2 Chronicles 34:4

4 They tore down the altars of the Baals in his presence, and ¹the incense altars that were high above them he chopped down; also the Asherim, the carved images and the molten images he broke in pieces and ²ground to powder and scattered it on the graves of those who 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 He did right in the sight of the LORD , and walked in the ways of his father David and did not turn aside to the right or to the left.

3 For in the eighth year of his reign while he was still a youth, he began to seek the God of his father David; and in the twelfth year he began to purge Judah and Jerusalem of the high places, the Asherim, the carved images and the molten images.

4 They tore down the altars of the Baals in his presence, and the incense altars that were high above them he chopped down; also the Asherim, the carved images and the molten images he broke in pieces and ground to powder and scattered it on the graves of those who had sacrificed to them.

5 Then he burned the bones of the priests on their altars and purged Judah and Jerusalem.

6 In the cities of Manasseh, Ephraim, Simeon, even as far as Naphtali, in their surrounding ruins,

Cross References

• 1. 2 Kin 23:4, 5, 11
• 2. Exodus 32:20