Bible Strands
2 Kings 23:19
Just as Josiah had done at Bethel, so also in the cities of Samaria he removed all the shrines of the high places set up by the kings of Israel who had provoked the LORD to anger.
Berean Standard Bible
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Study note
Setting — Josiah acts in the cities of Samaria during his nationwide religious reforms, positioned chronologically between his command to leave a prophet’s bones undisturbed and his subsequent slaughter of high-place priests.
The words — בָּמֹות (ba.Mot) translates literally to “high places,” denoting the elevated shrines, while שֹׁמְר֗וֹן (sho.me.Ron) specifies the northern region of Samaria where these structures were located.
The thread — This action extends the reform campaign documented in 2 Chronicles 34:6 across the northern tribal territories and directly addresses the idolatrous system Jeroboam established in 1 Kings 12:31, fulfilling the prophetic warning recorded in 1 Kings 13:32.
Why it lands — The text records a comprehensive dismantling of regional idolatry rather than a localized protest, demanding that readers track covenant faithfulness through systematic, geographically bounded action. It requires the reader to note how religious authority is exercised through the physical removal of established centers of apostasy.
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 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 Beth–el.
Cross-references
- 2 Chronicles 34:6 Josiah did the same in the cities of Manasseh, Ephraim, and Simeon, as far as Naphtali, and in the ruins around them.
- 1 Kings 12:31 Jeroboam also built shrines on the high places and appointed from every class of people priests who were not Levites.
- 1 Kings 13:32 for the message that he cried out by the word of the LORD against the altar in Bethel and against all the shrines on the high places in the cities of Samaria will surely come to pass.”
- 1 Kings 16:33 Then he set up an Asherah pole. Thus Ahab did more to provoke the LORD, the God of Israel, to anger than all the kings of Israel before him.
- 2 Kings 8:18 And Jehoram walked in the ways of the kings of Israel, just as the house of Ahab had done. For he married a daughter of Ahab and did evil in the sight of the LORD.
- 2 Kings 17:9 The Israelites secretly did things against the LORD their God that were not right. From watchtower to fortified city, they built high places in all their cities.
- 2 Kings 17:16 They abandoned all the commandments of the LORD their God and made for themselves two cast idols of calves and an Asherah pole. They bowed down to all the host of heaven and served Baal.
- 2 Kings 21:6 He sacrificed his own son in the fire, practiced sorcery and divination, and consulted mediums and spiritists. He did great evil in the sight of the LORD, provoking Him to anger.
- 2 Chronicles 30:6 At the command of the king, the couriers went throughout Israel and Judah with letters from the king and his officials, which read: “Children of Israel, return to the LORD, the God of Abraham, Isaac, and Israel, so that He may return to those of you who remain, who have escaped the grasp of the kings of Assyria.
- 2 Chronicles 31:1 When all this had ended, the Israelites in attendance went out to the cities of Judah and broke up the sacred pillars, chopped down the Asherah poles, and tore down the high places and altars throughout Judah and Benjamin, as well as in Ephraim and Manasseh, until they had utterly destroyed them all. Then all the Israelites returned to their cities, each to his own property.