2 Kings 23:14

14 He also broke into pieces the stone pillars and cut down the Asherah poles and covered their sites [with] human bones.

2 Kings 23:14 Meaning and Commentary

2 Kings 23:14

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 ) .

2 Kings 23:14 In-Context

12 The altars which [were] on the roof of the upper room of Ahaz, which the kings of Judah had made, and the altars which Manasseh had made in the two courtyards of the temple of Yahweh, the king tore down and ran from there and threw their ashes into the Wadi Kidron.

13 The high places which [were] east of Jerusalem, which [were] on the south of the Mountain of Destruction which Solomon king of Israel had built for Ashtoreth the abomination of the Sidonians and for Chemosh the abomination of Moab and for Molech the detestable thing of the {Ammonites}, the king defiled.

14 He also broke into pieces the stone pillars and cut down the Asherah poles and covered their sites [with] human bones.

15 Moreover, the altar which [was] in Bethel, the high place which Jeroboam the son of Nebat, who had caused Israel to sin, had built, even that altar and the high place, [Josiah] tore down. Then he burned down the high place and crushed [the] pole of Asherah worship to dust and burned it with fire.

16 When Josiah turned and saw the tombs which [were] there on the hill, he sent and took the bones from the tombs and burned [them] on the altar. [Thus] he defiled them according to the word of Yahweh that the man of God had proclaimed who had proclaimed these things.