2 Kings 23:8

8 He swept the outlying towns of Judah clean of priests and smashed the sex-and-religion shrines where they worked their trade from one end of the country to the other - all the way from Geba to Beersheba. He smashed the sex-and-religion shrine that had been set up just to the left of the city gate for the private use of Joshua, the city mayor.

2 Kings 23:8 Meaning and Commentary

2 Kings 23:8

And he brought all the priests out of the cities of Judah
Who were of the sons of Aaron, and had served in the high places there:

and defiled the high places where the priests had burnt incense;
by casting dead carcasses, or the bones of dead men, or dung, or anything that was unclean, into them, by way of contempt:

from Geba to Beersheba;
which were the northern and southern boundaries of the land of Judah:

and brake down the high places of the gates:
of the cities where some think tutelar gods were placed to be worshipped by persons as they went in or out of them: and particularly that

which were in the entering in of the gate of Joshua the governor of the
city, which were on a man's left hand at the gate of the city;
of the city of Jerusalem, where this Joshua was chief magistrate under the king; at whose door stood an high place, which, Kimchi thinks, might he greater than the rest, and therefore mentioned alone, yet was not spared on account of its greatness, or of the person to whom it belonged.

2 Kings 23:8 In-Context

6 He took the obscene phallic Asherah pole from The Temple of God to the Valley of Kidron outside Jerusalem, burned it up, then ground up the ashes and scattered them in the cemetery.

7 He tore out the rooms of the male sacred prostitutes that had been set up in The Temple of God; women also used these rooms for weavings for Asherah.

8 He swept the outlying towns of Judah clean of priests and smashed the sex-and-religion shrines where they worked their trade from one end of the country to the other - all the way from Geba to Beersheba. He smashed the sex-and-religion shrine that had been set up just to the left of the city gate for the private use of Joshua, the city mayor.

9 Even though these sex-and-religion priests did not defile the Altar in The Temple itself, they were part of the general priestly corruption and had to go.

10 Then Josiah demolished the Topheth, the iron furnace griddle set up in the Valley of Ben Hinnom for sacrificing children in the fire. No longer could anyone burn son or daughter to the god Molech.