2 Chronicles 34:4

4 And they broke down before him the altars of Baalim, and demolished the idols that had been set upon them: and he cut down the groves and the graven things, and broke them in pieces: and strewed the fragments upon the graves of them that had sacrificed to them.

2 Chronicles 34:4 Meaning and Commentary

2 Chronicles 34:4

And they broke down the altars of Baalim in his presence
He not only ordered them to be broke down, but he went in person, and saw it done; these were the altars Manasseh had reared up to the idols; and though upon his humiliation he cast them out, they were rebuilt by Amon his son, see ( 2 Chronicles 33:3 2 Chronicles 33:15 2 Chronicles 33:22 ) ,

and the images that were above them he cut down;
sun images, as the word signifies; these Chamanim might be representatives of Cham or Ham, the son of Noah, the same with Jupiter Ammon; and there was another Heathen deity, Amanus, Strabo ^F23 speaks of, supposed to be the sun, (See Gill on Leviticus 26:30), these, as Jarchi says, were in the form of the sun, and were set above the altars, over against the sun, to whom worship was paid; though some think this respects not place, but time, and that these were images in times past; in the preceding age, as the Tigurine version:

and the groves, and the carved images and the molten images, he brake
in pieces;
ordered them to be broken; the groves were statues, or images in groves, and thereby distinguished from those made of wood, and were carved, and from those that were of molten metal, and were placed elsewhere:

and made dust of them, and strewed it upon the graves of them that
had sacrificed unto them,
see ( 2 Kings 23:6 ) .

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FOOTNOTES:

F23 Geograph l. 11. p. 352.

2 Chronicles 34:4 In-Context

2 And he did that which was right in the sight of the Lord, and walked in the ways of David his father: he declined not, neither to the right hand, nor to the left.

3 And in the eighth year of his reign, when he was yet a boy, he began to seek the God of his father David: and in the twelfth year after he began to reign, he cleansed Juda and Jerusalem from the high places, and the groves, and the idols, and the graven things.

4 And they broke down before him the altars of Baalim, and demolished the idols that had been set upon them: and he cut down the groves and the graven things, and broke them in pieces: and strewed the fragments upon the graves of them that had sacrificed to them.

5 And he burnt the bones of the priests on the altars of the idols, and he cleansed Juda and Jerusalem.

6 And in the cities of Manasses, and of Ephraim, and of Simeon, even to Nephtali he demolished all.