2 Kings 23:17

17 Then he said, What title is this that I see? And the men of the city told him, It is the sepulchre of the man of God, who came from Judah and proclaimed these things that thou hast done against the altar of Bethel.

2 Kings 23:17 Meaning and Commentary

2 Kings 23:17

Then he said, what title is that that I see?
&c.] A high and large monument over a grave, with an inscription on it, more remarkable than any of the rest, which made Josiah take notice of it; and the Jews have a tradition, as Kimchi observes, that on one side of the grave grew nettles and thistles, and on the other side odoriferous herbs; which is not to be depended on; but what he further observes may be right, that the old prophet, as he gave orders to his sons to lay his body in the same grave with the man of God, believing his words would be fulfilled, so he likewise gave orders to have a distinguished monument or pillar erected over the grave; and which people in later times took care to support, in memory of the man of God, that thereby it might be known; by which means not only the bones of the man of God were preserved from being burnt, but those of the old prophet also, buried with him:

and the men of the city told him, it is the sepulchre of the man of
God, which came from Judah, and proclaimed these things that thou
hast done against the altar of Bethel;
see ( 1 Kings 13:1-3 ) .

2 Kings 23:17 In-Context

15 Likewise, the altar that was at Bethel and the high place which Jeroboam, the son of Nebat, who caused Israel to sin, had made: both that altar and the high place he broke down and burned the high place and stamped it small to powder and burned the grove.

16 And as Josiah turned himself, he spied the sepulchres that were there in the mount and sent and took the bones out of the sepulchres and burned them upon the altar and polluted it, according to the word of the LORD which the man of God proclaimed, who had proclaimed these words.

17 Then he said, What title is this that I see? And the men of the city told him, It is the sepulchre of the man of God, who came from Judah and proclaimed these things that thou hast done against the altar of Bethel.

18 And he said, Let him alone; let no one move his bones. So his bones were saved along with the bones of the prophet that had come out of Samaria.

19 And all the houses also of the high places that were in the cities of Samaria, which the kings of Israel had made to provoke the LORD to anger, Josiah took away and did to them according to all the acts that he had done in Bethel.