And he brought out the Asherah from the house of the LORD, outside Jerusalem, to the brook Kidron, and burned it at the brook Kidron and beat it to dust and cast the dust of it upon the graves of the common people.
We have here an account of such a reformation as we have not met with in all the history of the kings of Judah, such thorough riddance made of all the abominable things and such foundations laid of a glorious good work; and here I cannot but wonder at two things: - 1.
Commenting on 2 Kings 23:4-24
And he brake down the houses of the Sodomites that were by the house of the Lord,.... Near the temple were apartments, in which men, the worshippers of idols, prostituted their bodies to each other; committing that unnatural sin with one another, which has its name from Sodom, and from which those are so called, and which sin they committed in honour of the idols...
HE DESTROYS IDOLATRY. (2Ki. 23:4-28) the king commanded Hilkiah, &c.--that is, the high priest and other priests, for there was not a variety of official gradations in the temple. all the vessels, &c.--the whole apparatus of idol-worship. burned them without Jerusalem--The law required them to be consigned to the flames (Deu 7:25).
Commenting on 2 Kings 23:4-28