:7

7 Throughout the territory of the Northern Kingdom he smashed the altars and the symbols of Asherah, ground the idols to dust, and broke into bits all the incense altars. Then he returned to Jerusalem.

2 Chronicles 34:7 Meaning and Commentary

2 Chronicles 34:7

And when he had broken down the altars and the groves
The statues or images in them:

and had beaten the graven images into powder;
and strewed it on the graves of the idolaters:

and cut down all the idols throughout all the land of Israel;
the sun images as in ( 2 Chronicles 34:4 ) ,

he returned to Jerusalem;
this tour of his throughout the whole land, and the things done by him, which are represented as done before the repairs of the temple were made, and the book of the law found and read, and the covenant he and his people made with the Lord, are spoken of in ( 2 Kings 23:4-20 ) , as if done after.

2 Chronicles 34:7 In-Context

5 He burned the bones of the pagan priests on the altars where they had worshiped. By doing all this, he made Judah and Jerusalem ritually clean again.

6 He did the same thing in the cities and the devastated areas of Manasseh, Ephraim, and Simeon, and as far north as Naphtali.

7 Throughout the territory of the Northern Kingdom he smashed the altars and the symbols of Asherah, ground the idols to dust, and broke into bits all the incense altars. Then he returned to Jerusalem.

8 In the eighteenth year of his reign, after he had purified the land and the Temple by ending pagan worship, King Josiah sent three men to repair the Temple of the Lord God: Shaphan son of Azaliah, Maaseiah, the governor of Jerusalem, and Joah son of Joahaz, a high official.

9 The money that the Levite guards had collected in the Temple was turned over to Hilkiah the High Priest. (It had been collected from the people of Ephraim and Manasseh and the rest of the Northern Kingdom, and from the people of Judah, Benjamin, and Jerusalem.)