And he burnt the bones of the priests upon their altars, and cleansed Judah and Jerusalem.
Josiah had consecrated himself fully to God in the eighth year of his reign while still young, and at age twenty he made an earnest effort to purge prevailing idolatry from Judah and Jerusalem to remove temptation from his subjects. He broke down the altars of Baal, cut down the high images, broke in pieces the groves and the carved and molten images, made dust of them, and strewed it on the graves of those who had sacrificed to them. He then burned the bones of the idolatrous priests upon their own altars they had used for idolatry, thereby desecrating those sites and removing idolatrous worship as the completing act that cleansed Judah and Jerusalem.
The work was not left in Judah but was extended through the former land of the ten tribes, in the cities of Manasseh, Ephraim, and Simeon, even unto Naphtali, and throughout all the land of Israel, until all altars, groves, graven images, and idols were broken down and beaten to powder before he returned to Jerusalem. The reform sprang from the reading of the law leading to a deep work of repentance and return to the Lord, and it exemplifies the kind of response John expected his preaching to produce.
Josiah had consecrated himself fully to God in the eighth year of his reign while still young, and at age twenty he made an earnest effort to purge prevailing idolatry from Judah and Jerusalem to remove temptation from his subjects. He broke down the altars of Baal, cut down the high images, broke in pieces the groves and the carved and molten images, made dust of them, and strewed it on the graves of those who had sacrificed to them. He then burned the bones of the idolatrous priests upon their own altars they had used for idolatry, thereby desecrating those sites and removing idolatrous worship as the completing act that cleansed Judah and Jerusalem.
The work was not left in Judah but was extended through the former land of the ten tribes, in the cities of Manasseh, Ephraim, and Simeon, even unto Naphtali, and throughout all the land of Israel, until all altars, groves, graven images, and idols were broken down and beaten to powder before he returned to Jerusalem. The reform sprang from the reading of the law leading to a deep work of repentance and return to the Lord, and it exemplifies the kind of response John expected his preaching to produce.