Bible Strands
2 Chronicles 34:5
Then he burned the bones of the priests on their altars. So he cleansed Judah and Jerusalem.
Berean Standard Bible
Follow its threads on the canvas →
Study note
Setting — Josiah acts during his religious reform campaign, immediately after destroying Baal altars in Jerusalem and before extending the purge to the northern territories.
The words — שָׂרַף (sa.Raf) translates literally as “he burned,” and וַ/יְטַהֵ֥ר (va/y.ta.Her) means “and he cleansed,” structuring the verse around physical destruction followed by ritual purification.
The thread — The event fulfills the prophetic warning in 1 Kings 13:2 and parallels the bone-removal account in 2 Kings 23:16, where defiling altars through contact with human remains is the mechanism of purification.
Why it lands — The passage requires the reader to see that covenant obedience demands the concrete removal of idolatrous contamination from both worship sites and the land.
Drafted by a language model from the text, its original words and its cross-references, then checked against them. It can still be wrong: open the verse in the app to report it.
The Hebrew words
King James Version
And he burnt the bones of the priests upon their altars, and cleansed Judah and Jerusalem.
Cross-references
- 1 Kings 13:2 And he cried out against the altar by the word of the LORD, “O altar, O altar, this is what the LORD says: ‘A son named Josiah will be born to the house of David, and upon you he will sacrifice the priests of the high places who burn incense upon you, and human bones will be burned upon you.’”
- Numbers 35:33 Do not pollute the land where you live, for bloodshed pollutes the land, and no atonement can be made for the land on which the blood is shed, except by the blood of the one who shed it.
- 2 Kings 23:16 And as Josiah turned, he saw the tombs there on the hillside, and he sent someone to take the bones out of the tombs, and he burned them on the altar to defile it, according to the word of the LORD proclaimed by the man of God who had foretold these things.
- 2 Kings 23:20 On the altars he slaughtered all the priests of the high places, and he burned human bones on them. Then he returned to Jerusalem.
- 2 Chronicles 34:7 He tore down the altars and Asherah poles, crushed the idols to powder, and cut to pieces all the incense altars throughout the land of Israel. Then he returned to Jerusalem.
- Jeremiah 3:10 Yet in spite of all this, her unfaithful sister Judah did not return to Me with all her heart, but only in pretense,” declares the LORD.
- Jeremiah 4:14 Wash the evil from your heart, O Jerusalem, so that you may be saved. How long will you harbor wicked thoughts within you?
- Jeremiah 8:1 “At that time,” declares the LORD, “the bones of the kings of Judah, the bones of the officials, the bones of the priests, the bones of the prophets, and the bones of the people of Jerusalem will be removed from their graves.
- Ezekiel 22:24 “Son of man, say to her, ‘In the day of indignation, you are a land that has not been cleansed, upon which no rain has fallen.’