Verse-by-Verse Bible Commentary

Adam Clarke Commentary

Filled their places with the bones of men - This was allowed to be the utmost defilement to which any thing could be exposed.

John Gill's Exposition of the Whole Bible

And he brake in pieces the images,.... Of Ashtoreth, Chemosh, and Milcom, in the above high places; which as these high places had been rebuilt by Manasseh or Amon, so new images of these deities were placed there:

and cut down the groves; in which they were set:

and filled their places with the bones of men; of idolatrous priests and worshippers, buried in parts adjacent; these he dug up and scattered in the high places and groves to defile them, bones of the dead being by law unclean, Numbers 19:15.

Commentary Critical and Explanatory on the Whole Bible

filled their places with the bones of men — Every monument of idolatry in his dominion he in like manner destroyed, and the places where they stood he defiled by strewing them with dead men‘s bones. The presence of a dead carcass rendered both persons and places unclean in the eyes both of Jews and heathens.

Wesley's Explanatory Notes

And he brake in pieces the images, and cut down the groves, and filled their places with the bones of men.

Men — Of the idolatrous priests, which he caused to be taken out of their graves, verse18. As he carried the ashes of the images to the graves, to mingle them with dead mens bones, so he carried dead mens bones to the places where the images had been, that both ways idolatry might be rendered loathsome. Dead men and dead gods were indeed much alike, and fittest to go together.

John Trapp Complete Commentary

2 Kings 23:14 And he brake in pieces the images, and cut down the groves, and filled their places with the bones of men.

Ver. 14. And he brake in pieces the images.] He made no spare of any of those idols and monuments of idolatry, though there wanted not some about him, doubtless, that could have wished it otherwise, and moved him to spare those goodly horses and chariots of the sun, &c. But he was resolved to make a hand with them all. We may give peace to buy truth, but we may not give truth to buy peace.

Matthew Poole's English Annotations on the Holy Bible

i.e. of the idolatrous priests, which he caused to be taken out of their graves, 2 Kings 21:18.

Whedon's Commentary on the Bible

14.Filled their places with the bones of men — Turned them into burial grounds, so as utterly to defile them, and prevent their ever being used again for idolatrous purposes.

Joseph Benson's Commentary of the Old and New Testaments

2 Kings 23:14. And filled their places — The places of the groves; with the bones of men — Of the idolatrous priests, which he caused to be taken out of their graves, 2 Kings 23:18. As he carried the ashes of the images to the graves, to mingle them with dead men’s bones, so he carried dead men’s bones to the places where the images had been, that both ways idolatry might be rendered loathsome. Dead men and dead gods were indeed much alike, and fittest to go together.

George Haydock's Catholic Bible Commentary

Statues is more proper than the Protestant "images," which would rather be torn. --- Dead is not expressed in the Hebrew or Septuagint, but must be understood. (Haydock) --- The pagans had the same idea of their impurity: incestat funere classem. (Virgil, Æneid vi.)

E.W. Bullinger's Companion Bible Notes

images = pillars, or statues.

men. Hebrew. "adam. Used collectively. App-14.

Commentary Critical and Explanatory on the Whole Bible - Unabridged

And he brake in pieces the images, and cut down the groves, and filled their places with the bones of men.

Filled their places with the bones of men. Every monument of idolatry in his dominions he in like manner destroyed, and the places where they stood he defiled by strewing them with dead men's bones. The presence of a dead carcass rendered both persons and places unclean in the eyes both of Jews and pagans.

Ellicott's Commentary for English Readers

(14) The images . . . the groves.—The pillars . . . the ashçrahs. These pillars and sacred trees may have been set up at the high places mentioned in the last verse; but the Hebrew construction does not prove this, for comp. 2 Kings 23:10. The reference is probably general.

Their places.—Their place or station; a technical term for the position of an idol (the Heb. mâqôm, equivalent to Sabæan maqâmum. and Arabic muqâm, which is still the common designation of holy sites in Palestine.

Treasury of Scripture Knowledge

he brake

Exodus 23:24; Numbers 33:52; Deuteronomy 7:5,25,26; 2 Chronicles 34:3,4; Micah 1:7

images

Heb. statues. the bones of men.

16; Numbers 19:16,18; Jeremiah 8:1,2; Ezekiel 39:12-16; Matthew 23:27,28